Dive Trips

Lots of great dive trips comming up so have a look on http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/DIVE-BUDDY-UK/371882012579?sk=wall page go to events and get ya name down quick before all the places are gone

Last dive of 2010 at Holbrough Lakes

A few of us headed over to Holbrough Lake in Snodland Maidstone for a short notice end of year dive. Paul, Val, John and I (George) met at the lake. The lake still had a layer of ice on and I must admit it looked very cold. After a coffee and a few mince pies we suited up, I budded up with John who left Paul and Val.

 John and I headed into the water it was cold about 3 degrees but we weren’t going to miss out on the dive. After waiting a little while for Paul and Val to join us we descended for the start of what was going to be a great dive but it was cut short as Val had a small leak in her dry suit so paul and Val had to get out and sort the problem out me and John carried on with the dive.  

we first looked round the boat Sweet Mystry John swam through the boat and out the front hatch and i decided to swim over the top.

After a 10 mins or so i started to have trouble with my regs they were going into free flow so I signalled to John and we headed up broke though the ice and tried to sort the problem out. After trying a few times and getting the same problem we decided to swim back for a well deserved coffee. 

Paul and Val had fixed the dry suit problem and had gone for a dive but they had there fare share of problem with a stuck (frozen) inflator valve. 

Even with the little problems we had it was an enjoyable day and i think i can say we all enjoyed ourselves. 

If you want to come and join us on one of our trips and Join Dive Buddy UK follow the link to our facebook page 

 http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=255388&id=371882012579#!/pages/DIVE-BUDDY-UK/371882012579        

London Dive Chamber

Well a few of us made it to the London Dive Chamber last night to complete a 40m dry dive, however after a couple of people not turning up this all changed to a 50m dive. Got to say thanks to the guys that didn't turn up the rest of us enjoyed it even more.

Having never been in a hyperbaric chamber before I thought it would be a good idea to go have a look at one, the good people of the London Diving Chamber http://londondivingchamber.co.uk/ offer this for a small fee



Anyway on the list was Lindsey, Chantelle, Angela, Elwyn, Vicki and myelf(Paul). We paid our money and got changed into our jim jams ready to get into the chamber. We was asked to complete a simple test on the surface which would be repeated at 50m to check how we was effected by narcosis. After a briefing about the chamber and also about the dive, we all climbed inside and the doors was shut behind us.


Even though this wasn't a real dive with regards to kitting up and getting wet this was going to be a first for alot of the group including myself down to 50m.
As we started to descend the chamber started tp warm up and we was soon at 15m we had a quick check to make sure that everyone was OK and then it was down even deeper we was soon at 30m , and then it started Chantelle couldn't controll her laughing so we worked out that she was NARKED already and we was only just over half way down. We soon was at 40m and onwards to 50m. After about 5minutes we was down at 50m, we was given a sheet of paper which had some wording on in a set time we had to circle as many L's as possible.

Well this sent certain people over the edge, like Vicki's pen not working at 50m. We started to ascend with the first stop at 12m for 2 minutes then 9m for 6 minutes, followed by 6m for 28 minutes.

After getting to the surface we all completed our logbooks and checked our dive computers mine read 50.2m.

Result for the narcosis test well I scored 25 on the surface and 25 on the bottom.

PADi Night Diver Speciality Instructur course

Last night completed the PADi Night Diver Speciality Instructur course at Holborough Lake, near Snodland Kent. The tempature was dropping rether quickly with the clear sky's I'd say it was down to 5-6 degrees by 7.00pm.

Ryby(http://www.blueoceandiving.co.uk/) our course director went through all the explaination of what needs to be achived by the students over the 3 dives. This included signals, talking about torches and also how to prepare for the night dive. e all kitted up and headed into the water, it was warmer in the water than out.

It had been aggreed that we would do 2 dives tonight with a short surface interval then onto dive 2. We all descended down to an 8m platform.



Dive 1: This dive was more of a navigation dive around the objects in the lake this was with the torches on the visability was upto 10m and the perch and the small pike were out looking for food

Dive2: We descended back to the platform then one by one we switched our torches out waited around 30-40 seconds for our eyes to adjust to the light, then Ryby led the way as we all went off for a swim with the torches off. even though we had no lights it was amazing how much you can see with very little light, we all managed to get back to the platform.

Well that was another PADi speciality Instructor course completed so onto Enriched Air next.

PADI INSTRUCTER EXAM

The Instructor Exams are being held in Bristol and at Vobster on the 2nd and 3rd of October 2010. The group from Blue Ocean will be travelling down on the friday and staying over night ready for the start at 7.30am.




Day 1

Meet up and get a breifing from PADi staff regarding the flow of the weekend

Standards Exam50 questions from the PADi standards this is an open book exam lasting 1.5 hours

5 Core Exams

12 questions on each topic closed book

Physics

Physiology
Equipment
Recreatational Dive Planning
Enviorment

Knowledge Development Presentation:OWD Manual, Knowledge Review Chapter 5 question 6 eRDP ML

Q. What is the minimum surface interval required between a dive to 18 meters for 40 minutes followed by a dive to 14meters for 60 minutes.

A. 28 minutes


Skills Circuit: Jon was the lucky man to pick the skills circuit that we had to do, we later found that it didn't matter which one he picked they was all the same.

