A Christmas Cracker

Around 115 club members and guests partied long into the night at yet another successful Christmas Ball at the Royal Beach Hotel. With around 40 people staying in the hotel for the night, while the main function wound up at 1.00 am, the "unofficial" party carried on until the early hours - hence a few looking slightly delicate at breakfast this morning. We heard a rumour that some were still in the bar at 6 this morning! Pictures of the event have been posted onto the gallery of the website - if anyone wants copies of higher resolution images just let me know.

Marathon des Sables

I am running the Marathon des Sables in March next year for charity. This is a 151 mile race on foot across the Sahara in 6 days. To find out more about the race, why I am doing it and how you can help, go to my Run the Sahara website by clicking here.

November Newsletter

The November Newsletter has been posted onto the website. Plenty of stuff - Halloween report, Marathon des Sables, IDC report and more. Click here to go to the newsletter page.

Advanced Open Water Course Successes

Congratulations to everyone that passed their PADI Advanced Open Water this weekend. It's been a fun weekend down at Portland and Vobster despite it starting to get a little chilly - it even snowed in Vobster! But the visibility was great and everyone thoroughly enjoyed the dives. Well done to you all!

Winter is here and we celebrate more course success

Definitely got a bit chilly this weekend but the training continued over a busy couple of days. The candidates from the IE completed the Speciliaty Instructor training programme, all 6 qualifying in seven speciality disciplines. At the same time, 6 students completed their Open Water training, 5 qualifying as PADI Open Water Divers, and one as a Scuba Diver. The training on Saturday was from our RIB in Portland and once again the concensus from staff and students alike was that it was excellent to go diving in the sea and from a boat. The Sunday was blown out however, and so we drove the short way to Vobster to finish off, giving everyone the best of both worlds and far more experience than they might have got in some of the murky inland sites. Many congratulations to all the successful candidates - and we look forward to seeing you all again soon.

New Instructors

It was another nerve racking weekend and finger nails were chewed at an alarming rate! But at the end of it, all 5 of our Instructor Candidates did extremely well at the Peterborough IE. There were a few exams nerves initially and it showed, with 3 candidates needing to swot up on the Saturday evening having narrowly missed the pass mark in one of the 5 exams. Unfortunately Nigel narrowly missed the pass mark on 2 exams (as he put it he had a "brain fart") and will be having another bash next month. However, all of them had the confidence to put that to one side and they were off to do their presentations, before heading to the pool. Scores throughout the day on the practical skills were extremly high. On day two we were up early to drive to "Gildy". The first thing was to get over the make up exams - no problem this time around - and then do rescue assessments. Chris decided that he would forget to count to 5 or 6 and decided that 25 seconds was the new interval for rescue breathing!!!! Numbnuts! However, eventually that was all finished successfully and it was time for the Open Water Assessments. All 5 candidates sailed through, with the lowest score being a 4.4 and plenty of 5.0 scores scattered around. It has been a hard slog and all the candidates have worked hard so our congratulations to all of them. It is also a big well done to Zara, who as you know works for us in the Dive Centre ...... and so still has a job!!!

Another IDC Successfully Completed

All the students on our recent IDC have put in a tremendous amount of hard work and effort and have sucessfully completed the training. They are now looking forward (if that is the right phrase) to the exam next weekend. We wish all of them the best of luck and every success. I will post an update in about a week.

IDC Gets Underway

Our third UK based IDC of the year has just got underway. Already the 4 candidates, Zara, Chris, Richard (aka Sharon) and Nigel are getting to grips with the PADI system. They have just gone to Portland for 2 days of open water instructor training and should finish the course on Sunday. The next step will be the weekend of 15/16 November, when they will be joined by Ian Perry who completed the course earlier in the year, for the 2 day Instructors Exam in Peterborough. We will update you as they go along.

Scary.....

Last night's Halloween party was a huge success with around 100 club members turning up in some fantastic cotumes (Ian, I'm not referring to your sheet!). There was blood, bad makeup and even worse wigs galore not to mention some very scary dancing. Photos from last night can be found in the gallery and I'm sure some more will find their way onto facebook. Thank you to everyone that helped to decorate the venue, your efforts are very much appreciated.

The next event is the Christmas Ball on 6th December, which is very full indeed. Please remember to send your menu choices and payment to us by the 21st November.

