February Newsletter Published

You can download the February Newsletter. Plenty of stuff in it, including reports from Cuba, new kit due out in the next few months, a shocking report on the price of beer in Egypt!, some great holiday deals to Egypt from Oonas as well as some top tips on how to check over your regulators and a plan to raise money for Comic Relief .... plus much much more. Click here to go the newsletter page

Club Night

When: Thursday 5th March 09
Time: 7.30pm
Where:Coast Bar, The Royal Beach Hotel
Why: Cow pie and drinks

Please call; 02392 838 773
or e-mail; helpdesk@tritonscuba.co.uk

to secure your place and food!

New Scubapro Package Deals

It's that time of year where Scubapro have put together their new product packages with massive savings up to 25% off. To make our Scubapro packages even more impressive we are going to throw in a wrist Nitrox computer absolutely FREE!

Click Here for more details

January 2009 Newsletter

The January 2009 Newsletter has been published. for those of you who don't normally get sent a copy you can view it on the website by clicking here. Plenty of good stuff including details of our spectacular Spring club function.

Instructors Meeting and Function

We had one of our regular 6 monthly Instructor and DM meetings last night. We decided to run it in the same way as last time, by holding the meeting at the Noble House restaurant and then having a slap up meal. 20 of our regular instructors and DMs turned up for what was a very successful evening. For those who couldn't make it minutes of the meeting will be sent out to all instructors and DMs, so you will still find out what went on.

First Club Night of 2009

Last night saw around 60 members and guests turn up for the first club night of 2009 for what was a fun social event. As in the past, the main theme for the evening was the raffle of unwanted Christmas presents. The rules were:

• You must wrap the present


• You cannot pick your own (that would just be stupid)


• Once you touch a present its yours (no checking to see if bottles are full or boxes of chocolates are half empty)


• You must take your present away with you - or convince someone else to.

Everyone took to the event with enthusiasm and we were inundated with unwanted presents so the chances were, unless clearly you were called Neal or Helen, that you would win something. There were some cracking gifts; anger management blow up boxing gloves, chinese restaurant calenders - in Spanish (Sue was particularly fond of hers), Rude Origami and willy shaped bath salts - tasteful! The raffle raised £119 which was brilliant and all the money will be given to Water Aid, which as you know is my flavour of the moment when it comes to charities.

To everyone who brought pressies and to everyone who bought tickets - a huge thank you for making it such a fun night and helping raise the money. It was good to see you all and to get the club's year of to such a flying start. Many more club nights to come, and to remind you, the next one is going to be Thursday 5 February. Please let us know if you are coming if you can.

PS - DJ, I promise to put you in the Newsletter ok!

Last Dive of 2008

9 courageous, or was it foolhardy, club members braved some chilly winds to log the last dive of the year from the club RIB down in Portland today. Some of the guys went last night to make the most of Ron and Dale's hospitality at Fathom & Blues. The plan had been to do a couple of shallow dives and one deep one, but with force 4 winds and some less than brilliant vis we decided to keep it safe, stay in the harbour, and make sure that everyone at least got a dive in. A recent letter in Dive magazine highlighted the potential dangers of boats putting divers in even when the vis is crap and we were not going to go down that route. As it was, vis was not brilliant on the Landing Craft, but we made the most of it. Some then braved a second dive on the Countess which was a bit better. A special word has to go out to Debs, Tom and Les who were in wetsuits, to Derek who lost his car keys and held us up for an hour and to Julie, for the best exit routine. Captions for the photo below on a postcard please.

New Open Water Divers

Well done to our new open water divers, Hamish, Elodie, Frank and Nick who passed their course this weekend. Megan (DMT) managed to demo AAS with a bright pink snorkel, Hamish managed to prove that you can can throw through a regulator but apart that and a long day (due to pee breaks by Dale), it was great course. See you all soon.

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.