WELCOME TO OCEANLIFE KILKEE 

Three scuba vouchers from Oceanlife Kilkee: Try Scuba, Open Water and a flexible Gift Voucher, plus a 2027 offer of a free Mares mask and snorkel set with every voucher Open Water course.

Hard-to-buy-for diver, or someone you'd love to get underwater? A gift card from Oceanlife lets them choose the experience — and gives you a December present that ends in a summer adventure.

Action cameras and 360 cameras have made underwater video easy. What they do well, what you must check before buying, and how to buy second-hand without getting caught out by a bad seal.

You don't need to be an athlete to dive, but you will enjoy it more if you arrive in May with strong legs, steady breathing and a body that's used to moving in water. A simple winter plan.

Winter is the quietest time to get your regulator, cylinders and BCD checked. What each service involves, what to book now, and why April is the wrong time to find a problem.

The summer crowds leave, the water clears and the bay gets quieter — but it is far from empty. What to expect under the surface from autumn through to spring.

A Halloween story of a ship that never came home, a fisherman who still walks the cliff path, and why the oldest night of the year belongs to this coast. (A work of fiction.)

The same reef, a different set of animals out and about, and a different set of skills needed to dive it safely — what to expect (and what to look for) on a Kilkee night dive.

How to recognise Ireland's biggest jellyfish, when they're most likely to be in the bay, and what a real NUI Galway study found actually helps a sting — and what makes it worse.

How to tell a grey seal from a harbour seal, where to reliably see them around Kilkee and Loop Head, and what to do (and not do) if you find a pup on the shore this autumn.

Twenty-two named dive sites, what's down there, and a live read on whether the wind has put them out.

Natural rock pools on the Duggerna reef that only appear at spring low tide. What lives in them, how to time your visit, and why the tide is not negotiable.

Wind is not the thing that stops you. Swell is, and it arrives from storms you never saw. What the numbers on a marine forecast actually mean, and the ones worth checking before you load the car.

Most diving gear dies in a garage, not in the sea. Twenty minutes of rinsing and the right way to hang a suit will save you more money than any bargain you ever find.

3 mm, 5/4 or 7 mm, and when a drysuit is the honest answer. How to tell if one fits, why swimming and diving need different suits, and what to look for in the end-of-season sale.

The sea is at its warmest weeks after the air is. Add settled water, better visibility and empty dive sites, and the month everyone writes off is the one worth booking.

Two fins in the water and a metre of gap between them. The giant courtship circles and breaching seen off Loop Head in late August and September, what the Irish name tells you, and the rules for sharing the water with one.

The commonest whale off the Clare coast, and the hardest to see. How to actually spot one from the cliffs, when they are here, and why they follow the mackerel.

Electric blue and orange on a Clare reef, and a life history that reads like fiction. Why the males and females look like different species, and what happens when the male disappears.

Long legs, a shell wearing seaweed on purpose, and a moult so total the crab has to walk out of its own face. Plus the mass gatherings that turn the seabed into something out of a documentary.