October Newsletter

The October newsletter has been posted on the members section of the website. Not that long this month, but articles about the John Dory, great deals on Scubapro fins for club members and details about the borneo trip next year. Click here to go to the page.

Advanced Open Water and Nitrox divers

There were 8 successful course passes over the weekend - 4 completed their PADI Advanced Open Water Courses and there were 4 nitrox courses as well. The group started off in Portland on the the Saturday diving off the RIB, but the appalling weather on the Sunday meant that the whole group had to move to Vobster to finish it off. Many congratulations to Brett, Paul, Thomas, Rob, Pauline and Stuart on passing. Unfortunately Rob and Thomas missed the photo opportunity because they had to get to the Pompey game!

Well Done to all the Great South Runners

There was another great turnout of club members and friends for this years Great South run. The weather was diabolical - just for a change - but it didn't dampen spirits too much as everyone ran for their chosen charity. Well done to, Rt Hon Chris, Rosey, Andi, Kim, Ruth, Lamby, the whole Lamby clan, and Terry. I know I have missed some of you out so, let me know, and I shall make sure you get a mention. Many thanks as well to everyone who helped out, supported, or gave sponsorship money, and a huge thanks to Sue, for looking after all the warm stuff so we had something nice to wear when we finished.

Newly Qualified Rescue Divers

Last weekend saw us running a small Rescue Course. The final scenrios were conducted at Portland providing the opportunity to practice shore and boat rescues. It was good training and worked very well - something we might try again either later this year of next. Many congratulations to Jen, Brett and Kat (finally!!) on successfully passing the course.

Portland Diving

A few of us decided to jump onto the RIB yesterday and go for a couple of dives - well the weather forecast was good so why not. We had 2 great dives on Lulworth and the Bombard unit in the harbour. Sorry it was a late notice shout offering the dives, but we just decided to go on the spur of the moment. John Dories are still about in the Harbour as you can see from the photo taken yesterday. I have posted a couple more images on the gallery. If you havent used the new RIB boat, why not come along on the next club trip. The water is still warm by the way.

New Open Water Students

Last weekend was a bit busy with 9 students qualifying as PADI Open Water Divers. The weather was kind which made it an enjoyable weekend and judging by the amount of champagne we got through on the Sunday evening when they all got back, everyone worked up a bit of thirst as well. Well done to all of you, we look forward to seeing some of you at club events and on the advanced course in the near future.

Galapagos Images posted onto the website

I have posted some images from the Galapagos trip onto the website. There were an incredible number of pictures so I have been pretty random about which ones I put up, except that I have tried to get pictures of most people who were there. If you were on the trip and want to post some pictures onto the site from the trip, please let me have them. Maximum of 5 per person please. To view the Galapagos images click here

Loads of images on the gallery

I have been meaning to upload some of the images from my last Bahamas trip onto the Gallery and have just got around to it. The trip was the final Bahamas shoot for the second programme in the LIFE series and is the end of my work in the series which all started when they decided to sink a wreck nearly 2 years ago. The trip also included a lot of filming for"Inside LIFE" (The CBBC series) and young James Murray finally got to dive on the wreck he helped to clean before it was sunk. I have also stuck up some photos from the shoot that was done here at the dive centre just before we went out to Bahamas. These pics are mainly for James but you might be interested. Click here to go to Gallery.

September Newsletter

Sorry about the delay in the September Newsletter. Galapagos got in the way, and then we were rushing around with loads of new students and then I was oop North for the Great North Run. Anyway, it is now finally finished and if you didn't get the email, then click here to go to the web page. It is mainly a report from the Galapaogas trip but then you might expect that. I hope you enjoy it.

Quick Update Before I Rush Off

Back from Galapagos now and the blog has been a bit on the quiet side. I am just popping up to Newcastle for the Great North Run this weekend but I will be back on Tuesday so will post some updates then.

First Advanced Courses from the RIB

The RIB is getting plenty of use - with 9 Advanced Open Water students on course with us last weekend the whole gang, including instructors and DMs went down to Portland for the course. Working in 2 groups all 9 successfully completed 5 dives from the RIB. Their verdict (and that of the instructors) was that it makes a lot of difference and that the students all got so much out of the training as it was based around boat diving in the sea. So, all looking good - later in October we will hopefully be running some speciality programmes from the boat to make the most of this asset.