Dartmouth, England, United Kingdom

Skerries Bank

The Skerries Bank is a long sand bank in Start Bay, off Dartmouth in south Devon, that rises to within 6 to 10 metres of the surface from a surrounding seabed at 15 to 20 metres. The bank is well known to British divers as a reliable site for spotting cuttlefish during their late spring and early summer breeding aggregation, when dozens of common cuttlefish gather on the sand and weed margins to court, mate and lay eggs. The same ground also produces sightings of small-spotted catshark, thornback ray, undulate ray and red gurnard, with razor clams, hermit crabs and scallops on the sand and dense beds of eelgrass on the shallower edges. Visibility ranges from 4 to 10 metres in summer and water temperatures vary between 9 and 17 degrees Celsius across the year. Currents are moderate and dives are timed loosely around slack water from charter boats out of Dartmouth and Brixham. The Skerries is suitable for AOWD-level divers in drysuits and is one of the iconic UK macro and species-watching sites in spring.