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Plymouth has the best DEEP shipwreck diving in the world!
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Apr 22, 2025
What do you need to have the best deep shipwreck in the world? I'd suggest lots of awesome (virgin) wrecks, great visibility, tonnes of fish life and a high level of shore support? In this video I argue that Plymouth in the United Kingdom has all of these in abundance so deserves to be crowned as the world's best deep wreck diving location. I'm sure plenty of people will disagree so I look forward to hearing why! *Highlights* 00:00 Introduction 00:26 Ideal depth for technical diving 01:50 How MANY unknown wrecks?! 02:45 stunning visibility 03:01 Water temperature - good enough? 03:54 Surface support - brilliant local boats 04:34 Loads of awesome marine life 05:10 Great night life! 05:40 Medical support! 05:55 Tell me I'm wrong and you know somewhere better *Thanks* Big thanks to Rick Ayrton and Will Schwarz for use of their images *Kit I Use*
View Video Transcript
0:00
hi my name is Don Robinson and this is
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my deep wreck diver Channel I get loads
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of comments on my videos from people
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amazed at the quality of some of the
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Dives I'm fortunate enough to do so I
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thought I'd put something together that
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explains why I think Plymouth is the
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best location in the UK and arguably the
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world for deep technical wreck diving so
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one of the great things about Plymouth
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is how much diving we've got at a really
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good depth for for a technical diver so
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for me obviously you can dive deep in
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the 100 m but you don't get very much
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bottom time if you dive shallower than
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60 you know arguably not really a
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technical dive in my view so that sweet
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spot of 60 to 100 m is kind of where you
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want to be now if you look at this image
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here uh you can see down the bottom that
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shows the uh the depth in the English
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Channel and the what the bit at the top
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shows you know where it is so basically
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you can see that kind of green to
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darkish blue is where we want to be and
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out of Plymouth there is just a whole
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load of it so of course it's not just
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the depth that you're interested in it's
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also what you're going to go and dive
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now the name of this channel deep wck
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diver yeah no surprise I'm interested in
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the wrecks and the great thing is about
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the English Channel is that two world
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wars and a whole hundreds of years of
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shipping colliding into each other and
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sinking in storms and everything has
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just given us a ton of uh of diving now
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this is the chart with Plymouth uh right
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in the top in the center there and you
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can see I kind of zooming out there now
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the thing I'd just like you to focus on
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is each of these red dots or red wreck
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symbols on the uh on the chart every one
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of those is a mark and the vast majority
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of them are recks and that is probably
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out to about 40 or 50 miles of Plymouth
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you can see there is an awful lot of
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them now most of them uh particularly
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the further ones out May never have been
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dived some of them will only have been
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dived once and possibly a long time ago
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which just makes for a great opportunity
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to go and do loads of exploration and
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finding new stuff if I tell you that in
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the last four or five years I've been on
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Dives where maybe 20 possibly even more
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25 rex have been identified out of
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Plymouth just gives you a feel for how
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much uh exploration there is still to be
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done so uh obviously it's not just about
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the Rex it's not just about the depth
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it's not just about the exporation there
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other things that we need to factor in
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as well so I'm going to Chuck in the
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visibility now the visibility in
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Plymouth not as great as say somewhere
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like Malin obviously not as great as
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somewhere um you know really warm you
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know Tropics maybe bikini or truck or
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somewhere like that but on its day can
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still be pretty epic you can get 20 or
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25 maybe even 30 m visibility on a great
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day so this is good good what about the
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water temperature I can hear loads of
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people out there those of you who are
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dive in Tropics or the
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Mediterranean um and and you're all
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going W it's rubbish isn't it you know
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English Channel it's going to be
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freezing cold well of course certainly
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colder than uh than it is in some of the
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places I mentioned but once again height
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of Summer late summer we'll get 17 maybe
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18 on The Deco stops so that's entirely
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reasonable it's not like the Baltic uh
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which is literally Baltic or or uh you
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know some of the kind of Northern parts
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of of Canada or uh places like that so
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not really warm but certainly warm
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enough that you don't need to take
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extreme precautions to avoid the cold so
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depth is good uh lots of wrecks warmth
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is kind of okay visibility can be
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outstanding on its day what else do we
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need to think about well the key thing
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for uh for technical diving especially
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in tidal waters is you need the boats to
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do it and we are absolutely blessed out
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of Plymouth we've got several really
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good operators who uh you know really
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switched on for doing this kind of stuff
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and are used to doing it so the support
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is there on the surface there's also
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other things as well you know gas
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Logistics so no problems at all getting
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helium and trimix and oxygen and nitrox
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uh softener lime kit repaired you know
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all those kind of stuff readily
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available in Plymouth we got a whole ton
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of of dive shops and dive providers so
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that is uh that's awesome as well uh
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what else well I guess marine life
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English Channel absolutely Chalker with
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it so uh loads of fish on all the recks
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load if you're into sort of pink sea
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fans and all that kind of stuff so loads
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of kind of cold water corals uh and of
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course increasingly we are starting to
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see a whole load of dolphins and tuna in
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the waters so uh lots and lots of marine
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life for those of you who like that kind
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of thing and I guess on the subject of
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uh of Life the other thing of course to
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remember is Plymouth is clearly one of
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the uh one of The Nightlife hot spots of
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the United Kingdom you want a good night
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Union Street well not quite what it once
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was but the barbacan is still uh a very
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very uh lively place and of course we
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have the very famous Dolphin Hotel
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legendary drinking establishment and uh
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that's always very welcoming to divers
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and in fact anybody else and of course
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another organization that's always very
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welcoming to divers is uh the diving
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diseases Research Center uh up in dford
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in Plymouth which is one of the leading
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uh recompression Chambers in the world
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pioneered a whole load of treatments and
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therefore if something does go wrong you
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know you're in good hands so there you
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go that's me making a case for Plymouth
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uh we've got it all if you're if you're
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interested uh let us know if you uh
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disagree and you think that somewhere
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rubbish like truck or bikini or
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somewhere on the west West Coast or the
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east coast of America Caribbean
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Mediterranean Egypt whatever it is uh
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then please I look forward to you making
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your case in the comments okay thanks a
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lot and I'll look forward to seeing you
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next time
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