I mostly dive in the UK, with a dry suit. The flashy beauty of the Red Sea has nothing on the dramatic ribs of a wreck in the Sound of Mull, or the playful seals of Lundy, or the delicate rockeries full of fish and sea hares in the waters off Plymouth!

Michael Pitts took this lovely shot of me on the wreck of HMS Colossus, Isles of Scilly, filming for ITV.
I dive within recreational limits, on open circuit SCUBA.

Scapa Flow

One of the must-do dive trips in the world: The wrecks of the scuttled WW1 German fleet that was sunk in Scapa Flow, in the Orkney Islands. 40-odd metres, cold and a bit dark, but very powerful.

It's an extraordinary chapter of history:

Scapa Flow blog article

There are three battleships and four cruisers still resting intact on the deep seabed.  The battleships - Konig, Kronprinz Wilhelm and Markgraf - are 28,000 tonne, 170m beasts, rusting quietly away.

 

Lobsters, crabs, scallops

One of the joys of UK diving is that in certain sites you can come home with dinner. There's nothing like a plate of hand-dived scallops where you were the diver. Sustainable and eco-friendly.

My favourite lobster-hunting jaunt was when we filmed episode 5 of Time Team series XIX, in Beadnell, Northumberland, excavating the site of St Ebba's Chapel. After we'd wrapped for the day and Phil and Co were safely in the pub, I popped off for an early evening dive. Lobsters for dinner, and a chance to see our site from a unique angle, at dead-on sea level. An after-work adventure :)

Debris Diving

There was a bit more fun to be had with the excellent Paul Rose doing a debris dive in a rather chilly Lake Windermere (it was the first weekend in March, to be fair). This is basically an underwater litter pick. Along with an onshore team scouring the lake banks, we collected more than a tonne of rubbish.