Congratulations to Gwyn for passing (after 2 years) his Club diver assessment and gaining the Club Diver qualification. We had gathered as is our practice in bad weather in Vivian quarry. Hugh took Gwyn in for the assessment, Malcolm took Mick and David took Arwyn in for Club Diver Open Water 2. The weather was sunny and pleasant. The quarry small but adequate.
A group of members had a dive underneath the pier at Trefor. There was a lot of marine life seen.
No diving.
An evening shore dive in Cricieth. Brilliant conditions, good visibility and plenty of marine life. In went Neil, Malcolm, David and Carol. Out a bit later came Rohan, Hazel, Paul K, Paul T and Chris T. Paul Filby looked down from his castle home with sundowner in hand (well it looked like a sundowner). The picture was complete.
A lovely day. We left the misty lowlands behind as we made the ascent up to Llanberis. Meanwhile Malcolm was having problems with Dylan look-alikes in the Llanaelhaearn area. Eventually he turned up.
It was quite a crowd. Don took Gwyn for an SMB dive. David and Malcolm took Dylan for a rather low visibility practical in Llyn Padarn and Hugh took Arwyn and Gwyn for their first Ocean diver open water practical.
Chris, Paul, David and Malcolm took the RIB out from Pwllheli having finally filled it up with petrol. They had an excellent dive on the East side of Porth Ceiriad. It wasn’t deep but it was full of gullies and a good dive was had by all.
The sun was shining. The morning was crisp with frost. A 9.3m tide promised a very hairy drift dive. Hugh, Neil, Paul F, Chris and Paul T launched ‘Sea Wasp’ from Porth Ysgaden and motored over to the reef just opposite Porth Colmon. We were joined by Dukey and John in Sparrow Hawk. High water slack was to be 13:14hrs, but we didn’t need to wait. It was slack at 11:00.
We sent Paul & Chris down first. Mistake. Their dive lasted just under an hour. Luckily two of us had pee zips! They reported excellent conditions but a vis of 2 metres. Chris saw an octopus underneath Paul which he missed. (I suppose Chris can recognise an octopus). In went the threesome and indeed a good dive was had; plenty of life and good scenery.
We motored back to Porth Ysgaden for lunch and to meet up with Arwyn, Mick and Gwyn for a shore dive. The dive was just intended to acclimatise the new trainees to cold sea water and low vis (in contrast to the pool), and to give Gwyn a refresher. All went well. It was back to Pendre to wash down the RIB and park it. A good day.
The following were elected: Hugh Evans – Chairman, Karen Love – Treasurer. Gwyn Jones – Grants Officer. Full List of Club Officers. Bert Rea, who retired as Treasurer after 10 years, was warmly thanked for his hard work for the Club. When Bert started the pool fees had to be collected from junior and senior club members every club night. It was said to be possible to tell whether the Club funds were running in credit by the amount of smile on Bert’s face. Thank you Bert.
The AGM was followed by a quiz organised by Julie Roberts (Posh Scouse) who gave us 33 very testing questions and one plumbing question. Hugh, Neil, Elfed and Dukey made up the winning team, although their win was marred with accusations of cheating. Second was David, Carol and Don. A great end to the evening.
By Saturday night the Honda 90 hp 4 stroke outboard was fitted. Would it perform? There was only one way to find out. Sea Trials. Ever since the time of Nelson the age honoured system of testing a boat has been the sea trials. So naturally to test our new Honda 4 stroke it had to be the sea trials. But not just normal sea trials but competitive (or my boat goes faster than yours) sea trials. For not only did we have the Club RIB but we also had the Dukey special Sparrow Hawk with its small 75hp 4 stroke and Diversity (the plumbers’ marine gin palace) with its new Honda 90 hp 4 stroke outboard. Expectations ran high. Conditions were good. In fact conditions were fantastic.
