Over the winter months (January – March) we will be running a number of refresher courses to keep members up to date and ready for the new season. These will be short sessions of around 30 minutes going over the key points and be held at BMYC on Thursday evening club nights around 8:30pm. The following areas will be covered

-         VHF Radio operation

-         Compressor operation           

-         Oxygen Administration

-         First Aid for divers

-         Flares and safety equipment

-         Dive marshalling

Brighton Marina Divers will be running several Try Dives sessions in early 2011 and plan to begin Ocean Diver Training in March/April.

A Try Dive is the perfect introduction to scuba diving and so if you’ve always wanted to learn, would like to test out the water before you go on holiday or are just curious, then a Try Dive is for you.

For just £10, you can take part in the scuba taster session where you will experience the unique sensation of breathing underwater for the very first time and you’ll be taken through your paces by some of the friendliest divers around.

To arrange a Try Dive, just phone our Training Officer John Hayes on 07910 354778 or email the club on diving@brightonmarinadivers.org.uk

Note: Names have been changed to protect the author from imprisonment and a good thrashing!

Five club members and an interloper headed to Swanage for a weekends diving at the end of June – Larry, Paul, Nigel, Mark, John and Mick. The plan was to tow the big orange thing there and pray that the weather gods smiled on us. By late Friday afternoon the orange thing was in the water and Paul had negotiated a cheap mooring from a local fisherman named Smigel who quickly disappeared with his tenner muttering “my precious”. The mooring was a fair way out in the bay and would give someone a very lengthy swim back. The chosen one would need to have nerves of steel, be a strong swimmer, healthy young and fit to carry out the arduous task. Larry was therefore chosen and the group collectively crossed its fingers that he would make it back to the jetty.

By early evening with the help of two tubes of Ralgex, Larry had recovered from his 6 mile swim and rediscovered his old stomping ground - the Scott Arms in Kingston, 7 miles north of Swanage. He was a bit downbeat when his old flame the landlady with the glass eye and whiskers was no longer behind the bar.               

The pubs large blackboard made mouth watering reading - local hand caught scallops in a cream and white wine sauce, loin of pork on a bed of sweet red cabbage over creamed potatoes and ham egg and chips. After the disappointment of his old flame Larry was further gutted when the scallops were off and reluctantly plumped for the loin of pork. Disappointment would not be on the menu for the Saturday evening meal as John our diving officer having fully researched the local restaurants and had been quick off the mark by booking the Black Lion Inn almost a month ahead – the Swanage equivalent to Heston Blumenthal’s Fat Duck at Bray.

Returning to Swanage for a final drink we spotted the Black Lion and thought it would be an opportunity to check out the gastro pub. It quickly became clear that our diving officer’s research had fallen short of desired standards. The clientele resembled the scene from the bar in Star Wars, the barmaid had love and hate tattooed on each hand and the clincher was the special on the blackboard of Cornish pasty with Branson pickle. By this stage the diving officer had drifted into a catatonic state and it was left to Larry to quickly regroup, march across the road and book a table at Tawneys wine bar for the Saturday evening.

The Group was split between two B&B’s “Corner Meadows” and the “Cambridge”. The Cambridge was on paper the class establishment, a place for the discerning – that was until Attila the Hun turned up - Janice the Landlady from hell. All guests had to go through a rigorous induction process followed by a set of multiple choice questions on how to open and close the front door. Mark and Nigel failed the test and underwent water boarding treatment, finally emerging at 9:30pm. Paul meanwhile had visited Dorset, Somerset and Wiltshire looking for a car parking spot.

Still the class establishment would no doubt deliver on the full English breakfast – they had that to look forward to in the morning. Well in fact no - Janice laid the law down saying that as we were out early on the Saturday she would not be disturbing her beauty sleep and would provide a packed lunch.

Saturday morning turned up a bit too soon – meet at the jetty at 7:00am – the Cambridge crew clutched their packed lunch – a mouth watering soft ham roll, penguin and banana. John and Mick turned up at a leisurely 7:15am having been awakened by the aroma of Blue Mountain coffee and enjoyed a pleasant breakfast at Corner Meadows.

The Betsey Anna is a cargo vessel lying in 25metres on a gravel bed - it’s a nice dive and generally provides good visibility. Expectations were high that we would have a good dive but after 45 minutes searching, plummeted when we failed to find her. After a lot of cursing, rude words and finger gestures we threw in the towel and headed back to Swanage only to hear a yelp from Nigel who after a short distance had spotted a blip on the echo sounder - the Betsey Anna had mysteriously been moved 150 metres to the East!

The dive was memorable for a large crab and lobster appearing from the depths. Our very own Hans and Lotte Hass alias Paul Dupret and Larry Hughes liberated these chaps and neither having a bag with them carried them around on the dive before deploying a DSMB - Hans holding the reel while Lotte reeled in – a technique taught on the BSAC Crustacean Handling Course.

