In 2007 and 2008 I dived Folkestone four times and each time the underwater visibility was simply dire.

2007

The initial three dives were all in October 2007. The first of these, a solo dive, was at the site of the former Victoria Pier, off Marine Parade. In a one hundred minute dive I managed to make out some velvet swimming crabs, a common prawn, and the highlight, the briefest glimpse of a shoal of bass.

The second dive with Roger Still was off The Esplanade, Sandgate with underwater visibility of just 0.5 metres. The “fish highlight” of the dive was a spotted dogfish. That is a dead spotted dogfish washed up on the beach.

The third dive, a solo dive, was at Seabrook Point otherwise known as Battery Point, Seabrook. The visibility was slightly better, one to one and a half meters. The previous year “Dave”, a large bottle nosed female dolphin had made Seabrook Point her home and it had become an offence under the Wildlife and Countryside Act to approach her. Unfortunately “Dave” approached me and then began to play with me, spinning around and around me, the visibility rapidly turning to zero. She seemed huge and powerful. Of course I knew “Dave” had no aggressive intentions towards me but I did feel vulnerable. What a pity I could not photograph her but I only had a macro lens on my camera and it would have been impossible in near zero visibility. Eventually she became bored with me. Typical female! I carried on diving finding only a dead dogfish before “Dave” returned to play with me again. This time she lost interest in me far more quickly.

2008

In July 2008 I solo dived off The Esplanade again. For weeks I had been watching the sea conditions waiting for visibility that might be good enough for a shore dive and finally it looked as though there might be visibility of … one metre! There was but only on the shore line. Over the sandy seabed the visibility dropped to 0.5 metres and with plenty of debris in the water, photography was all but impossible.