December Newsletter

The last newsletter of the year is available on the website. Loads of stuff, including new drysuits, report from the Christmas Ball, online training info and lots more. Click here to get your copy. And have a Happy New Year!

Scuba Santas 2009

The guys are back from the Scuba Santas event and apparantly around 190 turned up in total so they managed to break the record. You are all completely barking. Well done to Martin and Amy at Vobster Quay for putting on the event and to everyone who took the time to dress up and jump in in aid of the RNLI.

Moose Milk - Christmas 2009

The Moose milk flowed and the sausage rolls and mince pies went down very well yesterday. A steady stream of friends, customers and club members popped in to share a Christmas drink with us and it was great to see so many of you. If you are wandering out and about today enjoying the December sunshine, there is plenty more food and drink available today so please feel free to drop by. If we don't see you, from everyone here at Triton Scuba we would like to wish you a very merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Congratulations to our new open water and drysuit divers

It was a bit nippy to say the least, but well done to everyone who passed courses with us over the weekend. We had two courses running, drysuit and open water, and in spite of the chilly Northerly wind that came through everyone had a really good time. Picture shows the open water course - to tag yourself go to the facebook fan page by clicking here.

Triton Scuba TV Appearance

Following on from the wreck sinking on the BBC Series "LIFE", we were on the telly again last night. CBBC "Inside LIFE" aired the programme that we worked on both in the UK and the Bahamas. The programme showed scenes in the Bahamas cleaning and sinking wrecks, as well as James learning to dive here at the centre, before finally going to dive the wreck that he helped to get ready for sinking. If you missed it then you can view LIFE by going here, and the CBBC Inside LIFE programme by clicking here. Enjoy.

Christmas Ball 2009

What a geat party. It was a full house at the Royal Beach with around 120 turning up for a fantastic night of eating drinking and generally having fun. The raffle on the night raised £520 for our chosen charity "Water Aid". Pictures have been posted onto the the Triton Scuba Facebook Gallery - its on the new fan page which you can get to by clicking here. Feel free once you are a fan to comment, tag people you know and upload your own pictures.

November Newsletter

The November newsletter has been published on the website. Go to the members area or alternatively click here. Plenty of information including holiday reports from Dahab, kit news from DEMA and the latest from PADI on training. In addition there is news about forthcoming social events. Loads going on so make sure you down load your copy.

Well that was a busy weekend ....

Two open water courses, an advanced open water course and a rather windy RYA Level 2 - talk about busy. Well done to everyone who passed courses this weekend. Conditions with the wind and rain were not brilliant so a very special well done to all of you.

LIFE - A compilation on You Tube

As you may remember, we were involved in the BBC LIFE Series "Creatures of the Deep" over the past couple of years. As the programme is on the telly tomorrow I thought I would put together a compilation of clips and stills that I took when i was there. Unfortunately I didn't keep everything and the video footage was only done on a Fuji compact. Not only that but I couldn't use flash when Mike Pitts was filming. However, it does give you an idea of what we got up to.

Southsea Sub-Aqua Club Presentation

I have just had a note from Southsea SAC. They have a talk at their club house at Fort Widley at 9.00 pm on 10th December by the Royal Navy Bomb Disposal team who disposed of the bomb they found during the summer. The team will be talking about some of their other escapades and as someone who has been involved in this particular activity those escapades are numerous, so it will be well worth going. The talk is free but the club will be asking for donations to charity on the night. If you would like to go please contact Alison via email on secretary@southseasubaqua.org.uk

Back from Dahab

We're back. Another brilliant club holiday and once again our usual November pilgrimage to Dahab. 21 of us travelled from a gloomy UK to enjoy some great diving in the Sinai. There were some good social events as well with the group getting together most evenings to have some fun. Significant events ..... there were plenty and there will be a full report in the next newsletter, but several spring to mind .... more mossie bites than you can shake a stick at, optional regulators during descents, karaoke mayhem and a wonderful love story that never quite got off the ground (in spite of some frollicking around in the pool). Intrigued? Then make sure you read the next newsletter. Photos have been posted on the facebook site and the gallery

Halloween Photos loaded onto gallery

Sorry they are a bit late but I have finally got around to loading some photos from the Halloween party onto the website. It was a cracking night (aren't all our club nights?) with lots of people making the effort to get dressed up and with some outstanding food - thanks to Paul at the Royal beach for that. If you want to see the images from the night go to the gallery on the website or click here

Quick Update

Just got back from DEMA and flying out to Egypt tomorrow so thought I would post a quick update. Halloween night was another scarily brilliant function. Lots of people went to a lot of effort to get dressed up. Some didn't but it really didn't matter as it was just great fun. The party went on till the early hours. Photos from the night will be posted on the website when I get back.

The dive centre is still busy even though we are now only weeks away from Christmas with courses galore.

DEMA was a little smaller than usual (still about 4 times the size of the LIDS) which is probably a reflection on the economic crisis - some of the big players like Oceanic and Scubapro had dramatically downsized their stands. It says something when my good friends Mr and Mrs Weezle have a floor space and stand bigger than Aqualung! The news from PADI at the Course Directors update was interesting, including more online training, a revised instructor manual and IDC and lots more developments. The next newsletter will have more details at the end of the month.

So tomorrow morning I am off with the group to Dahab for a week of fun and frolics and of course some excellent diving. We will tell you all about it when we get back - until then byeeee.

