SeaLogIreland · beginner
The working harbour at the end of the Maharees road, doubling as Waterworld's shallow sand shore dive between the two slips.
Scraggane Bay is the harbour at Fahamore, at the northern tip of the Maharees peninsula in Co. Kerry, and it is the base Waterworld Dive Centre operates from (Harbour House, Scraggane Pier). The whole Magharee Islands dive programme leaves from here. The bay is also the centre's own shallow shore dive: Waterworld's site description, published through its PADI listing, gives a maximum of about 7 m and describes the dive as a swim from the south slip to the north slip over a sandy bottom, naming it a dive for the first-time diver rather than a reef dive.
The bay has been surveyed twice by BioMar in 1996 and both records are worth knowing before you get in. The shore survey of 1 August describes a horse-shoe facing north, sand in the eastern half and rock in the western half, sheltered to the north by the Magharee Islands and closed in to east and west, backed by a fairly steep cobble storm beach; the sediment is a poorly sorted reddish-grey sand with gravel and pebbles and a black anoxic layer about 2.5 cm down on the lower shore, worked by lugworm (Arenicola), hermit crabs and polychaetes. The dived station in the centre of the bay on 21 May found something different at 3 m: large boulders lying on gravel, sand and cobble, the more stable rock carrying the kelps Laminaria saccharina and Laminaria hyperborea with red algae under them, and one boulder with the sea squirts Distomus variolosus and Polycarpa rustica. The surveyors noted the bay as sheltered from the main weather systems but recorded the station itself as very surgey and silty on the day.
What the operator names here is small-scale: tompot blenny, wrasse, cuttlefish and juvenile flatfish. Grey seal is by some distance the most frequently recorded animal in occurrence records within a kilometre and a half of the bay, and edible crab, spider crab, hermit crab and painted topshell are all logged in the same radius. The reef diving the Maharees is known for is offshore, on the islands, 10 to 15 minutes out by boat from this same pier, so the bay is the shallow, sheltered end of the programme rather than the reason people come.
Scraggane Pier at Fahamore, at the end of the Maharees road north of Castlegregory. Waterworld Dive Centre sits on the pier at Harbour House (V92 XFN7) with fills, changing rooms and two dive boats; the bay itself is a public working harbour with a slip at either end, which is what the dive uses. The nearest village is Castlegregory; Tralee is the nearest town of any size.
You can reach the site independently.
Both the operator and the Castlegregory community site give 8 C at the start of the season rising to 17-18 C in July, August and September, so the months listed are simply the warmest water. Neither source publishes an opening or closing date for the season, and nothing in them rules out diving the bay outside those months.
A north-facing horseshoe bay, sand to the east and rock to the west, sheltered behind the Magharee Islands, with boulders and kelp through the middle at about 3 m. Waterworld quotes about 7 m visibility on a bad day, 20 m on average and about 40 m at best; that range is published for its dive sites generally and no source gives a figure for this bay on its own. The BioMar surveyors who dived the centre of the bay in May 1996 recorded it as sheltered from the main weather systems but very surgey and silty on the day, which is the realistic expectation for shallow sand and boulder in a north-facing bay. Water temperature runs from 8 C early in the season to 17-18 C in July, August and September.
On current: No source gives a current figure for the bay itself. The 1996 BioMar survey describes it as protected to the north by the Magharee Islands and enclosed to east and west, which is why the harbour is sited here. NPWS records moderately strong tidal streams between the islands offshore, not inside the bay. The steep cobble storm beach at the back is the one sign in the survey that the bay takes serious sea in northerly weather.
Best months: Jun, Jul, Aug, Sep
About 7 m at the deepest, according to the dive centre that runs it. The bay is a shallow sand and boulder basin, not a reef wall, and the dive is a horizontal swim rather than a descent. The deep diving in the Maharees is offshore on the islands, where sites run from 8 m to 35 m.
Yes. It is a shore dive entered from the slips at Scraggane Pier, and the published route is a swim from the south slip to the north slip. No boat is needed, though Scraggane Pier is a working fishing harbour and the departure point for Waterworld's two dive boats, so watch for traffic at both slips.
Yes, and it is arguably better suited to snorkelling than to scuba. The bay is shut in on three sides and sheltered from the north by the Magharee Islands, with sand in the eastern half, rock in the western half and boulders carrying kelp through the middle at about 3 m. At roughly 7 m maximum a snorkeller sees essentially the same ground a diver does.
It is aimed at them. Waterworld describes it as a shore dive ideal for the first-time diver, and the combination of shelter, a sand bottom and a 7 m maximum is what makes it usable for training and first open-water dives. Nothing in the sources suggests any current or overhead hazard inside the bay.