1. Weight Belt removal at the surface
2. Alternative Air Source Use
3. Hoover
4. Mask removal and Replace

5. Controlled Emergency Swimming Ascent (CESA)

Teaching in confined water:

Skill: Neutral Buoyancy Underwater (Power Inflation) OWD Course Dive 2

Day2

Teching in Open Water

Skill 1: Alternate Air Source Stationary OWD Course Dive 2

Skill 2: Controlled Emergency Swimming Ascent (CESA) OWD Course Dive Flexible Skill


Rescue AssesmentThese are two very long days and you feel drained after you have completed after the exams you get some time to prepare the classroom presentation, then a short break and into the pool for the skills circuit followed by your confined water presentation. Is required the following:

BREIFING
DEMOSTRATION
STUDENTS DEMO
DE-BREIFING


You are then free to leave and relax that evening ready for day two. If you have failed any exams from the Core Exams then you can resit them in the morning, I'm glad to say that I didn't need to resit any part of the IE.

Finally I was given this
Posted by paulvis69

up and comming events

The year so far has been a very busy one and we are still arranging events. keep an eye on our blog for storys and the fun we are having at Dive  Buddy UK

EVENTS

40 MTR DRY DIVE AT LONDON DIVE CHAMBER 21ST OCT 2010

50 MTR DRY DIVE AT LONDON DIVE CHAMBER 11 NOV 2010

LANZAROTE DIVING HOLIDAY 18TH NOV 2010

CHRISTMAS DIVE AT VOBSTER 18TH DECEMBER

NEMO 33 29TH JAN 2011

BRIGHTON SHARK DIVE 27TH FEB 2011

FARNE ISLES WRECK AND SEAL DIVE 6 AUG 2011

We will be planning loads more dives and trips so come and join us on Face Book and follow our blogs

Eastbourne AIR SHOW AND 2 WRECK DIVES 15TH AUG

On Sunday the 15th August I arranged for some of the members of Dive Buddy UK to dive the wreck of the Alunia and the Oceana



We all met up at Eastbourne Marina at 8.00am ready to board our boat for the day "SUSSEX". Me (George) and Paul was joined by Tony, Cel , Mark and Diego.

The weather forecast wasn’t looking to good but the skipper (Mike) thought we should be ok so we headed out of the marina towards the lock and off into the sea. The fist stop would be the Alunia.

The Cunard liner Alaunia was on a return voyage from New York to London on the 19th October 1916 when she struck a mine laid by the German sub UC16 The first thing that grabs you about this wreck is the sheer size of it, at 13,405tons and over 500ft long she is the largest wreck on the Sussex coast. She lies on her port side and stands 10mtrs high in places.

The Alaunia has been extensively salvaged and is well broken from middle to stern. When diving the wreck the bow section is phenomenal, it lays over at an angle of 45 degrees and has her port anchor hanging from its chain, lots of portholes are still in place and the seabed is a feast for scallops.

Further up the wreck large booms and masts lay strewn across the seabed and in the wreckage, more hatches, skylights and portholes lay in the twisted debris. There is no shortage of marine life, with Pollock, Bass, Congers, Crabs, Lobsters & million of pouting all living onboard.

As we all kitted up and checked our gear the usual banter started.

This was Cel and Diego's first real UK wreck dive, so we budded up me and Diego with Cel and Paul this left Tony and Mark. The skipper lined up and the first 2 divers went in and down the shot line, the 4 of us had agreed to go last in giving everyone else a chance to get clear as we knew there could be possible problems with Cel never being deeper than 18m's. It was our time to get into the water as we stepped off the lift one by one into the water. We gathered at the top of the buoy and prepared to descend down the shot line, Diago and me went first then Cel and Paul followed slowly, we got to about 12m and Cel just needed a few seconds to settle himself then down the shot line again we went. we had soon reached 20m so I stopped and shook Cel's hand he'd already been deeper than ever before, this also had the effect of taking his mind of how deep we was, we looked down and could see the dark mass of the wreck below. We reached the wreck the visibility was around 5-8m's the torches was switched on as we started to peer through the hull, I managed to spot a huge conger in one of the holes, the hull had hundreds of small pouting and the occasional Pollock swimming by.


The time went all too quick and we had to surface. The boat came round and picked me and Diego up and then Paul and Cel as we dekitted we chatter excited by what we had seen and the expreance.

The boats make its way back to Eastbourne and we moored up to watch the air show while we were out of the water before going back out to dive the Oceana

 

The 6.610 ton P & O Liner Oceana was built in 1888, She was 468ft long and had a Beam of 52ft. Whilst en route from London to Bombay with 40 passenger and a complement of 210 crew she was sunk on 16th March 1912 after colliding with the Pisagna, a 2850-ton Germen 4 masted steel barque. The Pisagna herself did not sink but was towed into Dover for repairs. Nine of the Oceana’s crew were drowned when their lifeboat capsized.

 

This has got to be one of the most interesting wrecks on the south coast; she rests in only 24mtrs of water at low tide and in places stands 10mtrs high.

The wreck rests on an even keel with the bows being upright and mostly intact, as you work your way back towards the stern all the superstructure has collapsed down but the sides of the vessel are still ship shape. As you get towards the engine room you come across an amazing sight, there are 4 boilers sat in pairs slap bang in the middle of the wreck, these huge round lumps of metal still in perfect condition if sunk only yesterday. Around the boilers there are big troughs full of scallop shell, mostly empty now. As you pass the boilers you are met by this huge upright structure which stands some 10mtrs high, it is in fact the ships 7000hp triple expansion engines.

Every diver will find something of interest on this dive, Whether it will be the sea life of crabs, lobsters, scallops or the many species of fish that have made it their home, or portholes that are still in place or maybe even one off the silver bars & gold ingots that were left over from the ships cargo of £747.110 worth of gold and silver ingots when the ship was salvaged.

The Oceana sits on a gravel seabed and usually has good visibility.