The August Bank Holiday saw 40 BSAC clubs and 120 divers descend on Lancashire’ s Capernwray Diving Centre for the NW BSAC Dive Fest 2026. Organiser Stephen Dorricott reports
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NW BSAC Dive Fest – four years and growing
The August Bank Holiday saw 40 BSAC clubs and 120 divers descend on Lancashire’ s Capernwray Diving Centre for the NW BSAC Dive Fest 2026. Organiser Stephen Dorricott reports
NOW IN ITS FOURTH YEAR, THE DIVE Fest is becoming firmly established as a fun and sociable event in the North West diving calendar. Our original plan was simple: get North West clubs together for a fun day out. Hopefully we are still achieving that goal, although the festival has now grown beyond the region and attracts divers from a much wider area. This year, BSAC clubs travelled from across Lancashire, Cumbria, Cheshire, Yorkshire, North Wales, Staffordshire and beyond to take part. We could even claim to have gone international, with visitors joining us from Adelaide, Australia!
From the start we wanted manufacturers and suppliers to be part of the event, particularly those based here in the North West. Four years on, Apeks remains one of
our biggest supporters, alongside major names including AP Diving, Suunto, Mares and Aqualung. This year Kent Tooling and Cressi also joined us, while many other diving brands generously supplied equipment as well as prizes worth more than £ 4,000.
The first two Dive Fests were held on the last Friday in September and we were blessed with near-perfect weather. For the third festival we moved into October but unfortunately, Storm Amy landed almost directly on top of us.
This year we moved the event into August. As well as the potential for better weather, we wanted to make the festival more accessible to families still on their school holidays. This led to the new Junior Explorer Treasure Hunt Challenge, where young visitors visited 10 stands around the festival to collect letters, solve a secret word and win a prize.
However, NW Dive Fest 2026 wasn’ t just the non-diving youngsters getting involved. Stephen Simmons brought his 14-yearold grandson Bobby along to this year’ s festival, where Bobby completed his Ocean Diver training.
Stephen summed up their day:“ Bobby and I had a great day at the Dive Fest. He
completed his Ocean Diver training with a great dive, and we both really enjoyed the atmosphere of the event. It was well organised and well attended, with plenty of interesting stands and manufacturers to visit.”
Of course, the main attraction remains the diving. One of the most popular events is our underwater Gold Bar Hunt and the competition can become surprisingly serious once everyone gets underwater!
There were also opportunities to trial underwater scooters, experience AP and Liberty rebreathers, or have a go with a sidemount setup, all under the guidance of experienced instructors.
This year’ s Fest also saw the North West Underwater Police Search Team, North West Air Ambulance, NW
Seasearch, Ghost Fishing
UK, the NW Seamanship Team and Frontline Training, along with author Duncan Ross, taking part.
For me as organiser, one of the best moments was simply looking across a full car park and seeing divers from so many different clubs chatting, laughing, trying new equipment and enjoying themselves.
Through the support of everyone who attended, bought raffle tickets, placed auction bids or otherwise contributed, more than £ 2,200 was raised for the North West Air Ambulance Charity. That’ s something everyone involved in the festival can be proud of. And we’ re now already thinking about Year Five.
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