Photos from the shake-down weekend: familiarising ourselves with the new boat; slow-speed manouvres; testing the ladder; and a few cheeky dives.
You can also read a report from the weekend.
In January 2012 some club members went to the Red Sea to dive the Northern Wrecks and Reefs itinery with operator BlueOTwo. It is a less crowded time of year on account of the temperature and being outside school holidays but it’s still a great time to go as you can see from these photos. This itinery is a good one, covering the famous wreck of the Thistelgorm plus many others and some fantastic reefs. It’s so good we’ve already booked to do it all again in 2013.
In an effort to get clubs in BSAC’s Southern Region to talk to eachother and maybe collaborate a bit more we held a stand at the London International Dive Show 2012. As part of the British Isles Experience we were round the corner from all the other BSAC pods, but next to the bar and a try-dive pool, so we had a lot of interest:
This is one of the most valuable experiences I’ve had so far with our club. I think we genuinely helped some people, and picked up lots of good ideas ourselves. We might pick up a few new members because of it (which is always nice) but I think a lot of clubs in the region will too, and that can’t be bad.
Thanks to Terry from Southampton Solent Uni SAC for helping on Saturday and all the members of Oxford branch who did stints over the weekend. We all thought that a large multi-club stand was a really valuable way of exhibiting at the dive show. Maybe again next year? 😉
Photos from various dive clubs throughout the region (gallery used at the London International Dive Show 2012).
More information about the region’s dive clubs (including how to find yours!).
Our current dive boat is a 2006 Procharter P3 called Endeavour. She is fitted with a 320 bhp stern drive and capable of 20-30kn.
Photos of newly-named Endeavour (our P3 Procharter hard boat).
Some photos from the BSAC Practical Rescue Management course (a component of the Dive Leader qualification and a standalone Skill Development course) held in Oxford in March 2012.
This gallery has some photos from our August 2011 dive trip to Scapa Flow aboard the excellent Radiant Queen charter boat. We were based in Stromness, Orkney (Scotland), doing two dives per day over two weeks.
You can also read the full report from our 2011 Scapa Flow dive trip.
Photos from the clubhouse makeover, with a new paint job and lots of intense cleaning – all thanks a to a small group of dedicated members.
Divers and snorkelers from the club were more than happy to help out when asked by eighteenth century re-enacters who were putting on a Charity Pirate Day at the Swan Hotel in Radcote, Oxfordshire.
Divers were tasked with checking the riverbed for anything which would make walking the plank dangerous, finding a few bits of glass and some crayfish but little else. With little depth near the river banks, club member Andy White rushed home to pick up some scaffolding (he has that kind of thing kicking about) to build an extended platform. Not very eighteenth century but it looked great!
It took a while for anyone to ‘man up’ and rise to the pirates’ challenge of walking the plank, but eventually plenty did – and then the pirates turned on each other. During the event snorkelers were on hand in case anyone needed help in the water, which thankfully they didn’t.
This was another fun day helping out in the community – thanks go to all who helped out.
