Open Water and PADI Deep Diver Speciality Success

Many congratulations to our newest batch of 6 open water students who successfully completed their training with us yesterday. Also to the divers on the Deep Diver Specilaity that was held at Chepstow (for a change).

Egypt "Whirlwind" Trip and Malta Photos

Just to let you know, the photos of the Egypt "Whirlwind" trip in May and the Malta trip in June are now in the gallery. Sorry it has taken a while to get them posted - could say it was due to a technical hitch, but in reality we have just been really busy and not had the time to do it. I have also published the trip report for Malta in the holiday section.

More course success

Many congratulations to all the students over the last couple of weeks who have passed courses. With the water temperature in Vobster a tropical 18 degrees and visibility nearing 10 meters everyone had a great time, and special congratulations to Connie who qualified as Junior Scuba Diver. Well done.

Two more PADI Instructors

Many congratulations to Andy and Phil on successfully completing the final parts of the Instructors Exam yesterday. Andy, an experienced BSAC Advanced Instructor, and Phil, who is equally experienced on the military and commercial diving side of life, both had a bit of bad luck in Bristol last month and had to come back and do one segment of the 2 day exam. We were there to encourage and support them and as our very busy season continues, we look forward to seeing them teaching in the dive centre in due course. Well done guys.

wah hay ... it's bloomin windy!

Yes the weather was a tad on the blowy side, but it didn't stop us. An all girl course finished with 2 Scuba Divers and 3 Open Water divers. It was a bit of a trek because with Horsea closing we had to go slightly further afield but once the logistics had been sorted out it all went well.
The wind and the weather threatened to blow out our try dive pool at Gunwharf, but we got lucky. The sun was shining on the Saturday and after about 12.00 on the Sunday it dried up and the kids started jumping in. So while it would have been nice to have had great sunshine and no wind or rain it didn't dampen spirits and was still a great success. Many thanks to everyone who helped us out over the weekend - we hope you had some fun.

Finding out your ancestory ....

We saw many amazing things on the Malta trip. What was amazing was that we also found out a bit about our selves and our ancestory! Take Becci for example:

Becci is an excellent diver as this image shows ...she has excellent buoyancy, is comfortable in the water and is great fun.

But we reckon it also showed an amazing similarity to something else. We were not sure what exactly; there was something about the posture, maybe the suit she was wearing, but we didn't have the answer. Then it came to us and here as the best we could come up with ...... what do you think?

No rest.....!

Well we all came back from Malta yesterday after a thoroughly good holiday - trip report coming soon, but we'll leave out the gross bit about Chris eating the beetle, not convinced that survival training skills were a neccessity in Malta! - and came back to 4 students finishing their PADI Advanced Open Water, 8 finishing their PADI Open Water course and yet more students in the pool starting their Open Water Course. Congratulations to you all!

More Open Water Students and off to Malta

Last weekend saw 17 club membersa fly off to Malta and 7 new open water divers!

Is there something we should know ......?

We forgot to mention this .... Last Thursday when the beeb were here, our good friend Simon from Oceanic rocked up in his nice new van. And a lovely van it is as well - covered in great images, loads of stock and with a bit of sponsorship from PADI thrown in. Simon (who we have to admit takes a bit of stick when he comes to visit) has eventually passed his driving test and with a Yorkie bar in one hand, the steering wheel in the other, he can now be seen eating up the miles around the country.

On closer inspection we noticed that the van not only holds loads of gear that we can spend our money on, but also has a bedroom area above the cab so that Simon can get a good nights sleep in between taking in those orders and making divers happy. We just wondered ..... given the description of the said sleeping area (see image below), what does he dream about???? Is there something you want to tell us Simon?

Speciality Instructor Training

Crikey - what a busy weekend it was. As well as 6 students starting an OW course the other programme that was running was the Speciality Instructor Course. 4 of our recent IDC candidates undertook the training which culminated in 2 days at Horsea this weekend. The training programme which is run by a Course Director is designed to provide instructors with an insight into the logistics, planning and conduct of speciality courses. The students covered 7 programmes in total; wreck, deep, navigation, drysuit, search and recovery, nitrox and one of our distinctive speciality course, twinset diver. Hopefully, we might see them teaching these programmes around the dive centre in the future. Well done guys.

