As part of BSAC’s Marine Champion Action Weekends 2026, Exeter Sub-Aqua Club (SAC) has been spending the summer incorporating diving with a purpose into their club plans. Their main focus has been to add beach cleans and underwater litter picks wherever they can and the results speak for themselves.
Over the weekend of the 19th July, a total of 14 Exeter SAC divers took their litter pick mesh bags on dives off Princess Pier, Torquay and Plymouth Quay, combining scuba with clean ups along the way.
You can watch Exeter SAC’s illuminating video of their Princess Pier dive and its fascinating marine life as well as the litter they were able to collect here:
Exeter SAC’s Marine Champion, Sally Richards and Chair Nik Mcve, pick up the story:
On 19th July, six divers took the club RIB out in the Torbay area and eight divers went to Plymouth to complete underwater litter picks.
With the addition of a Marine Champion to our club, diving dedicated to litter picking has become a regular club activity, so when someone remarked that the seabed off Princess Pier in Torquay could probably do with a clean, a boat dive was organised for this very purpose.
This is a new dive site to us and we weren't sure what to expect. Crabbing is evidently popular there given the number of crab nets in our collection. A number of crustaceans were released from their various entanglements in nets and ghost pots, which were either recovered or made safe. One buddy pair surfaced after 40 minutes only because they couldn't carry any more, then popped down again for another 40 minutes. We were pleased to find the bottom was only about six metres, so the limiting factors were the available daylight hours, hunger, and comfort breaks.
We were delighted by the life we found. Every nook and cranny under the walkway housed some or other critter. Shrimps, shore crabs, lobsters, brown crabs, spiny lobsters, conger eels, sea bass, bib and various wrasse - we found them all. The big surprise, though, was the spider crabs gathered for their annual moult. The seabed off the pier is either weedy, silty or sea grass and the spider crabs were all over it, and all over the wall. Small crabs, big crabs, monstrously huge crabs. It's a disconcerting and maybe creepy sight for some divers.
Time was getting on, but you can't waste a boat trip, and we managed a short dive at ‘London Bridge’, a natural rock arch around the corner. Again, a shallow site, with rocks, gullies and a lot of seaweed and kelp. One diver found a metal bedstead and I [Nik] lost a weight pouch. So there is treasure in that area, to be hunted down later perhaps.
Eight divers from Exeter BSAC also went to Plymouth Quay for a litter pick but others had gone before us so there wasn't much to collect on that occasion. Two divers managed to find a few bits of rubbish and litter underwater. We also collected a black bag full of rubbish from around the quay.
Another grand day out, made possible by a willing team at Exeter BSAC!
