Rain what rain

Braving the great british weather over the weekend, another 8 Portsmouth University students passed the PADI distinctive speciality Scientific Diving Techniques. Well done. Congratulations to all 24 students who have succesfully completed the course this year.

In more drier conditons, 8 students succesfull completed the academic and confined components of the Open Water Diver course. Watch this space for further details of their progress.

Dads and Lads

We 'teamed up' with City Boys school and gave some of the pupils and their dads a taster of Scuba diving. As the photo shows they thoroughly enjoyed themselves with a couple signing up to complete the Open Water Diver course. Well done guys.

Triton undecided whether to buy shares in Threshers

With 10 students completing their EFR, 8 students in Horsea doing their Open Water and 8 students doing their Advanced Open Water, the local Threshers did very good business this weekend providing celebratory drinks.

Another Scientific and Technical Speciality Course finished last weekend. Well done to everyone that completed the course.....in the wind.....rain....and odd bit of sunshine.

Bahamas Update

The boat for the Bahama's project has now been found. So we are now going out to the Bahama's to look at sites to sink the boat, and to organise it to be cleaned etc. Once the site has been found a camera team will be going out in August to capture the sinking of the boat. More news when we return from the Bahamas.

Enham Try Dives

On the 10th May we took another group from Enham for trydives. All had a thoroughly enjoyable time and also as a result of previous try dives for Enham two of the students have completed their open water this month.

Scientific Techniques Speciality Gets Underway

It was fun and frolics at Horsea last weekend with the first of our Scientific Diving Techniques speciiality courses taking to the water. The course is unique and has been designed for the university to support the marine biology, environmental science, civil engineering and sports science degree level curriculum.

The 4 day programmes covers a range of topics including survey, report writing and construction, as well as traditional subjects like search and recovery. About 30 students have booked onto the course this year.

April Newsletter on line

The April edition of the Newsletter is available for download if you didnt get one through the post. Click here to go to the web page.

Charity Donations

Just to let you know that this week we have sent off cheques to the following charities:
Lifeboats - £500
Rowans Hospice - £1000
Rainbow Centre - £1000
Project AWARE - £500

And many thanks to everyone at the club night last night who helped us raise another £94 for good causes.

May 2007 Club Night

Well monthly meetings seem to be all the rage sudddenly and it was another good club night at the Royal Beach last night. Numbers were slightly down at 60 but it was still a good social gathering with excellent food and company. Monthly club meetings are a great way to meet up with like minded people for a chat and a few drinks so why not pop along if you havent been yet. Dont forget that plenty of food is laid on free of charge for club members (and only £5 for guests) but we ask that you let us know if you are coming so that we can make sure there is enough. The next monthly club meeting will be on 7th June. See you there.

Does my bum look big in this?

New mystery man spotted at a Dive Master trainee session. Be afraid be very afraid!

Trip to Portland

With the viz in the Solent about 1m, some of the club members decided to have a little trip to Portland. We 'teamed up' with Fathom and Blues who looked after us a treat.

The first dive was on the Countess of Erne with viz of about 7m and water temperatures a balmy 11 degrees. Second dive was a drift at Durdle Door; viz was about 5m with a 2 knot current.

Unfortunatly due to a misjudgment in breaking distances Phil had to 'team up' with the AA to recover his car on the way home!!! Nice!

Wednesday Night is Pool Night!

Wednesday pool night is back on for all club members!

Come and use St Edmunds pool whether it be for testing out your new kit, refreshing those rusty skills, the use of the pool is free on a wednesday evening from 8-9pm.

Pop in to the shop or give us a call to reserve your place as spaces are limited.

Speciality of the Month!

Search and Recovery!

There are still spaces on the Search and Recovery speciality this weekend!

A challenging adventure that will enhance your navigation skills as you learn how to find that mask that inadvertantly 'fell' overboard. Find out about planning search and recovery dives and learn how to use lift bags to retrieve sunken objects.

A speciality suitable for all levels of divers.