New Inland Dive Site

We have found a new diver training site in the Portsmouth area – and it’s right on our doorstep! For years we have been going past Canoe Lake without realising that it was actually 7m deep (ish). We always thought that it was just an ornamental pond, but how wrong we were. The lake has a huge amount of wildlife living on and around it, not least some ducks and swans who congregate together in the evening for feeding (see picture above). Ian and Zara went for a recce of the site (see other picture below) and they reckon we can use it for a whole range of training programmes in the future including Deep (Ian took his shovel and thinks he could have a hole down to 18m by this time next year), the Wreck speciality (we know several model boats have been sunk over the years) and Fish ID (it has some crabs at the moment but we hope to throw in a few haddock and cod - without the wrapping).

This is a fantastic addition to the local inland dive sites available and one that some divers might enjoy. If you want to dive it please let us know.

Oh Oh - been neglecting the BLOG

Oops - I have been neglecting the blog. Must be something to do with the loads of things that are going on. Right, so where are we ..... nearly at the end of October. Right this month there has been the normal number of courses going on including open water rescue and nitrox as well as a few specialities. And we have taught a Gas Blending course (which we have not done for a while). On the instructor training side of life I ran another IDC (3rd this year amazingly) and had 3 successful candidates.

In the middle of the month we were invited to the launch of the BBC "LIFE" series in Bristol which was great fun (see the photo with some of the team from the Bahamas). Some of the people I had not seen since we started filming years ago (and some even before the filming started!) and it was great to meet up again. The "beeb" took over a nice restaurant/bar in Bristol and after we had had a few drinks we sat and watched the first programme! Kind of a conversation stopper and everyone was trying to find out who had done what! It was not a programme we had been involved in so didn't expect to be in it.

Elsewhere ... we went to the dive show for the first time in a number of years. It was good to meet up with some old friends as well as promote the new boats for next season. Loads of interest I have to say.

Other really interesting stuff ... well Zara bought a drysuit, we became an Advanced Powerboat Training Centre and can also offer instructor courses in powerboating, oh and we published the holidays for next years and virtually filled the trip to Scapa in 4 days. As well as Scapa Flow we have trips in 2010 to Egypt, and the Philippines.

September Newsletter

September's Newsletter is now available online. Click here to download a copy.

1 October Club Night

It was a busy club night yesterday. Over 70 club members and guest turned up for a plate of curry and a social. So busy in fact that we ran out of chairs! It was lovely to see a few new members, welcome to Debbie's fab 4, and as well as some members who we have not seen for ages - good to see you George and Penny. The usual rafle raised another £68 for our charity and many congratulations to DJ who won a prize - told you that I would give you a mention.

Amazingly the next "normal" club night is actually in February 2010 as we have the Halloween Party at the end of this month (so no November club night) and the Christmas Ball at the beginning of December and Phil Short (adventurer and cave diver) coming along to the club night on 7 January. Now that is a busy club!

Dives Planned 3 and 4 October

Weather permitting, and lets hope that this holds out for a while, we will be running 2 dive trips on both days over the weekend. Saturday we are doing the Highland Brigade in the morning. Around 30m, it is a big wreck with loads to see. Cost for that one will be £30. The Saturday afternoon dive will be something shallower, the Camswan, at about 18m max. cost for that will be £25.

On the Sunday we will be doing the Prince Leopold in the morning at around 30m and Tanks and Dozers (or possibly the Eldridge/Crab rocks) at less than 18m in the afternoon. Both these dives cost £30. If you want to book give us a call in the dive centre.

Change of Name - Triton RIB becomes "Rebellion"

Even though Triton Scuba has been around now for 12 years, and even though we had a 5.5m RIB called Triton in 1998, we have decided to changed the name of the 7.5m CobraRIB. The main reason - well I have already met 2 other boats called Triton out on the Solent - one a lovely little hard boat operating out of Chichester, and the other being owned by a dive club on the IOW. So, to prevent confusion, we decided to have a name change. The problem was - to what? One idea was to call it "Wassaaaaap" but that was just to see whether QHM would go for it on radio checks and things - childish but really funny! Another idea was to call it "go for it" - for similar childish reasons so that when we asked to cross the Harbour QHM could say, "go for it, go for it". We thought about having a competition, but thought that would take ages. Eventually we settled on "Rebellion" - not sure why, but we think it kind of fits with "Renegade". Name changes always have to be done with champagne (excellent) and we will be doing that in due course - no not smashing the bottle, drinking it. Rebellion is next in line for refit and during the winter period will be fitted with a cylinder rack and ladder.

Both Boats busy in Portland over the weekend

We picked up Renegade from refit in the Hamble and basically came down the river and turned right. About 1 hour 45 minutes later we were in Portland - straight out of refit and straight into use. There were loads of things going on over the weekend and around 25 club members and students going diving so we needed 2 boats and even had to hire in a skipper to drive one of them. Many congratulations to everyone who finished courses with us, (be it the Deep Course, Open Water, SMB or PPB) at the weekend and for all the guys who were experience diving we hope you enjoyed the weekend as much as we did and look forward to seeing you next time.

So, Renegade is now up and running and is the fastest and biggest rib operating in the Solent for dive charters. She has two bottle racks a ladder so you can get out easily and even some seats so not everyone has to sit on the tubes. She has space for around 20 cylinders with ease and with a full compliment of divers and equipment cruises comfortably at 30 knots. With dive prices starting at £20 it is a pretty cost effective way of going diving as well.

She will hopefully be out this weekend with 4 wreck dives planned for the Saturday and Sunday, weather permitting. If you want to come and try her out give us a call.