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.

Small Business of the Year Award

Triton Scuba were honoured last night to be awarded the Small Business of the Year Award. The awards, sponsored by The News, Business Link and a host of other large organizations, took place at the Guild Hall. Guest speaker was, "they think its all over - it is now" Geoff Hurst who entertained over 500 diners with anecdotes and stories from 1966.

With over 180 nominations it was a great achievement for a small company like ours to come first, especially when you look at some of the competition in the same category. During the presentation, BBC presenter Sally Taylor said that the award recognized our success over the year in a number of our business ventures, and she also mentioned the huge amount of work we have done for charity and within the community over the years.

We would like to thank all the customers, friends and staff who have helped us continue to be the Premier Dive Centre in Portsmouth and now the Best Small Business. More details of the night in this months newsletter.

Congratulations as training gets underway in 2008

We have a full programme of courses planned for the year from Open Water to Instructor. This weekend we got the programme off to a flying start with Open Water and Drysuit starting. And with many courses filling up quickly it looks like being another good year ahead.

Many congratulations to our first drysuit course students of the year who braved the elements and plunged into a freezing Horsea this weekend.

"Making Blue Movies" a Great Success

It was a full house at the Royal Beach hotel for the first club night of the year and the presentation by Mike Pitts. Mike very kindly offered to come along and talk on his experiences as an underwater film maker. Over 100 turned up and it was nice to see so many from some of the other clubs in the area, including, Hampshire Police, Southsea, and Cockleshell Divers. The event was not only great fun, but also raised £400 for charity. On behalf of the club I would like to thank Mike for giving up his time to come and speak to us and making the event such a success. I have posted a couple of images on the website if you want to take a look. We hope to run more events of this type in 2008 so watch this space.