← Dive-sites: Llyn Padarn ⚠

Description

Next to Llanberis, Llyn Peris and Vivian Quarry, Llyn Padarn is a popular spot for training and has very easy access.

There is a car park on the southern side which was reworked in recent years but unfortunately is no longer free. There is also a car park on the north side (used for the slate museum and Vivian Quarry, however it is also a paid car park).

Llyn Peris to the east is part of the hydro-electric facility and is therefore not dive-able.

You can expect lots of silt in the lake as well as many shoes, sunglasses, hats and other items dropped by kayakers and paddle boarders. There are also some strange outcrops, which appear to be rocky but are in fact soft and spongy. The included site map shows four sections of the most dived parts of the lake.

A: The most popular area features the jetty for stride entries and is used heavily by water sports groups; thus the abundance of dropped sunglasses and paddles.
B: Dived less often but similar to A
C: Very shallow and probably not very interesting
D: ~30m deep, very dark and peaty water with nothing to see.

The edges of Padarn are artificial and made primarily of waste slate. This means that there is a slope at the edges which meets the natural bottom of the lake between 5 and 15 meters deep. For some reason this has created gullies around the edge which are nice to follow around. Often fresh and cold rain water pools in these gullies below the warmer, siltier lake water which creates an interesting effect.

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• Freshly Dived: Llyn Padarn & Llyn Gwynant