Only £129 for club members for the whole weekend.

Call in to the shop to pick up your manual

Lights, Cameras ....... and Action!

Hollywood here we come. Triton provided actors and equipment for some in water and underwater filming for Discovery Chanel at the weekend. The filming was for an episode of "True Heroes" about a group of fishermen in Florida who rescued some people from a car after it crashed into a river. Naturally the 5 club members and staff who volunteered could not miss the opportunity to fly over to Florida to rub shoulders with the stars .... ah, yes, it might well of happened in Florida, and the local footage was taken a few weeks ago, but on this occasion we just need a lake where we can dump a car and stage some rescues. ..... So Horsea lake will be fine! Ok, so Horsea was not exactly Florida as far as film locations go, but with a few special effects I'm sure you won't know the difference. The day was full of luvvies and darlings, cries of "where is my trailor", "I cant work in these conditions" and "I am an actooooor dont you know". With Ian hamming it up so much he needed to be reprimanded for over acting, and Julie's big moment resulting in something that you will probably see on a TV out-takes in a few years it was a day of fun. Far from just hanging around in the background, the guys were all very much in the action. I have posted some images from the day in the gallery and there are a few in the slide show below .... and will let you know when the programme goes on air. Bunch of posers!

Twin Set Course Successes!

Triton recently started offering a new PADI distinctive speciality - Twin Set Diver. This weekend the first five students qualified. After a session or two in the pool, we set off to Horsea this morning and did the open water element of the course. All five of us thought that the course was a fantastic introduction to twin-set diving. It is not a technical course (so no decompression theory to go into), what it does do is introduce the ideas of having redundancy in dive kit, equipment configuration and thinking more about what we actually need to complete a dive in terms of gas consumption. All in all it was thoroughly enjoyable.....and yes.....the kit is a little heavy (slighter built girls especially) but its not unmanageable and in the water feels great. I think the photo says it all in terms of climbing out afterwards BUT as one of the weakest (pathetic) people in the club - hey I managed it so if its something that appeals then please contact us. We are running it at the same discounted price to club members for the next course. Well done to everybody that passed.

Spring Ball

It was another fun packed evening at the Queens Hotel on 24th March with the dive club's spring ball. Yes, the re-named Valentine ball was a great success. As usual it was a bit of a "classy do" with Jazz band "Out of the Blue" entertaining us during dinner, followed by dancing for the rest of the evening. Having missed the Christmas function Kevan was once again terrorizing the dance floor and took an unfair advantage of the fact that there were a few new members who had not been dragged up to tango previously. The raffle raised £500 and many thanks to David Reed for the donation of the iPod, Oceanic for the wetsuit, and to everyone else who either donated prizes or bought tickets. Please remember that there is no club night in April, so the next time we meet will be 3 May. And dont forget that spaces for the Summer Ball are going quickly so if you want to go let us know.

Finally, I have posted some of the photos from the night on the gallery, but thought I might let this one on the right go for a caption competition. Any thoughts to me in the dive centre please.

Here's one to start off with ..... do you think they call this Kara"toe"ke ?

£100 off Ladies BCD

Oceanic Isla's Ladies BCD £100 off RRP. While stocks last.
Available in: small, medium, large.

We are now an official Atomic dealership!

Atomic now presents the strongest and most indestructible two-lens mask ever. So durable it has a lifetime warranty against frame breakage and so good it is the last mask you will ever need to buy. The strength comes from a patented internal SubFrame which provides incredible strength as well as eliminating the bulky external frame.

Available in a range of colours with the option of prescription lenses.

Pop in to the shop to view what must be the smartest mask in town!

PADI Twin Set Speciality Courses Coming Up

The first of our twin set courses are now planned. A bit short notice I'm afraid. These first courses are only open to club members. Details are:
Course 1 - Pool orientation 28 March, Open Water dives 31 March
Course 2 - Pool orientation 29 March, Open Water dives 1 April
If you want to book on one of the courses let me know as soon as possible. Spaces are limited.