Divemaster Course for April

We are starting a Divemaster course on the weekend of 12th/13th – 19th/20th of April for all of those wanting to take diving to the next level.
The course consists of some very thorough academics and intense pool sessions on the first weekend and a lot of practical applications and scenarios on the open water session over the following weekend. Although not everyone decides to do the Divemaster course to actively become a Divemaster (and there’s nowt wrong with that), some do, and now is a good time for those individuals as we are actively looking for some new Divemasters to help with the courses during 2003.
If you’re interested in becoming a dive professional and you have the dedication and application needed, then get in touch with the shop as soon as possible so that we can go through the options available to you.

COST £299.00

Club Trips

North Wales – April 5th / 6th

Historically the start of the year for dive centre trips, this jolly up to Wales is the most laid back of all the trips throughout the year. We normally meet on the Friday evening at a local hostelry for cocktails and a thorough briefing of the next couple of days, don’t worry too much if you miss it as it only takes 46 seconds to repeat it verbatim on the Saturday morning. We are going to break with tradition this year and book the B+B’s in the village of Beddgerlert, which is slightly more tourist friendly and has a greater variety of places to eat etc.
We are very dependant on the weather at this time of year so the plan is to go to Dorethea to get a couple of dives on the Saturday and then off to Vivean lake for a couple of dives on the Sunday. In between we will be holding a seminar at Pete’s eats on the Sunday morning all about how to order more chips than you can actually eat, what fun !!!!
This trip, as I’m sure you can guess is more of a get together than a serious dive orientated weekend, but this makes it an ideal trip to get to know each other and have a lot of fun in the meantime. Everyone that goes on this trip has a great time, guaranteed….


PRICE
£35 per day kit hire (if needed)
B+B accommodation (paid direct to B+B)
Any entrance fees


Cornwall – April 25th / 28th

The first trip of the year down to the west country is always a lot of fun, but this year we have scheduled it to miss the plankton bloom and the summer traffic chaos normally associated with the journey down.
We have once again organised the trip through Dive Action of Porthkerris as Gary is one of the most informed skippers in the area and always makes the trip a lot of fun.
Accommodation is at the Parc en Grouse B&B, which as anyone that has ever stayed there will tell you, is a very relaxing and friendly place to stay.
The diving is as much fun for Open Water level divers as it is for more advanced and with wrecks and scenic diving on offer to tempt even the most hardened of divers, it will, as ever, be a great long weekend of fun.

PRICE £199 Includes 3 days boat diving, 3 nights B&B and all air fills.


MALTA

The time to get the sun cream out is nearly upon us and what a trip it’s going to be.
Now to avoid too much jealousy from the poor unfortunates who for whatever reason are unable to join us, I wont go on to long about great viz (50m) fantastic dives from shore on some of the best wrecks in the Mediterranean and great company as it just wouldn't be fair……… Oh well !
For those that don't know we are flying out of Stansted on the 24th June and returning a different colour on 1st July.
We are also offering a few specialities at knock down prices while we are there, but you must let us know now as the places are filling fast.

Night Diver 3 dives normally £129.00 Only £85.00
Wreck Diver 4 dives normally £149.00 Only £89.00
Deep Diver 4 dives normally £149.00 Only £89.00
Boat Diver 2 dives normally £100.00 Only £80.00

Remember if you are already a Rescue Diver or are looking to do the course you only need 5 specialities to become a MASTER SCUBA DIVER.
Important - you require a medical certificate from your GP to dive in Malta - no certificate - no diving. Check with the shop for details.
(The Evelyn Hospital do diving medicals at good prices - cheaper than my GP anyway - Ed.)

COST
£469.00
includes B+B accommodation in a 3 Star hotel, Flights, Transfers, 5 days guided diving, Minibus transportation and the pleasure of my company.
(£69.00 deduction for non divers)


CYPRUS 23rd – 30th August

A new destination for the dive club this year with the trip to Cyprus confirmed and booked.
We fly direct to Larnaca, as the resort we are staying at is right on the seafront, where we are collected from the airport by the dive centre and taken directly to our luxury self-catering apartments.
The next day we start the weeks diving on a multitude of dive sites open to us including the famous wreck of the Zenobia, although many other great sites are available over 5 days boat diving.
Each afternoon we return to the resort where we can choose from an array of restaurants and nightspots all within a few hundred yards of the accommodation, before deciding on the next days activities.
This trip really does include one of the worlds great wrecks in the Zenobia and shouldn’t be missed, not to mention the other great wrecks and some fantastic scenic dives.
The water and air temperature are warm to say the least and with very little wind at that time of year it promises to be one of the best, so get your names down fast as places are running out.

COST £567.00
Inc. Flights, Transfers, self catering apartments and 5 days boat diving.

