Sunday 29 January 2012

Stoney Cove, January 2012


Sunday saw three keen divers Caz,Wayne and Paula and one Ocean trainee keen to try out her new Drysuit Jenny W meet in the cold car park of Stoney Cove

Outside temp chilly water temp just as cold but they were determined to go diving.

The viz was not bad not the 15 metres advertised on the Stoney Website but at least 8 metres.

Jenny and Paula took the first plunge with Wayne as surface cover while Caz fetched the needed hot chocolates. Dive over it was time for Wayne and Caz to dive, Wayne took with him his new housing for his camera and took some footage of the sights and sounds of Stoney.   Wayne

Paula and Jenny did a second dive then everyone retired to the bar for some much needed warmth and refreshments

All in all a good day and their song for the day to the tune of wet wet wets love is all around
"no feeling in our fingers no feeling in our toes , there's water all around us and it's very cold"

By Caz

Sunday 22 January 2012

Wraysbury Ocean Diver Training (22/01/12)

The club’s 2012 diver training kicked off to a great start on Sunday with a trip to Wraysbury Dive Centre. Four Ocean Diver trainees (Leanne, David, Jennifer and Nick), three Instructors (James, Ben and Paula) and three keen divers (Wayne, Caz and Clive) turned up at the deserted dive centre at 9.00am with the intention of braving the cold and getting on with some Ocean Diver training.

Following a site brief and a much-needed cuppa the first wave of dives was underway. The water temperature was a crisp 7 degrees (not quite the 10 degrees reported on the Wraysbury Dive Centre web site!) but, amazingly, the underwater visibility was around 8m; for the first wave of divers this silt-free diving came as quite a shock and the trainees enjoyed 20 minutes of buoyancy exercises, mask clears and some experience of water deeper than the pool. Some important skills can be practiced in the depths at Wraysbury including buoyancy control so divers were put through their paces with hovers, fin pivots and lessons on using their lungs to fine-tune their trim in the water.

By the time the second wave went in, LSD had arrived and there were a few more divers in the water. The visibility towards the edges of the lake was a little worse (but still excellent by Wraysbury standards) so most of the groups ventured out into deeper water and better vis. for alternate source training, more mask clearing and exploring some of the wrecks and the assortment of underwater oddities (traffic lights, milk floats etc.) that Wraysbury has to offer.

Despite the face-numbing water all of the trainees had two great dives (well, they all said it was “great” at the time!) and Clive realised that 7 degrees is not THAT cold after all. I found out that a £15 set of thermal underclothes from TKMaxx is just as warm as a £150 Weezle Compact under suit and both Wayne and I wished that we’d taken our cameras! Everyone retired to the shop/cafĂ© for a group de-brief and some lunch. We were all finished by 2.30 and all headed off home just after 3.00pm!

Many thanks to all who came for the diving, and who helped with the surface management and the re-vitalising cuppas between dives! We’ll be running more training trips in the near future to Wraysbury and other sites so keep  your eyes on the notice board and the www site for more details.