Off we went to Half tide Rock from Pwllheli each taking our own route, rather like children rushing out to the playground. We got over to the Rock and had a little play around while Mike and John went for their dive. A few adjustments were made and a prop changed (no it had not been damaged). John & Mike were recovered and then it was back to Pwllheli, flat out. The new engines had performed very well, as anticipated.
Sorry no photographs but the work was done, honest. And guess what? We have a new (to us) outboard motor for the Club RIB. A Honda 90hp 4 stroke. Diving won’t be the same again. No fumes, no noise, reliability and economy. What are we going to complain about? How we will miss those fumes.
The boat did also get the once over. The hull was expertly repaired. The winch and the wheel bearings were cleaned and greased, the anchor line was marked and various other jobs done. Very productive. Our thanks must go to Julie who kept us continuously supplied with refreshments. At no time did our spirits flag. (Well not mine anyway). 9/3/03
Two days stuck in a room doing first aid! What was I thinking of? What had David Jones our Training Officer talked me into? I shouldn’t have worried the two days of courses were brilliant. David had liased with Ken Oakes of the Flintshire Scuba Diving Club and Bernie Summerfield, to bring a bit of regional training up to North Wales.
Ken, Stan Cash, Barry Freeman (Flintshire SDC), Martin Sampson (Anglesey Divers) and Beth Heaton (Rhyl SDC) were the excellent instructors along with our own DO Neil Rawlinson who took part to get his instructors certificate. Between them they brought a wide range of valuable experience to the proceedings. Funny therefore that they should have left “carpet burns” off the list of burn types. The general treatment for them however was right on: lay the casualty down, gently remove constrictions before swelling starts and if conscious give frequent sips of cold water. First aid has never been so helpful.
The photographs below give a fairly good idea of the practical goings on, on the second day.
Held on 10/2/03 in the Victoria Hotel. It was a meeting to prepare for the Annual General Meeting (AGM). Officers gave their reports, fixed the date & venue of the AGM and of the boat cleaning afternoon.
Election of Officers at the AGM. There is a vacancy for a: Chairman (Ian Lawrence has left the area), Treasurer (Bert retiring from post), Grants Officer (Hugh Evans retiring from post). The position of Snorkelling Officer lapses as there is now no snorkelling section. All the other Officers are willing to serve for another year.
Notification of the AGM, its agenda, minutes of the last AGM and nominations forms, will be sent to members during the next seven days..
Over the weekend of 8th & 9th February David Jones, Paul Filby and David Morgan completed all their Dive Leader lectures at Plas Menai in sessions organised by the Bangor University Sub Aqua Club..
A very successful trip to Diver’s Warehouse for Arwyn and Mick. Unfortunately Karen wasn’t able to come along. There are a few things left in the shop after the shopping spree. But the staff are probably still trying to work out whether they made any money on the deal after all the discounts they had to give to Mick and Arwyn. Next stop Vivian Quarry. 8/2/03.
Congratulations to Karen, Mick and Arwyn on passing their Club Diver written test. Nail biting stuff. Then congratulations to Karen on passing her sheltered water assessment. It must be dry suit buying time for all three and a chance for instructors to taste, yet again, the depths of Vivian Quarry.
Congratulations to Arwyn and Mick on passing their Club diver pool assessment. Will Karen go for it next week?
A get together for the Club’s instructors was held to introduce them to the new BSAC training courses. David Jones, the training officer, showed the team examples of the new training pack and then took us through the crossovers involved when moving over to training on the new courses. The pack contained the lectures, sheltered water and open water practicals from Ocean Diver (which replaces Club Diver) up to Advanced Diver. (The training pages on this site have been updated to give details of the new syllabus)
We were able to decided on the next stages of training for Karen, Arwyn and Mick when they do their Sports Diver training on the new course.
Neil volunteered to print out the OHP acetates, using his coloured printer. This will greatly enhance the presentation of the new lectures. All in all a very useful evening.
