A year ago, Debbie White, who was the current snorkel officer together with John Waterhouse, now the club’s regional snorkel advisor and another couple of members, decided to further develop snorkelling within the branch, for existing and new members by expanding our instructor base and improving our open water snorkelling capabilities.
Author: Paul Burton
2009 – 10 Annual Report
This year the DO is challenging the club to make 1000 dives before the next Dinner Dance (in early 2011).
Things got off to a good start in Weymouth at the beginning of the year with 71 dives and after the Anglesey trip we were over 10% of the way there at 121. Then we had three more great weekends in Weymouth on Gemini II taking us up to 174 thanks to the lots of work by skippers and divers. The week in Weymouth was a bit of a disaster weather wise, but still 83 dives got done and with the Pirate event river clearance a few more took us up once more to 301. After some more Weymouth diving and the Isle of Mann trip we were at 410 – over 1/3 of the way there!Three days later a training weekend in Weymouth added another 16 to the total taking it to 426.
The September training event at Burton Bradstock added 21 to the total and the sports sign off day on Gemini II another 15 taking us up to 462. The Alex project weekend added another 27 dives to raise it to a monster score of 490 – more than 3 of the previous 4 years. But…. this isn’t the end of the season! A dive expedition to Scapa Flow generated 67 more dives Raising the total to 557 – more even than the previous record year and the mass dive at Swanage Pier in October clocked up an impressive 33 dives to a total of 590. A trip to NDAC, a prop recovery dive in Weymouth and a last minute club trip to the Red Sea pushed us up to 616.
Come the New year 3 hardy soles dived in Hinksey lake getting us to 619 and then the Red Sea reef cleanup expedition clocked up 70 more bringing us up to 689. 4 bold souls risked the chilly depths of Vobster Quay to make 8 more taking us to 697 nearly up to 700…..
Finally in March a hardy bunch headed off to Cromhall Quarry to do some dive leader rescue exercises and racked up another 12 dives taking us over the barrier to 709. Not bad at all!
0————————————————709——————–1000
Breakdown so far:
| Date | Place | # dives | Total |
| 11th-12th April | Weymouth, Training | 44 dives | 44 |
| 3rd May | Weymouth | 23 dives | 67 |
| 16th May | Dive Fest (Pentewan) | 4 dives | 71 |
| 23rd-25th May | Anglesey | 50 dives | 121 |
| 31st May | Weymouth | 22 dives | 143 |
| 13th-14th June | Weymouth | 17 dives | 160 |
| 4th-5th July | Weymouth | 14 dives | 174 |
| 11th-12th July | Weymouth, Training | 34 dives | 208 |
| 19th July | NDAC Chepstow | 6 dives | 214 |
| 25th July | Pirate Event | 4 dives | 218 |
| 25th-31st July | Expedition Weymouth | 83 dives | 301 |
| 6th August | Stoney | 16 dives | 317 |
| 9th August | Stoney | 18 dives | 335 |
| 13th-14th August | Isle of Man | 75 dives | 410 |
| 22nd-23rd August | Training weekend | 16 dives | 426 |
| 12th-13th September | Burton Bradstock | 36 dives | 462 |
| 25th-26th September | Alex Project | 28 dives | 490 |
| 3rd-10th October | Scapa Expedition | 67 dives | 557 |
| 18th October | Swanage Pier | 33 dives | 590 |
| 28th November | Sharm el Sheikh | 10 dives | 600 |
| 5th December | NDAC Chepstow | 12 Dives | 612 |
| 12th December | Weymouth prop recovery | 4 dives | 616 |
| 1st January 2010 | New Year’s Day | 3 dives | 619 |
| 8th-15th January 2010 | Redsea Reef cleanup | 70 dives | 689 |
| 18th February 2010 | Vobster Quay | 8 dives | 697 |
| 7th March 2010 | Cromhall quarry | 12 dives | 709 |
Alex Expedition Plans
A table showing ideal slack times on the Alex across a range of weekends
Statistics on the Alex van Opstal
A hold full of statistics about the Alex van Opstal, from code letters to dimensions…
Alex September ’08 Expedition
The Target: Simple really – finally figure out where the various chunks of the wreck are with respect to one another and make a very crude map of the site to guide us when looking to prduce a more detailed map later on in the project….If only it were that simple….
Weymouth Week Expedition Report
At the end of this year’s ‘week in Weymouth’ event we had one dive on the Alex – in amazing visibility and totally slack conditions. For once we could really see what was going on and get a better picture of the wreck site and it’s surroundings.
Alex Expeditions Summary
A summary of the results from various expeditions, and links to some resources.
Dive Oxon 2012 – Back to Weymouth
19th-20th May 2012
Once again we have our annual get-together with clubs from across Oxfordshire to dive from Weymouth.
After last years partially successful (despite the weather) weekend, we are at it again! This year we are going back to Weymouth, camping at the popular East Fleet Campsite where we have a great relationship with the owners and we hope to have lots of you attending for some great diving from many different platforms (including our new hard boat) and some excellent socialising.
Diving the Garvellachs and Slate Isles 2011
Scotland, 10th-17th September
**26/8/11: THIS TRIP IS NOW OPEN TO NON-MEMBERS**
4/5 places available for qualified divers (BSAC Sports Diver or equilvalent)
Trip is advertised elsewhere – please contact Chris Stevens ASAP if you would like to come: 07808 774271
Fin the late summer dive season the seas around the west coast of Scotland boast some of the best diving conditions in the UK. Visibility is rarely less than 12m and marine life abounds. Basking sharks, Dolphin, Minke Wales and Seals are visitors at this time of year – spend a surface interval snorkelling with seals and porpoise and the time flies by.
The Garvellachs are a small group of Islands to the SW of Oban and are an area of outstanding natural beauty both above and below the water with exceptional water clarity. They experience some of the strongest tides in the UK making for very exciting drift diving and the wall dives have some amazing jewel anemone beds. They also have several large intact steamship era wrecks within a short distance (the Meldon, the SS Breda, the Shuna, the Benghazi, the Thesis, and even the Hispania may all be dived from here).
The Isis Project
Its always been the aim of the club to provide a broad range of snorkeling and diving opportunities for the members. In 2010 to help with this goal we decided to purchase a second diving boat, to compliment the diving available from Gemini. We didn’t have a lot of money to spend so a new RIB as usually used by BSAC clubs was pretty much out of the question.