PADI Open Water

Congratulations to all the new Open Water students - you all did brilliantly! Welcome as well to John Hill who is the latest instructor to join our ranks. John has worked a lot in Dahab so brings plenty of experience to the centre. Needs a haircut though!

PADI Advanced Open Water Course Success

Congratulations to all those that passed their Advanced Open water this weekend, Rebecca, Roy, Steve and Rob. We had som excellent diving at Horsea and Vobster. Not sure about the growler pose though!

7m of viz....in Horsea!

Congratulations to the 6 students who passed their PADI Open Water course this weekend. Sounds like you had a lovely day in the sunshine, some grea viz and some excellent dives. We look forward to seeing you all again soon.

What a Woos

So, here is a roughy toughy plumber who slips and puts a knife into his hand. Nothing major, but did require 2 stitches. Well we say nothing major, that was until Lamby decides to faint at the sight of blood, leaving the 80 year old lady having the plumbing done to sort him out and call an ambulance! tisk tisk.

Portland Weekend

With the weather still making diving conditions around the Solent less than pleasant, it was decided to nip down to "team up" with our old friends at Fathom and Blues. Trip report to follow.

Let it Snow!

Congratulations to all the Students that passed their Distinctive Snow Diving Course today!!.....ok ok it was only a little bit of snow but quite a bit for Portsmouth. Well done to the students that passed the PADI Open Water Course and the PADI Scientific Diving Techniques Speciality Course

Horsea Island - Latest Update

The good news is that Horsea Island is not going to be closing. There was a rumour that the military were going to be stopping the use of the lake by civilian recreational divers. Many of you will have signed the petition that was produced at the booking office. I have to be honest and say it is not the first time that I have heard such rumours, but the last time I was sat on the other side of the fence as the person running the military training and negotiating the contracts with Andark on behalf of the MOD! I suspect it will raise its head again in the future unfortunately - that is the nature of the beast. However, for now, HIDC have a concession to continue to operate and we hope it continues.

There have been a few additional restrictions placed on diving in the lake though and I received the following from Karen at HIDC:
"As many of you will know we have recently been campaigning to keep Horsea Island Dive Centre open as a civilian dive site, and for all the support, you, our valued customers have given us we are thankful. So it’s now with a big sigh of relief that we can announce that Horsea will be OPEN at weekends 0800-1630. There are however, some changes to the rules, firstly we will only have access to the small toilet block at the top of Zone 3 (ask any staff if you are unsure about the location), and we will now be using Zone 2 (Sea Survival) changing facilities as our primary toilets/showers.

The second change is that security will be stepped up; we will now be requiring photo ID upon entry to the site. The other security change will be that we will now be escorting people on the site, to make this work efficiently can we ask that groups arrange to meet at the booking office at the same time.

Sadly currently we are closed midweek due to continuing military operations, we hope that we can gain access to the site Wed-Fri again soon, however this does not affect your bookings, if you wish to make a booking, you can still call/email/fax us during the week and a member of staff will be here"

So, a bit of a walk for a pee and you will need to bring some ID with you but otherwise business as usual.