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.