Saturday afternoon we had a cracking dive on Peverill ledges which we were easily able to find – the big red buoy named Peverill provided a clue. It’s a very scenic dive with plenty of colour and life - fish, crabs and lobsters with the added twist that the currents tosses you around like a washing machine.

Tawneys was very noisy on Saturday evening especially when Mark and Nigel had finished the third bottle of Aussie Shiraz washed down with a tot of Port. A nasty case of nitrogen narcosis followed in which limbs soon moved independently of thought. On the way home the local lampposts provided an obstacle too far for the duo. Mark’s trusty white stick failed to provide the necessary information to his brain in the required timeframe and even Nigel with full sight gave one a glancing blow.

Sunday morning beckoned and after a marvellous breakfast at Corner Meadows (which included black pudding) Mick and John turned up at the jetty to see a miserable site – a hungover Cambridge crew holding soft ham rolls - no full English then!

By popular request, we ventured back to the Betsey Anna in flat seas and a beautiful blue sky and had a pleasant dive - we are pleased to report that no animals were harmed in the making of the dive.  Early afternoon we did a drift on the mussel beds under the Lighthouse and 30 minutes later we popped up just off Shoreham or so it felt – we had travelled 2 miles! It was not a dive for the faint hearted - Larry and Paul bottled it knowing that it would be too much for them but the four youngsters (combined age over 200 years old) went for it.  Unleash the dogs of war, hold on to your wigs, carpe diem, zoot alors, for king and country, arrivadecci roma etc. Anyway it was a very fast drift, touch and go but 30 minutes later we climbed back into the orange thing very pale and ashen with shredded nerves and wetsuits - We had survived by the skin of out teeth.

A big thank you to all those that came on the weekend and helped get the orange thing to and from Brighton Marina. We had survived without mishaps and the only incident to report to BSAC was a bent lamp post following Saturday night revelries.

We actually cast off at a more leisurely time of 10:20 am as John the clubs diving officer had been delayed by sleep and a late night of revelry. Our skipper Scully was in charge of steerage and instrumentation and the bearing of 184 proved tricky as the horse shaped cloud on the horizon kept moving. It soon became apparent that he did not actually know what the buttons did and began muttering something about not liking the compass on the GPS but preferring the rolling road screen – the mutters got louder and finally Larry taking temporary charge of instrumentation switched to the rolling road – it was a complicated task involving hitting the enter key twice.

Scully resumed steerage - he could now see that we had travelled beyond the hard shoulder of the rolling road and almost beyond the verge, edge of the world stuff – eyes flickered and he quickly made a decision to bank right and execute a Williamson turn to get us back on track. The horse shaped cloud had been lulling us towards Eastbourne and a less experienced team could have been in deep trouble almost to the point of having to pen an article for the back page of ‘Dive’

Scully clung to the centreline of the rolling road like a man possessed. The Waterford was in his sight and no one was getting in his way, well no one apart from the four fishing charters that were on the site and maybe the other two that were drifting over the wreck from the east - but no one else!

As the rib approached the site the GPS started beeping at which point our skipper began scratching his head and looking quizzical. Larry again took temporary charge of instrumentation and told Scully to follow the big black arrow on the screen – secrets codes were passed between them in a sort of serpentine tongue. The Waterford came into view on the echo sounder and a cheer went up and hats were thrown in the air. The skipper began to peacock strut around the rear of the boat like he’d found the Lost City of Atlantis.

The club generally operates like a well oiled machine – we pride ourselves in doing a job well and have little time for lesser mortals who can’t hack it! Confidence is high that the BSAC Heinke trophy will be coming our way in 2010. The one area we are however a little weak on is the shot line thing. For some reason we seemed to have adopted the practise that the last half mile to the dive site is the job of the shot line rather the rib. We may in time simply do away with the rib altogether and just lay the shot lines from the clubhouse.

The dive officer had not fully recovered – coffee and ham sandwiches had helped but mental faculties were still impaired – no change there then! His only job was to prepare the shot line and determined to not make the same rudimentary schoolboy errors others had done in the past he measured the line out – 40 metres would be good and two of his best granny knots would do the trick.    

Our skipper gave us a precise position of where the shot had landed – “you could be on the bow or the stern or somewhere in the middle” were his exact words. Again secrets codes were passed between the skipper and Larry.

Larry’s build up dives had infact consisted of snorkelling for amphora off the Cypriot coast in warm water with 20 metres of visibility. The Waterford in 36 metres with 4 metres of visibility and 15 degrees offered little resistance especially as the secret scallop ground had not been plundered for the many months.

