December 2016 Newsletter

Thursday Pool Sessions

There are no pool sessions this month, but we will reconvene in January.

Ask Linda about the Lottery

You may have won, if not, then you should play harder! It's not expensive, it's a bit of fun and it helps support the club.

Anything Else?

If any member has any other news they'd like to share, please make full use of the comments section below.

Have a very Merry Christmas!

November 2016 Newsletter

A light newsletter this month, because it's already dark and cold enough outside as it is.

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Discount Offer from JR Services

Testing & Servicing Discounts until Christmas 2016

It's that time of year again, when we hope to encourage people to bring their kit in to be done NOW, in the Autumn, instead of adding to the nightmare rush and unavoidable delays around Easter
time.

As usual, we offer 10% off testing & servicing labour with the added incentive of 15% off labour for 5 - 9 items and an extra incentive of 20% off labour for 10 or more items.

If you know of someone who might appreciate this discount, please feel free to let them know.

Please note that we do not e mail everyone, so if you're a club member, pass the message on & let other club members know about the offer.

If there are a few of you who all have kit, why not get together and bring it to us in one batch to maybe increase the available discount?

Changes to the Cylinder Test Intervals: There are rumours going round that the cylinder test interval is changing from 2 1/2 year to an annual Vis Insp with a Hydro every 5 years (like in US & Australia).

As yet, we have not been officially told anything. Therefore we are
carrying on testing as per the existing legislation - diving cylinders
passing a test now will be in test for 2 1/2 years.

Lots of love,

J.R.Services

Unit 5 Warren Farm, Kentisbeare, Cullompton, Devon EX15 2BR.
Workshop: 01884 266 400 jrservices@tiscali.co.uk

Autumn Opening Hours 2016: 

Mon - Fri 8 am - 5.30/6 pm 

Sat - variable - usually 7.30 am - 10 am (note closed all day Sat Oct 29th)
Sundays - closed

Please ring first if travelling any distance to get to us.

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Now the weather...

Variable.

October 2016 Newsletter

Hello and welcome

Hello, I hope you are all able to see this club newsletter, now on the exciting world wide web. It's also interactive, you can contribute comments at the bottom and we can have discussions about things as well. I will also occasionally post diving logs between newsletter issues, some of which you can already read from a couple of years back.

Wow!

Currently this exciting format is the only option I have for writing newsletters on the account I own quite a cheap little tablet that has limited functionality. There's no need to worry about exclusivity, for those who stumble upon my blog who are not in the club are probably likely to be generally bewildered by it anyway. Conversely, I expect club members to fully comprehend and accept my jibber jabber. 

Also on your phone!

Yes, the future is here! If you can open emails on your phone then you can click on the newsletter link and it should take you to a mobile friendly version of this site. It should have all the same functionality. Please feed back to me any issues you have regarding this, and I'll see if there is anything I can do to fix it.

So, down to business...

Pool

There last pool session will be on 24th November 2016 for all activities. The decision has been taken not to hire the pool through December. Sessions will restart on 5th January 2017.

Diving and other fun

There are a few events planned:

• Skittles and food at Stoodleigh, provisionally planned for 22nd October.
• The weekend of 26/27th November is still open to anyone interested.
• Alan Barnes has found a hall in Taunton we might be able to use for functions, it has a bar and affordable catering.
• Keep an eye out for a planned trip next September (2017) to Lanzarote. Provisional costs is £850 for the hotel and £240 for a 10 dive package.

And now, the weather

Changeable.

Portland

Guest post by David Dooley

Photo: David Dooley

Andy and Sue towed the boat and lead a group for a week end at Portland.

After a night of intense thunderstorms campers and day visitors travelled in improving weather to the Castletown launch site.  The dearth of other divers was noticeable.  Andy drove the rib to a position just SSW of Grove Point.  There we found boulders, crabs, sponges, fan worms, hydroids, top shells and even a few fish in 2 metres visibility.

