The marine habitats around Lundy are varied and rich and varied in the species that populate them. This marine protected area is protected by several designations and associated bye-laws. Lundy was Britain’s first Marine Nature Reserve and includes Britain’s first No-Take Zone. Two of the wrecks around the island are protected and require a licence to visit. Please find out more if you wish to dive around Lundy. Contact the This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. who will be happy to help.
Ilfracombe & North Devon Sub Aqua Club have prepared the following information about diving around Lundy.
The diving season on Lundy is short but spectacular. The visibility is good enough for diving from the end of April to the end of September. The tides of the Bristol Channel are fierce but the island lies N-S in a tidal stream that is mostly E-W, so there is always some part of the island with slack water. Dive the west side on the ebb and the east side on the flood. Below the surface of the sea there is magnificent scenery and a huge variety of marine life, some of which is rare or scarce in British waters. There are many types of fish including basking sharks in the summer months and the unusual population of red banded fish (50 cm long, red, shaped like an eel and a with a single dorsal fin the whole length of their body - they live in burrows in the mud). Crabs, lobsters and crawfish are still common but their populations have been affected by commercial fishing. There are huge numbers of sea urchins and starfish and the population of jewel anemones rarely fails to amaze the visiting diver.
There are shipwrecks of course - 137 to be precise - the battleship Montagu lies close into the southwest tip of the island - she ran aground on Shutter Point in May 1906 in thick fog whilst making trials of the new wireless telegraphy apparatus. Much of the vessel was salvaged but there are still huge sections of armour plate, parts of the gun turrets and 12in diameter shells. The small coaster Robert foundered off the east side in 1975 when her cargo of anthracite dust shifted. She is now a man-made reef covered in plumose anemones and populated by shoals of pollack and solitary wrasse. Angler fish can be found on the sea bed around her and conger eels lurk in holes in her keel and pipes in the funnel. Nearby is the wreck of the Iona - an American Confederate paddle steamer designated as a Protected Wreck (A licence is needed to dive here - consult with This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or charter boat skippers). There is the Carmine Filomena, the Earl of Jersey, the Ethel, the Heroine and many others all with their own atmosphere, history and population of sea life.