We stayed at Caherdaniel courtesy of Skellig Aquatics (Peter and Ena Sweeney) who supplied the dive boat, local knowledge and accommodation. Beds were bunks dormitory style which most people adapted to. However, with only two rooms this can make for an awkward separation of people, especially couples. Snoring problems occured. We supplied our own board so as to cut the costs down. We were lucky to have a non diving member of our party - Pam - who did most of the cooking and shopping for us. Although Irish food is a tad more expensive than in the UK, it cost us about £20 each for a week's food (and some wine). Shopping was done in supermarkets at some distance from Caherdaniel. This had to be organised.The local harbour is based about 2 miles at Derrynane. It is well sheltered from the Atlantic. There is a jetty there which can only be used at high water. This means gear lugging across the sand. If you're used to shore dives then fine, otherwise you need to take this into account. We used two boats - hardboat and dory. The hardboat was the main one - Wey Chieftain was the name. Although comfortable for 10-12 divers, it would not be so pleasant in bad weather for any length of time.
While we were there the visibility was not as remarkable as we had hoped. Apparently it is not uncommon to get over 30m here, but we were lucky to get 15m and usually it was lower. To be fair, back home in Devon, the vis was unusually bad for this time of year. The sea life was noticeably Atlantic. Very colourful and varied. The amount of macro plankton in the water was remarkable - string jellies, comb jellies, medusae and so forth. It certainly made safety stops more interesting. The scenery was good as well, with many gullies and walls plastered with colourful encrusties. In 30m vis some of it was stunning. The night dive was also judged to be unusually good, with everybody, except the wrasse, out on the town.
Apart from the night dive, all the other dives were from hard boat. We were encouraged by Peter to use delayed SMB's rather than the standard ones. There is certainly a greater chance of getting entangled in one of the gulleys - Peter was right. On coming up some of us favoured a slower ascent up the rocks. This gave us a longer dive and good decompression stages - but a longer swim back to the boat.
This was our dive itinerary. Note that the depths are average only.
| Date | Site | Average Depth (m) |
| 21.7.96 | Abbey Island | 22 |
| Cuas na feirine (Bay of Truth) | 22 |
|
| 22.7.96 | Scarriff Island (Wedges) | 22 |
| Scarriff Island | 22 |
|
| 23.7.96 | Little Skellig | 30 |
| Skellig Michael (south side) | 25 |
|
| 24.7.96 | Balligher Ba Reef | 30 |
| Moylaun Gully | 20 |
|
| Abbey Island night dive | 8 |
|
| 25.7.96 | Scarriff Island (SW corner) | 28 |
| South Coast | 22 |
|
| 26.7.96 | Little Skellig | 27 |
| Bolus Head | 22 |
Caherdaniel and its diving was featured in Diver magazine (July 1996). Caherdaniel is also the subject of a diving holiday that took place in 1995. The extensive report is stored on the Internet and is entitled "Six go diving in Ireland" . It is remarkably similar to our experience.
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