After a picnic on the beach or bacon sandwiches from the cafe we set out for a real wreck, the Countess of Erne, a paddle steamer downgraded to a barge before she lost an argument with the harbour wall.  However visibility was even worse, dark and  with a very easily stirred fine sediment on all surfaces, wreck, rock or bottom mud.  A few pairs managed to stay together! The last pair chose to look at the harbour wall boulders where at least there was some light.

After another night with some rain and the sound of the surf on Chesil increasing we set out to watch the keenest divers try Chesil Cove.  One look convinced even the keenest. Apart from the surf the water out from the beach was a dirty green-brown colour. 

The group dispersed to investigate Dorset cream teas and sight see around Portland.

The diving can only get better!

Can’t it?

Beer

 Guest log by Paul Williams

I dived with three buddies [in two pairs] at Beer on Sunday 4th May.

Viz was about five metres, though a fair bit of bloom made it quite speckled. Water temperature at the beach was 14C and 12C submerged. We were pleased to see a number of lobsters, crabs, a lone spider crab and some nice wrasse and dogfish.

The bottom had clearly been scoured by the winter storms, with a lot of rock that had obviously been covered with sand now showing as reef.

It is a shallow dive and we spent most of the hour of submerged time in 4 to 6 metres depth – maximum 7 metres.

Although it is potentially a good place for a training dive the parking [£5 per car per day] is very limited near the beach. Entry and exit is simple from the pebble beach, if a bit heavy on the knees and ankles.

Phenomenal Sea States

This autumn and winter have been almost constantly blown out for any diving. The powerful Atlantic jet stream has been steering low pressure systems across the UK like a conveyor belt, with rapid cyclogenesis spinning up deep low pressures which cause rough seas, in some cases 'phenomenal' sea state on the Douglas Scale has been reported off the southwest coast of England.

The sea is a rusty red colour where all the silt and sand has is in suspension, so any quiescence that does betide us will still be very poor in terms of visibility, and even any sign of more settled weather still seems like a dream, especially to everyone living in Somerset.

Chesil Beach

We still have that slab of high pressure sitting over us now as we did on Sunday, which was a perfect opportunity to get to some of the more 'exposed' sites. 

There was only myself; Dave H, a sports diver; and Oli, one of our new trainee ocean divers. It was my turn to organise the dive so the previous Thursday I brainstormed some ideas with the other instructors Andy and Paul. We ruled out places like Hallsands and Lulworth Cove, and wanted something different than what we normally do. We agreed that Chesil Beach in Dorset would be ideal as a shelving shore dive, and the abundance of rocks and pebbles would ensure at least moderate visibility.

geograph.co.uk

It took an hour and a half to get there from Tiverton, but we arrived at the civilised time of 10am. We planned to dive off the far eastern end of the beach, closest to Portland. The sea was a flat calm and almost deserted despite the end of summer holidays, that is save for a dive trio that were just coming out of the water. They were reporting visibilities of 10m in places! Tropical! Jenny my wife carried out marshalling duties while the Dave, Oli and I kitted up and did our buddy checks. These are always essential even for the experienced diver (especially for the complacent diver) as I had accidentally attached my weightbelt to my BCD! 

We put our fins on in the water and Jen took lots of photos of us all hopping around in the mid-surf!

We got ourselves organised and descended to about 6m initially. Dave was the only diver with a compass (mine is still ratting around Babbacome beach somewhere) so he lead the dive. We navigated straight out in a southwesterly direction. Visibility was good, although I would have said not quite 10m, but enough to impress and ocean diver trainee on his third ever dive! Oli was very enthusiastic and was powering on ahead, so not only was he using his air a lot faster than Dave or myself he was missing all the scenery! He slowed down on the way back after he was the first to reach 140bar. I was having a lot of fun holding different static positions underwater thanks to my loaned semi-drysuit, for instance I really enjoyed hovering upside down and looking under rocks that way! We spotted three wrasse, two lobsters (one of them was truly gargantuan but too embedded in the rock to retrieve) and a lonely cuttlefish, which was Oli's spot.

We exited a few hundred yards to the west of where we set out, and it was a steep climb up the stoney beach back to the drybags and lunchboxes. 

Once again I had worn a semi-dry as my beloved drysuit is still at the menders. But you know what? I think I've been converted!