User Rating: 4 / 5

Star ActiveStar ActiveStar ActiveStar ActiveStar Inactive
 

Fifeness

Alternative Names: Crail

Type of Dive: Fifeness is a good wreck and reef shore dive.

Suggested Experience: All levels, good training area.

Travel directions: Take A917 through Anstruther; stay on the same road following signs for Crail. Stay on A917 into and through Crail. Pass shops on either side of the road and you’ll see Golf Hotel on right. At that point, the main road takes a sharp turn left toward St Andrews. You want to turn right at this point, signposted Crail Golfing Society. Continue out past the old airfield (currently used for the quarter mile ‘Thrash and Dash’ meetings by petrol heads), on your right. The road then narrows significantly and becomes single track with passing places. You’ll see the golf courses looking down toward the coastline. Continue on this road until you reach the first tee of Craighead course which has a green starters hut. Just after this turn right, follow the road behind large holiday house then take left fork staying on the tarmac. Continue down the hill until the road cuts across the golf course. Be careful at this point, check left and right, otherwise, you may end up with an ‘extra white spherical passenger!’ Continue across the course and for another 500m stop when you get to the 6/7 static caravans. Google map

Parking directions: Arriving at the caravans, on your left is a sizeable grassy area to park cars. Reversing in so your boot is toward the shoreline offers most space for other users and kitting up. Please DO NOT park on the right side at caravans. The owners tend to be quite territorial.

Lat & Long: N56.280235 W-2.585177  Postcode KY10 3XN  Google

Depth: 15m

Tides: Tide tables

Site entry/exit: Two main entry points: 1. The shoreline directly behind the car parking area and 2. A short walk up the hill then onto the grassy path leading to a channel offering good entry.

Fifeness entry/exitFifeness entry/exitFifeness entry/exit

Underwater directions: Depending on the entry point, there are a number of options. The ‘lagoon’ behind car parking is calm and great for training. Max depth is 3-4m in this area but there’s usually a lot of life over toward the rocks. You can also use this is an entry point to swim out of the lagoon and either continue due north or turn left or right to explore the reefs. Turning right will bring you back toward the second entry point which can then be used as an exit. If you use the second entry point I like to follow the channel out with the rocks on my right. After 100m, there’s a break in the rocks and turn right. Continue out over the kelp bed and the depth increases to around 9-10m. You’ll find scattered metal plates from a small wreck then you should see a bit of bow wreckage and some winch gear. Worth a quick explore. On the right of the wreckage is the base of a reef which is often a haven for lobster. Follow the reef around its base and then turn N. Continuing out will increase the depth to 13-15m but there are a lot of gullies and overhangs worth exploring. Turn SW to head back toward the lagoon, or retrace route to exit at same entry. You can end up being quite far out and it’s a long swim back in so watch your gas. There are a few wrecks in this area including SS VILDFUGEL, SS DOWNIE HILLS and the SS ROB ROY.

Air & Nitrox: Dive Bunker, Burntisland. Splash Sports, Dundee

Site Hazards: Slippery rocks at second entry, Forth Maritime Rescue Tel 01333 450666 Nearest Public phone: Coast Guard Station 200m away! Crail Golfing Society. Crail village.

Nearest Public phone: 

Mobile Network service: O2 and Orange

Pub: Golf Hotel, Crail

Cafe: Crail

Created by: dj diver

Date: 7/08/07

Revision: 4

Thanks To: SAUSAC , cloudflint and Chris Cairns, for some of the pictures.

Links:

Other comments:

Surface Photos: By dj diver

Underwater photos: Tom A of SAUSC, Chris Cairns,

fifenessfifenessfifenessfifeness

Divesite map:

Fifeness dive map

Dive Report: DJ Diver, Oct 07 Had a smashing wee dive at Crail this morning. Viz was superb - at least 10m which is rare for this area. Especially as the breeze was easterly. Lots of wrasse, crabs, 1 or 2 lobster and 2 trainees who did very well for their 3rd open water dive.

Dive Report: cloudflint Jan 11 explored off to the Northwest of the wreckage marked on the map and ended up on a large featureless sand bottom that went on for quite a while so that can be quite boring if you end up on it, it took us about 5-10 minutes to swim across it before we managed to get back to the gullies and stuff.

Dive Report: cloudflint April 11 Vis was pretty bad, only a few meters. A lot of swells meant we were mostly having to pull ourselves along apart from the brief times when we were able to hide from the current. We were in for about 56 minutes altogether, the first 45 minutes where pretty uneventful then as we where heading in we encountered a huge lumpsucker! Oddly it was all grey and light pink on the bottom which we had never seen before we all thought that lumpsuckers where always brightly coloured so that kinda made the dive for us.

Dive Report: Comment in the box below.