Céibh an Dóilín

The dive

Céibh an Dóilín is the little harbour on the west side of the Carraroe peninsula, 400 metres north of the Coral Strand beach and on the same stretch of Greatman's Bay. Galway Dive Club, which uses it as one of its two Carraroe shore dives, describes three reefs running roughly north to south parallel to the shore, directly opposite the harbour. The outermost of the three reaches about eighteen metres at high tide; the inner ground is much shallower, and Atlantic Scuba Adventures in Carraroe works the site as a 3 to 12 metre dive for all levels. The ground between the reefs is rock, crevices and kelp rather than the maërl gravel of the beach next door.

The dive is defined by the tide. The club's note for this shoreline is blunt: apart from slack water there is always some tidal current, it can be quite strong around mid-tide, and it can be strong on the ebb in particular. That cuts both ways. On slack it is a sheltered, forgiving shore dive that stays divable in weather that shuts down the open coast, which is why the club describes it as diveable in most conditions; on the run it becomes a drift, and the dive centre lists it as a drift site for qualified divers. Navigation is the easy part, because the shore is your exit and you can come out anywhere along it.

What lives here is the standard rich cold-water assemblage of a sheltered west-of-Ireland bay, and the club lists it plainly: lobster, brown crab, pollack, wrasse, rays, dogfish and flatfish among the rocks and crevices. Records from this pin add velvet swimming crab, spider crab, dragonet, greater pipefish, corkwing and ballan wrasse and the sea hare Aplysia punctata.

This is not the same dive as Trá an Dóilín 400 metres south, even though the two share a name, a townland and a shoreline. Trá is the beach and céibh is the quay, and both Galway Dive Club and Atlantic Scuba Adventures list them separately: the beach is the seven-metre maërl training dive, this is the deeper, more tidal reef dive. Greatman's Bay is part of Kilkieran Bay and Islands SAC, so the maërl and eelgrass ground shared with the beach carries the same care.

• Three parallel reefs stepping out to eighteen metres
• Rock and crevice ground with lobster, brown crab and conger habitat
• Rays, dogfish and flatfish on the sand between reefs
• Drift potential on the run of the tide
• Sheltered enough to dive when the open Connemara coast is out

Conditions

A sheltered inner-bay shore dive: little swell, rock and kelp ground, and a tidal stream that turns the dive from a potter into a drift depending on when you get in. It is one of the sites Connemara divers fall back on when the exposed coast is unworkable.

On current: Tide is the governing factor. Galway Dive Club records that apart from slack water there is always some tidal current here, that it can be quite strong around mid-tide, and that it can be strong on the ebb. Atlantic Scuba Adventures calls the site tidal and offers it as a drift dive for qualified divers. The two sources disagree on depth: the club puts the outside reef at eighteen metres at high tide, the dive centre advertises 3-12 m. Both are probably right — twelve metres is the inner ground the centre guides, eighteen is what you reach if you swim out to the third reef — but plan for the deeper figure and dive it on or near slack unless you intend a drift.

Best months: May, Jun, Jul, Aug, Sep