Yesterday B and I went to reconnoitre Diver’s Cove, a recently opened inland site. Operating on the principle that choice and competition are usually good for the consumer (individual divers and dive schools in this context) we wanted to see if it was a viable alternative to Wraysbury, who have held a monopoly on the South East for many years. I really, really wanted to like it, but unfortunately these hopes were premature. Some of the reasons are general, some are only applicable to some, but in no particular order:

• There isn’t much parking and it’s a long way from the water, which is down a gravel slope. It would be a pain to unload kit for 20 divers, and even more so to load it back up. To their credit, trolleys are provided.
• The kitting up area is quite small. You could have one operation the size of LSD there, max. There is only one entry platform.
• Getting a fill would require going back up the gravel slope to a filling station that didn’t look like it could cope with high demand. I know I am banging on a lot about distances, but logistics are important, and we are often tight-pressed for time. We didn’t try the food, but the catering there would struggle with some demand too.
• It’s simply further away. It would be worth it logistically if it had 18+m depth, much as I love Vobster, LSD can’t justify going there for anything other than depth, but at 9m it doesn’t offer any deeper than Wraysbury
• The changing rooms are better than Wraysbury’s but the toilets – astonishingly – are worse
• Some divers we spoke to there, and our own observations from the surface, were that the vis was worse than Wraysbury too. And on that day at Wraysbury, you couldn’t see from end of a training platform to the other!

Some of these things are structural, while the kitting-up area could be enlarged (a bit) it will always be at the bottom of a slope. Some of them, like the filling station, could be sorted out just by a little investment. All in all tho’, unless you happened to be based in Surrey (and there were some dive schools there) Wraysbury is still the least-worst near the M25. Personally I say just go to Vobster or the sea 🙂