SeaLogIreland · reef · beginner
The training dive at the mouth of Kinsale harbour: a small island 200 m off the slip, with rock gullies running south-east to about 15 m.
Sandycove Island sits at the mouth of Ardkilly Creek on the south coast of Cork, just west of the Castlepark peninsula that forms the western side of the entrance to Kinsale harbour. It is about 200 m offshore from the hamlet of Sandycove, and the slipway there is the same one used by the Sandycove Island Challenge open-water swim, which has run a 1,600 m lap of the island every year since 1994. This is the Cork Sandycove, not the Dublin one at the Forty Foot.
The Irish Underwater Council's south Cork notes describe the dive simply: head out of Kinsale harbour, turn to starboard and run for Sandycove Island, where there are plenty of gullies to move in and out of, running south-east, with a maximum depth of 15 m. The same entry adds that Sandycove can also be dived from shore, with easy access by car, which is what makes it the standard local training and shake-down site rather than a destination dive.
The seabed records around this pin are dominated by soft-sediment animals rather than reef life, which is what you would expect at a creek mouth: thin tellins, striped venus and other burrowing bivalves, the burrowing brittlestar Amphiura filiformis, sea potatoes, cylinder-shell and bubble-shell snails, amphipods and cumaceans, along with mussels, Pacific oysters, shore crabs, velvet swimming crabs, common starfish and limpets on the harder edges. Bottlenose dolphins are recorded regularly in the same area. In other words, the gullies are the interest and the sand between them is a place to look for buried life rather than to swim over.
Do not confuse the site with Bulman Rock, which the same guide covers a couple of entries later at the mouth of Kinsale harbour: that is the 5-22 m scenic dive with very little tidal flow that is often quoted for Sandycove by mistake.
Two ways in. By boat: out of Kinsale harbour, turn to starboard and head for Sandycove Island. From shore: the Irish Underwater Council notes easy access by car, and the slipway at Sandycove on the mainland is the start of the annual island swim, about 200 m from the island itself.
You can reach the site independently.
No source read here gives a season for this site. The Kinsale operator notes that basking sharks, barrel jellyfish and sunfish move along the Cork coast in spring and summer, and the annual island swim is held in summer, which is also when the site is most usable for shore entries.
A short boat run out of Kinsale harbour, turning starboard for the island, or a shore entry from the Sandycove slipway and a surface swim out. Depths in the gullies reach about 15 m. Neither of the sources read here gives a visibility figure.
On current: The Irish Underwater Council's entry gives no tidal warning for Sandycove Island, in contrast to the same guide's notes on the Ling Rocks and Daunt Rock further out, where slack water is called essential. Treat it as a sheltered site inside the harbour approaches, but note that it is at a creek mouth and no source read here quantifies the flow on spring tides.
The Irish Underwater Council's south Cork guide gives a maximum of about 15 m in the gullies at Sandycove Island. It is a shallow site by design, which is why it is used locally for training and check-out dives rather than as a deep day out.
No. This Sandycove is in County Cork, at the mouth of Ardkilly Creek just west of the entrance to Kinsale harbour, with a small island about 200 m offshore. The Dublin Sandycove, with the Forty Foot bathing place, is a completely separate location on the other side of the country.
Yes. The Irish Underwater Council's entry says Sandycove can be used for shore diving with easy access by car. The slipway on the mainland is the same one used as the start of the annual island swim, and the island sits about 200 m off it, so a shore dive here means a surface swim across a creek mouth.
It is one of the standard beginner and training sites for the Kinsale area. The maximum depth is about 15 m, it is reachable from a slipway as well as by boat, and the published description reports no tidal problem, in contrast to the offshore sites in the same guide that are explicitly slack-water dives.
Rock gullies running in a south-easterly direction, which you work in and out of, down to about 15 m. The seabed records around the site are dominated by burrowing sand and mud animals such as thin tellins, striped venus, burrowing brittlestars and sea potatoes, so the gullies rather than the open sand are where the interest is.