Don’t Forget Diving Only Days

As the new dive season approaches don't forget we are still running the club diving days at Stoney Cove on the last Thursday of the month. If you have qualified over the summer and want to get a few dives in with an Instructor or Assistant Instructor, before the season starts, now’s your chance. The next date is 27th February.

FEATURE ARTICLES BY CLUB MEMBERS

Neptune’s Magic Carpet
by Hank Sweet

We go to sleep to the sound of the sea and wake up to birdsong. Our rooms are simple. No TV, no phone, no room-service, no mini-bar, no carpet! But who needs that stuff when you have chachalaca birds to wake you up and you can see turtles in the bay from your balcony! Judy and I are spending a couple of weeks with John and Hazel and Peter and Jacquie in Tobago at the Blue Waters Inn. A chance to forget the winter, do some diving, and generally get away from it all. Away from it all doesn’t begin to describe it; we’re an hour’s drive from the nearest town! And from the hotel you can only see one house on an island out in the bay. It’s a bird watcher’s paradise with humming-birds in the gardens and a resident flock of turnstones in the bar who are very fond of chips! Oh and there’s also a bananaquit making a nest in a bunch of plastic leaves in the restaurant quite oblivious to the diners below. And Jacquie is in parrot heaven when she discovers the dive centre has a resident macaw.

We mostly do two dives in the morning and chill out in the afternoon. The bar is open to the beach and we eat fish caught the same day by the local fishermen and work our way through the extensive list of rum cocktails, feeding the turnstones and counting the ghost crabs on the beach. Hazel keeps score on the fish we have seen and keeps us honest on our more dubious sightings. The diving is mostly drift diving from boats around the island of Little Tobago out in the bay. The boys from Aquamarine like to get there fast so the ride is always short, fun and wet. The flying fish have no chance of keeping up with us, although they try hard! Entry is a backward roll off the side of the boat as close as the skipper can get to the surf breaking over the rocks. We drop down twenty metres as the current takes us and drifts us over beautiful, pristine Caribbean reefs – just lie back, look at the fish and enjoy the ride – a magic carpet indeed.

There’s a lot of plankton in the water so we’re hopeful of seeing manta rays. Until a few years ago they were very common here but sadly are seldom seen nowadays. In the “old days” divers used to complain that the mantas were spoiling their dives! We’d be happy to have that problem! The plankton means that the visibility is only a modest 20 metres or so but with all those nutrients coming down from the Orinoco the marine life is thriving. Above us up in the surf we see big (3 foot) tarpon and out in the blue, barracudas. Sting rays and electric rays on the sand and in the reef below us the usual cast of angel fish, morays, butterfly fish and, if we look close enough, little crabs, lobsters, shrimps, gobies. On one dive we see “the world’s largest brain coral – must be at least 12 feet across! Occasionally we take a day off diving for sightseeing. The island is mostly covered with the most beautiful tropical forest with just a small area developed around the airport. Jacquie finds two other places with parrots! We visit the bird sanctuary on the island of Little Tobago and see the red-billed tropicbirds nesting as filmed by David Attenborough. We take another day off for a trek in the rain forest and visit the local waterfall. It’s getting near the end of our second week. Hazel’s list has passed the 100 mark. We’ve seen three nurse sharks, one reef shark, and more turtles than you could shake a stick at but still no mantas.
So we decide to visit a site on the other side of the island. It’s a long ride in a pirogue round to the Caribbean side but we have reason to go. We’ve heard that hammerhead sharks are often seen at a pair of rocks called The Sisters. The trip to the sisters takes about 45 minutes. The views are stunning – beautiful forests running down to rugged wave-torn rocks. The Sisters are jagged fangs of rock with white water breaking over them. We roll into the water and it’s so different from the other dives. No coral gardens and the visibility is much less – it’s almost eerie down here. We start to fin round the rocks peering into the gloom when out of the murk we see hammerheads – a whole squadron of them about 20 feet away. We try to count them and get up to nine. We are with them for a couple of minutes at most but everybody is moved by the majesty of that encounter; back in the boat I have never a bunch of divers so excited! For me it’s a sight that will stay with me for the rest of my life
Would I recommend Tobago? Sitting here looking out at the snow the answer is a most definite yes! The island is incredibly beautiful and the weather is warm with gentle sea breezes to keep it from getting too hot. The people are so friendly. The Blue Waters Inn is a nice (albeit simple) hotel in the most idyllic location. The dive operation was well run and the diving itself was as good as any I’ve done. Compared to the Red Sea the visibility was not as good and the hard coral not as spectacular; but on the other hand we never saw another diver in two weeks. And of course I never saw nine hammerheads in the Red Sea!

And finally ....

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