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.