Yes, in calm conditions. The island is swum around every year in an organised 1,600 m race from the mainland slipway, so the water is well within snorkelling range. Be aware that you are at the mouth of a working harbour with boat traffic, and fly a surface marker.
No, but a boat helps. The Irish Underwater Council describes both approaches: out of Kinsale harbour turning to starboard for the island, or straight in from the shore with easy car access at Sandycove itself. Shore divers should factor in the 200 m crossing to the island.
| Species | How often | Records |
|---|---|---|
| Ampelisca brevicornis | occasional | 32 |
| Abra alba | occasional | 31 |
| Chamelea striatula | occasional | 30 |
| Cylichna cylindracea | occasional | 23 |
| Nucula nitidosa | occasional | 22 |
| Thracia phaseolina | occasional | 22 |
| Fabulina fabula | occasional | 21 |
| Kurtiella bidentata | occasional | 21 |
| Lucinoma borealis | occasional | 19 |
| Abra nitida | occasional | 19 |
| Harpinia antennaria | occasional | 17 |
| Thyasira flexuosa | occasional | 17 |
| Amphiura filiformis | occasional | 15 |
| Tanaopsis graciloides | occasional | 15 |
| Magallana gigas | occasional | 15 |
| Dosinia lupinus | occasional | 13 |
| Varicorbula gibba | occasional | 13 |
| Phaxas pellucidus | occasional | 12 |
| Euspira nitida | occasional | 12 |
| Iphinoe trispinosa | occasional | 11 |
| Echinocardium cordatum | occasional | 11 |
| Mytilus edulis | occasional | 10 |
| Oestergrenia digitata | occasional | 9 |
| Crassicorophium crassicorne | occasional | 9 |
| Pariambus typicus | occasional | 8 |
| Carcinus maenas | occasional | 8 |
| Eudorella truncatula | occasional | 8 |
| Tursiops truncatus | occasional | 8 |
| Gari fervensis | occasional | 8 |
| Tellimya ferruginosa | occasional | 8 |
| Ampelisca typica | occasional | 7 |
| Perioculodes longimanus | occasional | 7 |
| Asterias rubens | occasional | 7 |
| Mysia undata | occasional | 7 |
| Philine quadripartita | occasional | 7 |
| Centraloecetes kroyeranus | occasional | 7 |
| Necora puber | occasional | 6 |
| Diastylis laevis | occasional | 6 |
| Patella vulgata | occasional | 6 |
| Ampelisca diadema | occasional | 5 |
| Synchelidium maculatum | occasional | 5 |
| Urothoe elegans | occasional | 5 |
| Acteon tornatilis | occasional | 5 |
| Sorgenfreispira brachystoma | occasional | 5 |
| Paraleptopentacta elongata | occasional | 5 |
| Photis longicaudata | rare | 4 |
| Cetorhinus maximus | rare | 4 |
| Cumopsis goodsir | rare | 4 |
| Diastylis rugosa | rare | 4 |
| Pseudocuma (Pseudocuma) longicorne | rare | 4 |
| Ophiura albida | rare | 4 |
| Polyprion americanus | rare | 4 |
| Aurelia aurita | rare | 4 |
| Delphinus delphis | rare | 4 |
| Eulima glabra | rare | 4 |
| Melanella alba | rare | 4 |
| Mactra stultorum | rare | 4 |
| Pagurus bernhardus | rare | 3 |
| Macropodia rostrata | rare | 3 |
| Diastylis bradyi | rare | 3 |
A shallow, sheltered seagrass bay near Kinsale where Cork divers do their first open-water dives.
A broken-up Victorian liner scattered in 5-20 m against the western cliffs of the Old Head of Kinsale, with swim-throughs in the wreckage and golf balls in the sand.
A First World War German minelaying submarine lying on her port side in the approaches to Cork Harbour, with her crew and some of her mines still aboard.
A 1900 bucket dredger off Power Head whose hull is gone but whose machinery — chain, sprocket, 2.5 m drive gears, engine, boiler — can still be read on the seabed.
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