The secret scallop ground was known only to the “Guardians of the Scallops” the elders of the dive club – youngsters (anyone under then age of 55) could not be trusted with the information – it could end up on the interweb thingy or be facebooked or twittered and where would we be then. The Guardians had been involved in scallop research for many years and were at the point of publishing key scientific data in the Lancet– do they go better with a splash of lemon or a white wine sauce; does Nigella make a cardinal sin mixing scallops and chorizo; starter or main meal – these are the big questions which help make the winter months tick away on club nights.

Backwards roll off the rib and couldn’t see the shot, there was a big orange thing in the way – Our skipper was tucking into his Big soup and had no intention of moving the rib so we were forced to swim around it. Down the shot line…. down and down….. time ticked away … the seasons changed … down and down…past the first granny knot (it was holding up well)…past the man in the funny dive suit in the film “The Abyss”…. down and down … Brighton Marina can’t be far away …. finally metal appeared. A tad long on the shot line then!

It’s nice going back to a familiar wreck after a break, figuring out where you are and seeing the changes – the stern is now beginning to open up but still remains impressive. A huge shoal of dib and pollack mulled around parting as you swam through them on our way to the secret scallop grounds. Larry, Chief Guardian of the Scallops, used the old ploy of pointing in one direction and then swimming off in the opposite direction to put the diving officer off the scent. John’s mind was in any case elsewhere – images of dancing to the funky chicken and agadoo came flooding back from the night before. Coming to his senses he followed at a discrete distance soon saw Larry at work ploughing his furrow. The secret scallop grounds had been rumbled.

Back on the boat the Guardians discussed their mornings work – a dozen scallops and a beautiful brill. Scientific research would need to be extensive this weekend!

Kate Cole of Sussex Seasearch has kindly agreed to run a Seasearch Observer course for Brighton Marina Divers on 13^th June at Brighton Marina Yacht Club. This is a one day course starting at 10am and finishing around 5pm aimed at giving divers new to the Seasearch project and new to marine recording a basic grounding. At the end of the course we will be able to complete the Seasearch Observation Form and get our own Adopt a Site project up and running

Nigel got off to a shaky start but quickly rose to the challenge. As usual he had the essential Tesco’s carrier bags on each foot in order to climb into his dry suit but even with these, it was putting up a good fight. Then began the muttering when his weight belt was no where to be seen and finally the cursing when he realised his dive hood was stored securely in the same location as his weight belt – his garage. Not a man to be easily dissuaded he pinched someone else’s weight belt and decided to wear his woolly hat

Meanwhile Paul and Mark had two large yellow plastic boxes strapped to their backs; there was lots of heavy breathing going on and much talk about scrubbers and penetration. Their computers were wittering in a type of Morse code only familiar to the lunatics that don these large yellow boxes. Emerging like creatures from a Dr Who episode the rebreather boys were ready!

The location of Loogate proved a little troublesome for David our skipper who had forgotten his Specsaver bifocals! He was finding it difficult to distinguish between the echo sounder and his lunchbox and at one point pressed the gps goto button which turned out to be mini Jaffa cake. Priscilla our hard boat motored forward, to port, then starboard, stopped then moved again as though executing a well planned Viennese Waltz. With the instinct of a slightly aged but wise homing pigeon, David found the reef – the big yellow fisherman’s blob may have helped.

Whilst the sea temperature at nine degrees was a bit parky we were blessed with an amazing ten metres of visibility. The usual culprits turned up on the dive, starfish, wrasse, starfish, lobsters, starfish, crabs, starfish and then more fecking starfish.

Soon we were mesmerised by something that has not been seen on the reefs this early in the season and more typical of a Mediterranean habitat. On the top of the reef right next to a large overhang was an upright deckchair, canvas and metal with a smart little cup holder and in excellent condition. It was clearly calling to passing divers “come hither” and Paul feeling somewhat fatigued by the strenuous 25 metre drift and the weight of the large yellow box duly obliged with a short siesta.

Nigel’s woolly hat proved to be a revelation and performed wonderfully but the same cannot be said of his drysuit. The neck seal at only ten years old began to leak but not a man to be easily dissuaded he bravely carried on and thirty five minutes later climbed the ladder of Priscilla with two gallons of water down each leg.

The dive had gone well and no problems had been encountered that a bit of gaffer tape could not fix.  The deckchair had opened up a world of opportunities for club diving - a new sport of extreme deck chairing had been born.

Cleaning mussels off the No 2 Buoy for Brighton Marina Yacht Club on a chilly December Day or as one of the club members commented Tubby Issacs (Paul Scully) and his assistant (John Hayes) harvest mussels to stock their Algate shell fish stall.

John is hiding in his van, and David is hiding behind the camera… previlage of the cameraman.