Yvonne Tatchley of Wraysbury Dive Centre

Diving Deep: A Conversation with Yvonne Tatchley of Wraysbury Dive Centre

“I learned to dive in 1977,” says Yvonne Tatchley, thinking of her first dive in Portland Harbour near Weymouth. “It didn’t go exactly to plan. I ended up with a large fishing hook in my hand that I had to pull out myself! But it didn’t put me off diving at all. I carried on and loved every minute of it.”

Yvonne’s early passion for the underwater world was closely tied to her academic interests. “I was going on to study marine biology at university, so diving was a useful skill to have,” she explains. Before beginning her studies, she travelled extensively, spending a significant amount of time in Malaysia where she qualified as a Divemaster.

At university, Yvonne joined, and soon helped to run, the dive club. “That involved a huge amount of diving in West Wales,” she recalls. “Taking students diving in UK waters is always fun. I hear the same comments over and over: there’s so much more to see than they expected, and everything is far more colourful than they imagined.”

Her underwater videos often surprise people who can’t believe that they were filmed in British waters. “I’ve even seen a seahorse in Selsey and a whale in the same location,” she says. “Since inshore dredging was banned between Brighton and Chichester and a seagrass seeding project began, we’ve seen species returning like seahorses, rays, and even reports of angel sharks off the coast at Brighton.”

Despite the colder conditions and at times poorer visibility, Yvonne has a deep affection for UK diving. “There’s so much to experience here,” she says. “It’s a shame that many people learn to dive in the UK but only ever dive abroad afterwards. I really hope that as an industry we can help change that misconception.”

One of her most memorable dives took place around ten years ago, when Wraysbury Lake froze solid. “We went ice diving, and the ice was so thick that you could sit on it in full kit without cracking the surface,” Yvonne remembers. “Cutting a hole and dropping into the water was incredible, you could see your air bubbles freezing just under the ice. I was smiling for days afterwards.”

Another unforgettable moment came during a guided dive she was leading. “We were down at 25 metres and really weren’t expecting to see much,” she says. “Suddenly, a huge silhouette passed above me. It was a whale! Trying to explain what was happening to the students with hand signals was tricky, to say the least. On another occasion, I was super excited because I had seen a seahorse and I tried to sign ‘seahorse’ to my buddy, but he later told me that he couldn’t understand what I was trying to communicate, and he thought that I just looked like a demented rabbit!”

For Yvonne, the joy of diving is about sharing the underwater world with others. “The dive community is so special and supportive,” she says. “I love introducing new students to diving and helping them discover the beauty and excitement of UK waters. Here’s hoping more people will give it a go and see it for themselves.”

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