Wast Water.
Wast Water is England's deepest lake, about 4.9 km long and 0.5 km wide, lying 61 m above sea level beneath the Wastwater Screes. It is an inland freshwater dive site with shore entries from small roadside parking areas; several have guidelines laid down steep shingle and boulder slopes into deep water. The water is clear, low in nutrients and cold at depth, and past about 20 m the bottom becomes soft mud with little life.
Every third Wednesday evening: a deep dive first, teaching club members deep diving to 55 m of fresh water, then a night dive along the shore at 6 m.
What's down there.
- Wastwater Screes, whose slope continues about 60 m below the surface
- Split Rock: guideline from 3 m, boulder swim-through to 50 m
- Motorway and Tiffin's Pinnacle: 150 m depth-marked guideline
- The Pinnacles: 12 m to 48 m along a wall, memorial plaques
- Craig Point, Overbeck Bridge and Nether Beck: shingle slopes to 40 m+
- Aircraft wreckage from a 1945 Grumman Avenger crash
- Arctic charr (Windermere charr)
- Quillwort in the shallows
- Sparse life below about 20 m
Lake maximum about 79 m, the deepest in England. Shore sites have guidelines starting at 3 to 6 m, and slopes lead to 40 to 60 m.
Fresh water. Around 7 °C at depth all year; surface readings of 4 °C in February and 9 to 10 °C in winter have been reported. Visibility is often good, and one report gives about 15 m, but it gets dark quickly with depth. Kit has to be carried over slippery, uneven ground to shingle beaches. Deep dives call for suitable training and experience. The lake is 61 m above sea level, and the road home over Birker Fell climbs to about 270 m, so altitude after diving needs planning. There are no facilities at the lake.
How it got there.
The National Trust owns the lake, which is a Site of Special Scientific Interest and Special Area of Conservation. Water has been drawn from it since the Second World War, first for the Royal Ordnance Factory at Drigg and later for Sellafield. Divers once placed a 'gnome garden' with a picket fence at about 48 m. A police diver said it was removed at the request of the Lake District National Park Authority after fatalities, reported as three divers dying in the late 1990s and attributed to divers staying too long too deep. It was reported in February 2005 that a replacement garden might exist beyond 50 m. A current club guide again lists gnome gardens at 30 m and 48 m. Parts of a Grumman Avenger that crashed on the fells above on 16 January 1945, killing its three crew, have been found in the lake.
52 dives.
From the reconstructed log — the dates follow the pattern I dived, so read them as representative rather than exact.