UPY 2025

UPY  British Waters Compact - Third
'Beauty in the blow hole'
Tony Reed

I had been trying for a few years to dive the Blow hole at Boscastle but bad conditions stopped play many times until late August last summer when I was on a family road trip. I arrived a couple of hours before high tide to check the spectacular blow hole doing its thing. The blow hole when submerged is a 63 meter long tunnel which runs right through the headland and out the other side. This is what causes the surge through, creating the blow! Because of this it needs to be dived on high slack as I found out the hard way. I got into the entrance and I was instantly pulled inside 5 meters. I spread my legs out and anchored down. I took a few shots and got out of there before returning a bit later to do the swim through.

Judge's comment: An anemone reaches for the light within a coral cave. The letterbox crop helps give the image a fabulous feeling of depth.
Alex Mustard