With another dive season imminent, we organised a training day at Stoney Cove to get qualifications completed and new trainees in the water for the first time.
The weather was better than expected, no rain and even a small amount of sunshine, but underwater was not so kind with pretty bad visibility above 15 metres. With 20 divers to organise, Peter Scarpellino was an excellent dive manager for the day, he managed to check everyone into the water, and has now been officially signed off as sports diver.
All buddy pairs were very slick with their kitting up and, although we had arranged to meet at 9.30, Andy and Alastair were in the water by 9.35 for Alastair’s first open water dive, closely followed by the rest of the group with final pairs getting in at 11.05. John and Sarah Lloyd also had their first taste of Stoney and, despite the murky water, all 3 trainees came back with big smiles on their faces and keen for the second dive. We also got some of the newer qualified members back into the water ready for sea diving soon.
The pile of spares by the cars rapidly decreased when several people, including the experienced ones, found that some of their kit was still at home or not working, so a valuable lesson all round.
So, congratulations go to those who completed Sports Diver and Ocean Diver and the new trainees who have started on their journey to be qualified ready for sea diving, hopefully this summer. The best bit is that everyone seems to want to come back for more. Perhaps that’s because we all went into Nemo’s bar for a celebratory drink while Peter Neal got writer’s cramp signing all the qualification books and the trainees had to work out what tissue codes they were by then.
I would also like to say a heartfelt thank-you to the instructors who deserve a mention, we very much appreciate you giving up your Sunday to help out and I hope you all enjoyed the great atmosphere we had in our area of the car park.
I hope we can repeat the day soon, preferably on a sunny spring morning.