Feeling far too wimpish to brave the UK waters in mid-March, a group London No.1 club members headed to the sunnier climes of Lanzarote to dive with Safari Diving in Porta Del Carmen.
On arrival the weather was a bit cloudy and overcast but the sheltered bay area off Playa Chica provided a great environment to get dived in for the year. The mornings mostly consisted of diving directly from the beach with a boat dive in the afternoons.
There was plenty to see in the Atlantic waters, including some huge groupers (one of which was tame), octopus, cuttlefish, jellyfish, barracuda and beautiful red sea horses. As a trainee Sports Diver, my favourite dive by far had to be my first ever night dive which we did in the bay. As soon as we’d descended to the bottom my torch lit up an amazing common stingray surrounded by huge arrow crabs far bigger than the ones we’d seen in the daytime. It was amazing to watch the plankton swarm around our torches when we held them still, and our guide even managed to find a sea horse for us to marvel at. It really was a great introduction to night diving.
We needn’t have worried about the weather either – from the second day onwards it was glorious sunshine with the mercury surging to the high twenties and low thirties every day. This made for lots of inter-dive snoozing on the beach and post dive beers in the sun. Our evenings were full of fun – the Safari guys were very welcoming whenever we hit their affiliated Chill Bar just up the road and were happy to recommend places to (over) eat. The best restaurant we found was Bozena’s – a small Polish place in the Old Town where the homemade food really was great.
We were all sad to head home when the week was over – I’ll definitely be looking to do something similar to get dived in next year!
With the waters not quite warm enough for us to hit the coast on the first weekend of March, we decided to have some fun out on the river with our club RIB. Four of our seasoned boat handlers and instructors gave over 12 students an introduction to all things “boat handling”.
After an interesting lesson on the boat’s controls and engines on the slip down at Island Gardens, Ocean Diver Andrew launched the boat into the water. We then split into two groups, with my sub- team heading to the local pub to confuse ourselves over navigation techniques and…worse still…to tie ourselves in knots, literally!!! After a lot of tea, laughter and a dawning realisation that the bowline and I would never be friends, it was our turn to get on the river.
We all had chance to have a go at handling the boat with lots of exercises aimed at picking up divers from the water and “man overboard” drills. The highlight for me was driving the boat through the Thames Barrier and right out underneath the M25! As well as warming up with a large glass of wine in the pub afterwards of course….it’s certainly not warm even out of the water at this time of the year!
Last weekend we ventured out on the first club trip of the year…not 
quite brave enough for the UK waters yet we hopped on the Eurostar to Brussels to visit NEMO, the amazing 33C indoor diving pool! Some of our group of 10 had been on last year’s winter trip, but for those of us who were new to the NEMO experience it was a real novelty being able to dive to 35m so far from any lakes or coastline.
We did two pool dives, one in the morning and one after lunch (which was quite a spectacle itself – hats off to the fantastic Thai chef!).
The NEMO veterans were pleased to find some new toys to play 
with – particularly popular was the smart car which had been sunk to about 10 metres….until we all realised it was on camera with a screen projecting our fun and games onto the wall outside….
We were sad to leave NEMO, but soon cheered ourselves up with some tasty Belgian cuisine (and good sampling of the local Kwak beer, of course!)
The next day some of us (not naming any names) carried on with the beer sampling theme, while the rest took in some of the city’s 
sights and wandered around museums before heading home.
A good time was had by all – here’s to another NEMO trip some time next winter!!
Our Diving Officer Cédric Milcendeau has won one of the BSAC Suunto Branch Volunteer of the Year awards. Nominations were made by fellow branch members, and the standard of the winning entries from across all 15 BSAC regions was high – so well done Cédric!
One of the 30 winners will be further selected to win the Jonathan Crusher award, and this will be announced at the London International Dive Show on 31st March – we all think Cédric would be a very deserving winner, especially those of us that knew Jonathan. Fingers crossed…
Tuesday 17th January marked our first try dive night of the year at London No.1! Six try-divers turned up at Seymour at 7.30pm ready and raring to go.
No less enthusiastic were our existing members, with plenty of helping hands on site to prepare kit and assist the instructors. Everyone was briefed and busy having fun in the pool by 8.30pm!
For most of our try-divers it was their first experience under water and the feedback was really positive, with a real buzz in the air when we all convened for drinks afterwards in our local pub, the Harcourt Arms!
“This was the first time I’d been in a swimming pool since I was a kid, it was great!” commented one of the participants.
Another was already a strong advocate of the club “I’m going to bring my boyfriend and my sister’s husband along to the next event!”
The momentum from Tuesday night has already got the members thinking about the next try-dive night, so if you are reading this and are interested in experiencing what it’s like to scuba dive then please do get in touch through the form on the website!