Rescue Diver Fun

5 candidates successfully passed their Rescue Diver training course this weekend at Horsea. There was plenty of "diver diver are you ok" going on and some good weather made it a really fun as well as educational time. It was good to see Cam back in the water as well as "the body". And I am sure she will be glad to know that I decided not to photoshop the course photo! It was tempting though, and there is still a newsletter to go out. Well done to all the candidates.

Master Scuba Diver Success

Many congratulations to Michael Gear and Simon Lamb who have joined that elite band of Master Scuba Divers when the completed their Rescue Diver training this weekend. To achieve the highest non-professional dive training rating, candidates must complete the rescue course and 5 specialities. And neither of them injured themselves while they finished off the rescue course .... remarkable.

Can't Dive ..... or Drive!

Several years ago car and van manufacturers came up with a brilliant idea. The worked out that if you put mirrors on the sides you can see what you are doing when you go backwards. Incredible! Unfortunately one instructor missed this particular point during his driving training as you can see. And guess who it was ..... Timeeeeeeeeee! Can't believe his company let him have a mercedes.

All sorts of stuff ....

It has been a bit manic this week with various things including courses, first aid training, and the BBC - so time for a bit of a catch up.

Last weekend saw the last of our Scientific Diving Techniques courses finish - and our first students on the course who were not studying at the university. Five in total finished the training so well done to all of them. That is it for this year on those courses, but we hope to bring news of a new distinctive speciality in the summer.

Our six IDC candidates all arrived in Bristol for the Instructor Examination, all somewhat apprehensive not unaturally given the occasion. James turned up having come off a night shift at 4 that morning which was not ideal! Throughout the weekend all the candidates did extremely well and worked incredibly hard, just as they had during the IDC. Unfortunately, a bit of bad luck, exam nerves, whatever the cause (ironically to probably the most experienced candidates in the group) meant that 2 of the group will have to pop back in a month to resit one of the sections. No great shakes, it happens and we will be with them and supporting them at the next IE. To the other 4 candidates it was plain sailing and we wish you every success in the future. The whole team will be back this weekend for speciality instructor training. The whole team also qualified as EFR instructors during their IDC , during which they used their skills and knowledge to good effect. This allows them to teach the primary and secondary care, care for children and the "add-ons" (because they are not stand alone programmes) of AED and O2.

The BBC came to visit on Thursday for a morning of filming ahead of the Bahamas in July. The aim was to get some footage showing how the star (known as the "contributor") learned to dive ahead of his trip when we will take him to dive the amazing wreck we sank last year. The fiming went really well; James remembered all his stuff from his course and the Director was happy enough. We will let you know how the Bahamas bit goes in August when we get back.

So that pretty much brings you up to speed. This weekend as well as the MSDT prep we have a rescue course and an open water starting so we let you know how that goes.

Well Done to our New Open Water Students - and Charlie!

Another 4 Open Water Students passed at the weekend. Many congratulations to all of them. And a particularly big WELL DONE to young Charlie (Aged 10), who successfully managed to get his Junior Scuba Diver qualification.

IDC Finishes - next week it's the Instructors Exam

The IDC that has been running for the past 10 days finished yesterday. It has been a great course even though it has been hard work. The final open water session was at Horsea with everyone getting excellent scores. Next weekend all 6 candidates are off up to Bristol for the two day instructors exam. We will let you know how they get on, but given how well they all did on the IDC we are very hopeful for a full house of passes.

Advanced Course

Well done to our Advanced Open Water Course Students who sucessfully passed at the end of May.

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

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.

Easter Successes

Well we've had a bit of everything this weekend, sunshine, showers, hail, sleet, snow but the courses battled through.

Congratulations to the students that passed their Advanced Open Water courses......

......and dry suit course

......and Open Water Courses.

