“Surely that’s not an Alligator?”

Alligators are native to only two countries: the United States and China. So what was one doing in a Yorkshire lake?

It was September 2008 and earlier that day fellow Ashford Dive Club member Rick Stewart and I had met at his home in Brabourne Lees, Kent at 5.00 a.m. and set off on a four-day diving trip to five diving locations in Yorkshire, Berwickshire and Gwynedd. Shortly before midday, we arrived at the first of these, Eight Acre Lake near the village of North Cave in East Yorkshire. Underwater attractions in the lake included the Lady of Leeds, a large cabin cruiser. However as an underwater photographer, the main attraction for me was the abundant fish life including Rainbow and Brown Trout and Koi Carp, all in ten metres visibility. Kevin Bragg and Mike Mudryk of Scuba Dream Limited, the on-site dive centre, explained that the introduction of tyres and shale to shore up the banks had helped reduced run-off and hence improved underwater visibility.

With excellent weather and a water temperature of 15º to 16º, we were eager to get in the water. Rick navigated in an easterly direction past a training platform and the model of a ladybird to the Lady of Leeds and then in a southerly direction towards the edge of the lake before retracing our route back to shallow water by our entry point. There Rick videoed and I photographed Rainbow and Brown Trout before completing our dive after exactly one hour. With plenty of air left from our first dive neither Rick nor I bothered to change our tanks for the second dive which we spent mainly in the shallows filming and photographing the Brown and Rainbow Trout. Until that is we decided to explore further along the lake edge. There, ahead of us in just four metres of water was what looked like an Alligator! In 2006, Cuvier's Dwarf Caiman Alligators had bred in the UK. But this Alligator was no dwarf being about two metres in length. I quickly took a photograph. Was this really an Alligator?

I had hoped Rick would investigate but he was getting low on air. And being a responsible diver I could not continue the dive on my own. So we shall just have to wait until we can return one day to solve this mystery.