NIGHT DIVING RETURNS IN OCTOBER

14th September 2023

'PROPER' NIGHT DIVING RETURNS EVERY THURSDAY IN OCTOBER

Join us every Thursday throughout October for the very best night diving at Vobster Quay. Whether you're hankering after a relaxing post-work dive or you're an instructor planning to run a night dive specialty, don't miss this great opportunity to explore Vobster under the cover of darkness.

October is that time of the year when the autumnal evenings give way to the gloomy business of winter nights. For four nights only during October, we'll be bringing a ray of lithium-powered LED diver lighting to Thursday evenings with the welcome return of proper late night diving.

With an out of the water time of 22:00, there is plenty of time to finish the day job and then head to Vobster for a two dive evening - that's got to be a dive season bonus, whether you're a sport diver mourning the loss of sea diving, or a dive school hustling to complete some night dive specialities.

October is a great month for night diving for two very compelling reasons. The first is that the viz noticebly cheers up, making navigation around the underwater world of Vobster simpler and more enjoyable. As for the second - we'll talk about that later...

Back to the practicalities of night diving - once you've had a great time, you'll need to be paid up and offsite by 22:45. Food and gas will be available until 21:30 - sorry we can't do cheeky fills or burgers after that.

Sessions will be bookable via our booking portal with all the usual group and guest functions available. Our October night diving will be available every Thursday from the 5th October with the last night dive on the 26th October.
View our October Opening Hours online now.

Photo courtesy © Jason Brown via BARDOPhotographic

IT'S CITIZEN SCIENCE TIME!

WHITE-CLAWED CRAYFISH

Night diving at Vobster Quay brings another awesome benefit - the exciting opportunity to catch a glimpse of our famous white-clawed crayfish. October is the month when they get it on, before hunkering down for the winter as the lake begins to cool.

You can help us monitor our crayfish population by getting involved in a small citizen science diving project we're running this year. Divers are asked to count the crayfish they see on some set transects and we'll hand the data over the to conservation scientists to assess the population. Keen? Just book a night dive during October, then email us and we'll send you the details. It's designed to be a simple task for buddy pairs - divers should be qualified as BSAC Sports / PADI Rescue Diver or above.

Visit the white-clawed crayfish page on our website to discover more about these precious residents of Vobster Quay. The 'Vobster Lobsters' need you!

Vobster Quay is proud to be recognised as an 'ark' site for the native white-clawed crayfish. Introduced into the lake in 2009 by researchers at the Bristol Zoo Project, Vobster is playing a key role in protecting this endangered species.

If you have recently visited other freshwater sites before coming to Vobster, please ensure you thoroughly RINSE & DRY ALL EQUIPMENT before your visit. You could inadvertently be carrying crayfish plague into Vobster. If the Vobster crayfish get infected, the entire population is likely to die out within weeks!

Crayfish photos courtesy of Kenrina Maidment and John Price.

MAKE YOUR DIVES COUNT

LET'S GO CRAYFISH SPOTTING!

Autumn is a great time to spot our resident population of white-clawed crayfish as they are most active this time of year. We made this short video as a example - we counted 26 crayfish on this dive alone... how many can you find?

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