Talk by John Bevan - 1 May

Just to remind you, John Bevan is kindly going to be giving a talk on 1 May on the History of Diving in the Solent. This is starting to fill up so get your tickets as soon as you can. The talk will be at the Royal Beach Hotel and will be followed by a meal and a social event. The cost is £5 to club members and £11 for non club members - all proceeds go to charity. For more details and to book tickets click here

Southsea BSAC Club Talk - 2 April

Just to let you know, Southsea Sub Aqua Club are also having a presentation evening, this one is going to be on 2 April. Former Southsea SAC President John Towse has kindly offered to talk about his diving experiences at the start of recreational scuba diving in the 50's, 60's ... to date with lots of local diving history. As it's a SSAC talk, it will be at the Southsea SAC Club at 8.00pm at Fort Widley. If you want to go can you let Alison Mayor know - their website address is southseasubaqua.org.uk. Or you can give us a call at the dive centre and I will let her know - she lives lives next door to my mum and dad!

Sport Relief 16 March

The Triton Team got up early after the spring ball (and there were a few sorry looking faces) and incredibly everyone who said they would turn up and do it did! We met at the dive centre to get changed and then drove up to the Mountbatten Centre. The organizers thought we were mad - and so did we, but we all went around the 4 laps of the track in Scuba Gear. Some of us started off in fins but this foolish idea only lasted for a few hundred metres. There were some outrageous burst of energy from several team members - which generally coincided with the proximity of the crowds and the cameras! Bunch of posers!

With some good heliox mixtures and plenty of O2 going around from the "hangover" cylinders the majority of us managed to put the slightly fuzzy feeling to one side.

Needless to say we came in last - and those that chose to carry 12 litre cylinders were glad to see the finish line! A bit of a shock to the system I know - we even got beaten by a giant chipmunk! But we didn't care - we raised around £800 between us, had some fun and cleared away the hangovers. After the run the team went to a local pub The Duke of Bukingham in Old Portmouth for a sedate Sunday lunch to nurse our aching heads..... and a few pints of lager to numb the pain.

Well done to everyone who took part and thanks to everyone that sponsored the team.

Spring Ball - 15 March 2008

Well over 100 turned up for the Spring Ball on Saturday evening. The weather was atrocious, but it didn't dampen spirits as we partied into the early hours of the morning. We had a jazz band (many thanks again Steve) to play us through an excellent dinner and then the disco took over. The raffle was well supported and many thanks to Andi Davies, David Hyde, Margaret Reed, Bob and Kerstin, and The Royal Beach for their generous donations. The raffle raised £405! Astonishingly 4 of the guests had birthdays on the same day, so we decided to give them a gift of Sunday lunches for 2 at the Royal Beach - just to say happy birthday.

The plan was to have an early night as quite a few of us had the Sport Relief run the following day - 3.30 in the morning and some were getting worried about how they might feel. It was another really good night - photos are in the gallery.

Course Success

Congratulations to all the students who have passed their Open Water course this weekend. High praises all round from Wyndham - apparently you were all bl**dy good.....apart from Darren's coffee making skills....... :-)

More Open Water Success

Well done to all the students who successfully completed their open water training this weekend. It was particularly impressive as they also managed to cope with Timmeeeees new gingery, yellowy, greeny hair without being sick!

Building more links with the Community

This half term just gone we once again laid on some try dives for kids at the Pyramids. Its a free event that gives them something exciting to do as well as an insight into the underwater world. And, this week we have undertaken some training with Cowplain school providing try dives for some of the youngsters. Many of them have expressed an interest in doing a full course - if they do we will let you know how they all do.

Support to Portsmouth University Divers

We wanted to say well done to the team from Portsmouth University Divers (the PADI club based at the uni) who completed a relay underwater marathon a few days ago. The team swam the distance of 26 and a bit miles at Victoria pool. We were pleased help out by providing all the air and cylinders for the event which raised several hundred pounds for charity. Well done guys.

Team Oceanic ....... or is it Team EasyJet?