The operator's own description names tompot blenny, wrasse, cuttlefish and juvenile flatfish over the sand. Grey seal is the animal most often recorded in occurrence data within a kilometre and a half of the bay, and edible crab, spider crab, hermit crab and painted topshell are all logged in the same radius. Lugworm and other polychaetes work the sand itself.
Waterworld and the Castlegregory community site both give the same range: about 8 C early in the season, rising to 17-18 C in July, August and September. That is drysuit or heavy semi-dry water for most of the year, with hood and gloves, even on a shallow 7 m dive where bottom times are long.
No permit is mentioned in any source, and the bay is a public working harbour with public slips. Waterworld Dive Centre sits on the pier at Harbour House and provides fills, changing rooms and guiding, which is the practical reason most people diving here go through them, but the shore dive itself does not require an operator.
June to September, on water temperature alone: the published figures run from 8 C early season to 17-18 C in July to September. No source gives an opening or closing date for the season, and the bay's shelter means the limiting factor is more likely to be northerly weather driving sea into an otherwise enclosed, north-facing bay.
| Species | How often | Records |
|---|---|---|
| Halichoerus grypus | occasional | 15 |
| Patella vulgata | occasional | 6 |
| Cetorhinus maximus | rare | 4 |
| Porcellana platycheles | rare | 4 |
| Halisarca dujardinii | rare | 4 |
| Littorina saxatilis | rare | 4 |
| Calliostoma zizyphinum | rare | 4 |
| Steromphala umbilicalis | rare | 4 |
| Botryllus schlosseri | rare | 3 |
| Maja brachydactyla | rare | 3 |
| Asterina gibbosa | rare | 3 |
| Ophiothrix fragilis | rare | 3 |
| Donax vittatus | rare | 3 |
| Nucella lapillus | rare | 3 |
| Patella ulyssiponensis | rare | 3 |
| Ligia oceanica | rare | 3 |
| Phorcus lineatus | rare | 3 |
| Aplidium pallidum | rare | 2 |
| Dendrodoa grossularia | rare | 2 |
| Pisidia longicornis | rare | 2 |
| Cancer pagurus | rare | 2 |
| Dynamena pumila | rare | 2 |
| Psammechinus miliaris | rare | 2 |
| Amphipholis squamata | rare | 2 |
| Chrysaora hysoscella | rare | 2 |
| Aplysia punctata | rare | 2 |
| Mytilus edulis | rare | 2 |
| Patella pellucida | rare | 2 |
| Halichondria (Halichondria) panicea | rare | 2 |
| Ophlitaspongia papilla | rare | 2 |
| Tritia incrassata | rare | 2 |
| Macomangulus tenuis | rare | 2 |
| Steromphala cineraria | rare | 2 |
| Bathyporeia guilliamsoniana | rare | 1 |
| Didemnum maculosum | rare | 1 |
| Diplosoma listerianum | rare | 1 |
| Polyclinum aurantium | rare | 1 |
| Distomus variolosus | rare | 1 |
| Polycarpa scuba | rare | 1 |
| Scyliorhinus canicula | rare | 1 |
| Diogenes pugilator | rare | 1 |
| Pagurus bernhardus | rare | 1 |
| Palaemon elegans | rare | 1 |
| Sertularia argentea | rare | 1 |
| Idotea granulosa | rare | 1 |
| Labrus bergylta | rare | 1 |
| Dysidea fragilis | rare | 1 |
| Hymeniacidon perlevis | rare | 1 |
| Haliclona (Haliclona) simulans | rare | 1 |
| Hymedesmia (Stylopus) coriacea | rare | 1 |
| Cliona celata | rare | 1 |
| Cyanea lamarckii | rare | 1 |
| Acanthochitona crinita | rare | 1 |
| Anomia ephippium | rare | 1 |
| Bittium reticulatum | rare | 1 |
| Elysia viridis | rare | 1 |
| Diodora graeca | rare | 1 |
| Littorina fabalis | rare | 1 |
| Littorina littorea | rare | 1 |
| Melarhaphe neritoides | rare | 1 |
Squared-off rock forming gullies and swim-throughs at 12 to 22 m in the channel between Inishtooskert and Illaunimmil; the only published description is one sentence long.
A kelp gully you work uphill to 5 m before dropping into a rock bowl at 12 m, at the sheltered eastern end of the Magharee Islands.
Kelp on the top, then a clean rock wall running roughly half a mile down to sand at 33 m, on the landward side of Gurrig Island.
A gully between Gurrig Island and its offshore pinnacle, walled with soft coral and anemones and petering out into kelp and swim-throughs.
A Gurrig Island rock face of anemone-covered overhangs and a small cave, worked between 16 and 20 m.
One of five named dives Waterworld works on the reef around Gurrig Island: crossed rock gorges at 20-22 m, read by the operator as two ancient river channels meeting.
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