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Swanage scuba diving trip
Over the May Day Bank Holiday, we headed down to Swanage in Dorset to run a couple of courses and to give some of the newest dive club members some UK sea diving experience and boy, did we pick a lovely weekend for it.
Most of us headed down Friday after work with only one of our group braving the very early start to head down Saturday morning and we all made it to the pier in time to park there with it’s reduced car parking spaces due to the works going on to the pier, which to be honest I was a little concerned about as it might have affected the viz under the pier where we were planning on completing most of our training dives. Fortunately, a quick look over the side of the pier gave us a very pleasant surprise with what looks like pretty amazing visibility in the water.
This weekend we would be starting off with a trip out on the Mary Jo with skipper Brian to dive the Wreck of the Fleur De Lyes, a nice shallow wreck just across the bay from Swanage Pier. With air fills done and all our scuba diving equipment loaded on the dive boat we headed off on the 5-minute dive boat trip and kitted up on the way. Giant stride entries from the divers lift we proceeded down the shot line for the first of both our PADI junior advanced open water dives for the first dive of their course, the wreck dive.
The Fleur De Lyes isn’t the biggest of wrecks but in 14metres of water, it is a nice introduction to wreck diving and UK sea diving. The viz was better than expected at between 4 and 6 metres and although it’s still early in the season, we still found plenty of fish life heading around the shelter of the wreck. A comfortable 25 minutes later and with a full inspection of the wreck later we were back on the dive boat with hot drink’s in our hands and chatting about all the cool things we had seen in the surprisingly good visibility.
The rest of the day was spent under the pier completing the peak performance buoyancy and DSMB dives of the PADI junior advanced open water course and going through the basic skills of the PADI Rescue diver’s skill’s including lifts of unconscious divers from underwater and kit stripping while giving rescue breathes to an uncurious, non-breathing diver.
Once we had finished our dives and all of the skills for the PADI junior advanced open water diver and PADI rescue divers course we got changed and headed down the pub to debrief over a well-deserved drink before heading back to our hotel to shower and get changed and head out for dinner and by this time, we were all very hungry, funny how a day in the sea can bring on an appetite lol.
Sunday was an early start to make sure we got on the pier and after a quick chat with some of the members of Stevenage SSA who were also down there running courses we got in the water under the pier again to finish off the PADI rescue diver skill’s and do the PADI junior advanced open water Navigation dive as we wanted to get these dive completed before our last boat dive of the weekend, which was again from Mary jo but this time was a drift dive which gave the boys a chance the demonstrate their newly acquired DSMB skill’s while experiencing a nice gentle (relatively speaking for that area) drift dive, the easiest type of dive as you just lay there and let the current move you along and give you a great view of everything as you float by.
We finished the weekend with some rescue scenarios for the guys doing their PADI rescue diver course. Unfortunately, we trained them so well they stopped most of the problems before they started, keeping a very close eye on everyone so not one of the dive team got lost without the new PADI rescue divers know exactly where to find them, great work guys but it would have been more fun if you’d let us get lost LOL.
We ended the day with a bunch of very happy, and well-tanned, scuba divers, and two new PADI junior advanced open water divers and two new PADI rescue divers.
Well done guys :-)
If you would like to know more about our trips or courses, please contact us by clicking here.
Over the May Day Bank Holiday, we headed down to Swanage in Dorset to run a couple of courses and to give some of the newest dive club members some UK sea diving experience and boy, did we pick a lovely weekend for it.
Most of us headed down Friday after work with only one of our group braving the very early start to head down Saturday morning and we all made it to the pier in time to park there with it’s reduced car parking spaces due to the works going on to the pier, which to be honest I was a little concerned about as it might have affected the viz under the pier where we were planning on completing most of our training dives. Fortunately, a quick look over the side of the pier gave us a very pleasant surprise with what looks like pretty amazing visibility in the water.
This weekend we would be starting off with a trip out on the Mary Jo with skipper Brian to dive the Wreck of the Fleur De Lyes, a nice shallow wreck just across the bay from Swanage Pier. With air fills done and all our scuba diving equipment loaded on the dive boat we headed off on the 5-minute dive boat trip and kitted up on the way. Giant stride entries from the divers lift we proceeded down the shot line for the first of both our PADI junior advanced open water dives for the first dive of their course, the wreck dive.
The Fleur De Lyes isn’t the biggest of wrecks but in 14metres of water, it is a nice introduction to wreck diving and UK sea diving. The viz was better than expected at between 4 and 6 metres and although it’s still early in the season, we still found plenty of fish life heading around the shelter of the wreck. A comfortable 25 minutes later and with a full inspection of the wreck later we were back on the dive boat with hot drink’s in our hands and chatting about all the cool things we had seen in the surprisingly good visibility.
The rest of the day was spent under the pier completing the peak performance buoyancy and DSMB dives of the PADI junior advanced open water course and going through the basic skills of the PADI Rescue diver’s skill’s including lifts of unconscious divers from underwater and kit stripping while giving rescue breathes to an uncurious, non-breathing diver.
Once we had finished our dives and all of the skills for the PADI junior advanced open water diver and PADI rescue divers course we got changed and headed down the pub to debrief over a well-deserved drink before heading back to our hotel to shower and get changed and head out for dinner and by this time, we were all very hungry, funny how a day in the sea can bring on an appetite lol.
Sunday was an early start to make sure we got on the pier and after a quick chat with some of the members of Stevenage SSA who were also down there running courses we got in the water under the pier again to finish off the PADI rescue diver skill’s and do the PADI junior advanced open water Navigation dive as we wanted to get these dive completed before our last boat dive of the weekend, which was again from Mary jo but this time was a drift dive which gave the boys a chance the demonstrate their newly acquired DSMB skill’s while experiencing a nice gentle (relatively speaking for that area) drift dive, the easiest type of dive as you just lay there and let the current move you along and give you a great view of everything as you float by.
We finished the weekend with some rescue scenarios for the guys doing their PADI rescue diver course. Unfortunately, we trained them so well they stopped most of the problems before they started, keeping a very close eye on everyone so not one of the dive team got lost without the new PADI rescue divers know exactly where to find them, great work guys but it would have been more fun if you’d let us get lost LOL.
We ended the day with a bunch of very happy, and well-tanned, scuba divers, and two new PADI junior advanced open water divers and two new PADI rescue divers.
Well done guys :-)
If you would like to know more about our trips or courses, please contact us by clicking here.