Whirlwind liveaboard

What can I say? A fantastic week of diving, a fantastic bunch of people and a fantastic boat. It was so good that we've already booked next years trip for a Southern Red Sea trip, and also a another boat that will do the Northern Red Sea Wrecks and Reefs.

A full trip report will be on the website in the next couple of days so keep an eye out for that. Just a little taster of some of the fantastic photo's that'll be posted soon on the site; the pod of dolphins that we spent nearly 10 minutes playing with.

If you'd like details of the trips next year then give the dive center a call.

SMB Workshop

Horsea was a sea of inflatables this morning when ten club members took advantage of the first workshop of the year and learnt all about using and deploying SMBs. Workshops are free to club members and there will be more coming up this year including Bouyancy, Rescue and Equipment Workshops. The Bouyancy workshop will be on 15th June. Please contact the dive centre if you'd like to join in.

Summer is here - and we're really busy

Summer sems to have arrived, for the moment anyway, so the students all came back with slightly red faces at the weekend. There were rescue courses and open water courses finishing at horsea, so it was busy. Well done to all the students who completed those courses. On the Saturday morning the 20 club members heading off to Egypt for a week all met up for some smoked salmon and champers before the off - well you might as well. We are going to be on board Whirlwind and we think that there is internet access onboard, so hopefully Ian, who is running the trip, will be able to send us some regular reports and snapshots. We will post a full report in the Newsletter when they get back.

Scientific Diving Techniques

Congratulations to all 10 students who passed their PADI distinctive speciality in Scientific Diving Techniques. The course was originally designed for the university as part of the marine biology course, but its popularity has spread to a whole load of other faculties. It offers the chance for recreational divers to have an insight into some of the things that commercial and research divers get up to and they get to have a go at some of the techniques. There are spaces on the last course of the year which starts on 31 May and runs over 2 weekends. You dont have to be a university student to do, it so if you want to try something different, and gain a pretty unique PADI cert, why not give it a go.

Injuries everywhere

Last week it was poor old Simon Lamb - nearly fatally wounded when he plunged a stanley knife at least 3mm into his hand. And the accidents seem to be escalating. Ian managed to put a huge hole in his finger that broke the skin and bled for nearly 5 seconds, I snagged a bit of skin on my thumb (which was really stingy) and Donk broke a finger nail. Thankfully, paramedics were on the scene to save our lives just in time.

A Cracking Club Night - John Bevan evening

It was another excellent club night and presentation. Numbers were slightly down for one reason and another but there were still over 70 people at the function. We held the presentation in the Victory room of the Royal Beach - a new facility and very well decked out. John spoke on the history of diving in the area and it went down extremely well. We also raised quite a bit for charity had have donated £200 to the Historical Diving Society

It was very nice to see members from Southsea SAC, Portsmouth East, Cockleshell, and Portsmouth Univ Divers as well as our own club members.

Not sure what the next presentation will be - we are working on it.

Next club meeting will be on 5 June