Oceanic are always very generous when we go to seminars. In the past we have had fleeces, t-shirts, I was given a wonderful undersuit ... hey, we even had a sheep on a keyring once! This year they once again splashed out and we were all given very nice IQ Jackets which were worn throughout the weekend. Many thanks to Kelvin for that, and Dad says thanks as well. However, the question we all wanted to know is whether Team Oceanic is being sponsored by a. Team EasyJet, or b. Team Holland. As you can see during the champagne stop at the Tunnel (Jane as always left holding the bottle!), they certainly stand out!

Another Dealer Award - in Belgium!

We went to Belgium at the weekend with Oceanic along with around 10 other dive centres for their annual seminar and dealer awards bash. Once again we won an award (getting to be a regular thing now!) as one of the top Oceanic Dealers in the UK. Previously the function has been held at a swish hotel in Taunton, but this year for a change, they decided to take the top dealers to Belgium and combine it with a tour of the region and some of the battlefields and cemeteries. On the Sunday evening we went to the "last post" at the Menin Gate, where I was privileged to be asked to lay a wreath. It was an excellent couple of days. Many thanks to John for organising the event and to Kelvin and the rest of "team" Oceanic for being such great hosts.

More Open Water Success

The weekend was busy again as 6 more students braved the pleasures of diving in February and successfully completed their Open Water course. Many congratulations to Gareth, Sam, Andrew, Joanna, Luke and David. We look forward to seeing you again soon.

Congratulations on Passing Open Water Training

Many congratulations to our 6 newly qualified divers who passed their Open Water course at the weekend. Horsea Island lake was a positively tropical 10 degrees on the surface and with our high quality semidry suits everyone did really well in spite of it being a chilly day. We look forward to seeing you on another training programme in the near future, or at a club function. Well done everyone.

Join us for some Sport Relief - 16 March

Some of us are going to be walking, jogging, running or simply staggering for a mile on 16 March in aid of Sport Relief. And just to make it a bit more interesting we thought we would do it in Scuba Gear. If that isnt bad enough, its the morning after the Spring Ball so there might be a few hangovers going around. so why not blow out the cobwebs and join us at the Mountbatten Centre at 11.00 am. You can sign up by logging onto the Sport Relief website (http://www.sportrelief.com/portsmouth-mountbatten-centre-mile). It costs £5 then you can start collecting sponsorship. Once you have signed up why not join the team by looking for Team Triton. If you cant be bothered with all this activity then why not sponsor us by clicking here. Its all in a good cause and just imagine how we are going to feel after a night in the Royal Beach!

Nice to See You

Another good club night last night with just over 60 turning up. Chicken curry made a change and it was good to see some new faces who have recently joined. Many thanks to everyone who bought raffle tickets and donated prizes - we raised another £60 for charity.

Club Presentation - 1 May 2008

We have organized another "presentation" evening for 1 May 2008 and the next guest speaker will be Dr John Bevan. John is a well known diving expert and has given presentations on many topics to some distinguished audiences, so we are very grateful that he has agreed to join us. He has a PhD in the Development of Diving Equipment and is the founding Chairman of the Historical Diving Society. He is a qualified commercial diver, BSAC First Class Diver, and has even clocked up 100 hours in a submersible. His book, The Infernal diver" is the definitive history of diving, covering its development over the years since John and Charles Deane invented the first diving helmet. The title of his presentation on the 1st is going to be "The History of Diving in the Solent" and he assures me that he will be covering the Mary Rose, the Royal George and much more. It wil be another cracking evening and after the talk we will have a meal and the opportunity to socialise over a couple of drinks. This will take the place of the normal club night for May. The cost of the evening wil be £5 for club members and £10 for guests. Once again all the proceeds will go to charity. We will put more information in the next newsletter but in the meantime if you want to know more or book tickets contact the dive centre.

Many Congratulations

Many congratulations to the open water students, Rikkie Close, Alex Benfield, Julian Heelis, Tina Ide who all passed their course last weekend. The word is that the new suits are excellent even in the cold water at this time of year.