Nemo Trip – Belgium

 

 

Late November saw five club members head off for a weekend trip to a lesser-known diving location; namely Belgium.

Our destination was the custom-built Nemo 33 diving facility, an indoor pool, as the name suggests, some 33 meters deep.

Our first choice of transport was the Eurostar to Brussels, but tracks were up for maintenance that weekend. British Airways provided a smooth flight from Heathrow and the local train from the airport saw us in town before lunchtime. We had time for a quick spin around the tourist sights in the center before Ubering out to Nemo33.

The dive center is situated a just outside the center in an industrial and business park. In addition to the pool, there is a bar, a Thai restaurant and a dive shop.

We had reserved our dive in advance, and shortly before were shown through to the changing rooms. The pool is very warm (some thirty degrees or so) so all is needed are swimming costumes, masks, fins and a dive computer (compulsory). Tip – bring plenty of 50c pieces for the lockers.

Kit was efficiently issued (included in the 25 Euro fee) and we had a short dive briefing before heading in. There was one other party of roughly seven divers and we swiftly headed down. The upper pool is larger with a variety of environments (overheads, air pockets etc) , we headed for the tube-shaped lower section and achieved maximum depth ahead of the pack. The pool was comfortably warm but surprisingly dark at the bottom .

Gradually ascending, we were able to enjoy the rest of the pool , exiting some 50 minutes after we first got in. A quick change saw us enjoying the first of many Belgium beers in Nemo33s bar.

We returned to town where the evening’s entertainment consisted of some excellent Belgian food, including the well known mussels and chips. Club members were determined to make the most of the warm Belgian hospitality and we discovered a charming Bohemian-style bar below our Air B&B (thank you Helen for booking), where we joined the locals untill the early hours.

We will look forward to our next visit, although we have now heard of an ever deeper pool in Italy!

 

Vobster Dive Day – January 19 2020

The club went out for the first 2 dives of 2020! After a very early start, 9 divers made it to Vobster Quay for a cold winter day of diving.

The sun was out and even though it was frosty, everyone seemed very happy with how the day turned out. The 8+ meter visibility was also a nice treat.

 

Malta October 2019

At the end of October, 11 of us headed off to Malta and Gozo

for a long weekend of diving, driving and drinking. It was the perfect way to finish what has been a great year of scuba diving in the club.

This was the first time diving abroad for some of the group and it didn’t disappoint- warm water, vis up to 30m and amazing dive sites.

Our first day consisted of a checkout dive followed by the incredible inland sea and a night dive where we saw octopus and played with the bioluminescence. Our second day was on Comino where we dived the Santa Maria caves and P31 wreck- being relatively shallow there was plenty of time for photo opportunities and to enjoy the many swim throughs. Our last day consisted of the MV Cominoland and MV Karwela where we got our photos on the famous staircase and explored the reefs in the shallows.

This was a very sociable trip and staying in self catering flats gave us the opportunity to cook together and enjoy drinking and games evenings well into the night. We managed a trip to the citadel in Victoria one evening and those staying a little longer got to explore the blue grotto and Valetta. Aside from the diving, the other highlight of the holiday had to be our wonderful jeeps. Despite their age and questionable brake power, they got us and dive gear around the Island and we were very sorry to say goodbye at the end of the holiday.
Overall a fantastic trip and I’m sure Gozo will be on the list of places Putney BSAC returns to. Big thanks to our dive centre – Scuba Kings for helping to organise things.

Medes Islands Trip

We returned to the Medes Islands in Spain for the second year in a row. Last time we were there our skipper said the best time of year at the Medes is in September, the water is warm and peak holiday season is over. So that’s exactly what we did, we came back in September.

The water was indeed warmer, 21C, the first time diving in wetsuits in 2019 for many of us. The warm water also brought with it lots of extra life. Large schools of barracuda and jack hanging around the reef. Moray eels out hunting in the daylight. Plus all the fantastic life we saw last time including massive groupers, scorpion fish and nudibranch.

Once again the dive centre were super organised, making the whole weekend stress free and relaxing. If you’re looking for a long weekend of diving abroad you can’t do much better than the Medes Islands.

Training report

On a sunny day in July a group of instructors, students and those roped in to help went to Vobster for some open water training. As well as teaching ocean and sports diver lessons, we were able to run the ‘rescue management scenarios’ for some of our dive leaders. A good day was had by all; the mock casualties survived, everyone got signed off and Ante has now completed his ocean diver course.

It has been a successful year of training for the club with trips to Wraysbury, Vobster and Stoney Cove. Overall the weather has been good, bacon butties great and visibility variable!! So far this year we have provided: 12 ocean diver, 14 sports diver and 3 dive leader open water sessions to students, we’ve had 3 sports divers and 1 ocean divers qualify while others are very close to finishing their training. With exciting trips still in the pipeline for 2019, there will be opportunities for our newly qualified ocean divers to experience diving in the sea. A huge thank you to all our instructors for their time and effort in making these training trips happen

Brighton – 31st March 2019

Despite the windy weather, 12 keen members of Putney SAC headed out for some diving just off the coast of Brighton on the 31st March 2019. A nice late start for a change and a quick stop off at Newhaven Scuba to pick up some rental cylinders got us to Brighton Marina at about 12:30pm ready to board Channel Diver and head out for the afternoon.

Due to the weather not being quite as bad as anticipated we stuck with the original plan and headed out to the SS Pentyrch, a 103m long cargo ship torpedoed by UB-40 (the German submarine, not the band!) on 18th April 1918 on a voyage from Tyne to Genoa with a cargo of coal. The visibility wasn’t great and the conditions were very choppy, with a bit of swell down on the wreck, butnevertheless a very interesting wreck and definitely one that needs another couple of visits to properly explore it.

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O2 Administration course – 23rd February 2019

On 23rd February, 8 students and 6 instructors were joined by Resussi Annie and friends for our annual oxygen administration course. As part of diver first aid training, the course is hugely important and the club encourages all members to keep up to date with these skills.

The day included a mixture of practical and theory lectures with a break for buffet lunch. We covered basic life support, diving incidents, casualty assessment and oxygen administration, as well as role plays, performing chest compressions on our mannequins and setting up the oxygen administration kit. Though we hope we never have to do this for real, what we learnt could make a difference to the outcome of a diving incident. At the end of the course, all Resussi Annies survived and subsequently students were signed off their oxygen administration or corresponding dive leader theory lectures.

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Vobster Quay – 17th February 2019

Keen to get the diving season started early in 2019, six members of Putney Sub Aqua Club, headed up to Vobster Quay bright and early on 17th February for a straightforward (but cold) first dive of the year.

At a brisk 5 degrees Celsius, drysuits were the order of the day for all, except Pradeep who we hope has now defrosted after his first and only dive of the day.

A great day out, with all who attended raring to go for the rest of the year!

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Plymouth – October 2018

And now attention all divers, here is the Plymouth dive trip report for Saturday and Sunday 6 and 7 October at 1800 hours GMT.

Visibility: good to extremely good.
Skipper, Red Alert: cheerful; pasties and hot drinks, frequent; cream tea later.
Wind: North easterly, moderate to strong; sea calm, (sheltered).
‘Newish’ divers: super to very super;
Cold: moderate to slight.
Diving: wrecks 3; reefs 1; sea life; colourful.
Rusty metal bits and conger lairs: frequent.
General situation: superb.

Continue reading Plymouth – October 2018