The club dives at several locations. The one we use the most is
Stoney Cove. The reason for this is that
it is (fairly) local, inland, and can be dived regardless of the
weather. We also occasionally wander on down to
Gildenburgh. In the summer, we try to
go to the Yorkshire coast and dive from
places such as Bridlington, Whitby or Easington. For this we use
one of the club members RIB. This gives us the freedom to choose
our dive sites and means we can dive anything up to 15 or 20 miles
offshore with 6 divers. With more divers, we dive more inshore using
the RIB as a shuttle between the shore and dive site. We
mainly target the wrecks of the two world wars but if anyone has
any other preferences we can accommodate these as well.
As well as the regular diving we try spread our wings a bit further. We have had some good diving trips recently and in the UK the club have visited places such as Oban and St. Abbs which are considered among the best places in the UK to dive. We even ventured to Dorothea one day when the weather got the better of us at Anglesey. Over the past few years the club and its members have also managed to venture a bit further around the globe. 2000Eilat. Scapa Flow. St. Abbs. Padstow. Farne Islands2001Manado. St. Abbs. Oban2002Red Sea Liveaboard out of Hurgharda, Egypt, La Paz. Pwllheli, Wales. Farne Islands. St Abbs.2003St Abbs, Phwelli, Wales2004Oban, Liveaboard, Cocos and Malpeo, St Abbs2005Oban, St Abbs, Vatersay - Outer Hebrides.Yorkshire CoastA bit further than places like Skegness but it is a bit easier to launch the boat up there. These waters don't seem to have been dived or fished so heavily as some, so there is also plenty of wildlife to see. There is plenty of interesting diving off this coast, as there is off most of the east coat. This is because the two world wars have given us a lot of shipping wreckage to explore. The temperature is not as bad as you would think, and if the weather has been decent in the days before, neither is the visibility.The diving we do off this coast caters for all of the diving grades that have a bit of diving experience under their belts. The depths we dive at range from 15 metres down to around 30 metres. We usually dive off the RIB but on occasions we have chartered boats out of Hull and ventured a bit further offshore. Return to top of page EilatIn February 2000, 10 of us went to the port of Eilat in Israel. Eilat sits right at the Northern end of the Red Sea and provided us with a bit of warm(ish) water diving. Most of the diving done was from the shore but we did get out one day on a boat trip into Egyptian waters. We did manage to do a bit of training out there and, despite the best attempts of the Israeli immigration, we did all get home in one piece. Funny place Israel, they will quite happily let you in, its getting out that's the problem. Another tip: don't sit in a window with a nice decorative chain mail curtain - it s a bomb blast curtain. They don't tell you that one in the brochures!Return to top of page PadstowWe went down to Padstow for a long weekend that incorporated the last August bank holiday. The RIB went down along with 10 club members.Its a lovely place Padstow but I don't think we really went there for the diving. Most of it is fairly featureless although we did manage to find a couple of decent spots. One of these was off the Quois (I think) which had some excellent gullies with plenty of fan coral which looked quite impressive. However, I think the fact we never saw another diver or diveboat for the 5 days we were there probably says it all. In fact, the highlights of the trip were mostly in the boat. While we were diving, the boat crew saw fins around the area where the divers were. At first we thought it was a wind up until we happened to spot the fins ourselves. They belonged to 6 metre basking sharks! We also spotted some quite large sun fish. Air is a also bit of bind as the nearest filling station (we could find) is at Newquay. On a bank holiday weekend, Newquay is manic but, if you can stand the crowds, it is quite amusing. Return to top of page GildenburghGildenburgh is often described as the other Stoney Cove. It can be found just outside Peterboro. There are various objects in there to explore, the best of which is a double decker bus.The site is an old (clay ?) quarry and was owned by the London Brick Company. So, guess what can be found all over the place, yep, bricks! The vis here can be truly atrocious. You have to resort to feeling your way round and literally cannot see your hand in front of your face. However, if you are one of the first ones there, it has been known to be crystal clear. Unfortunately, this seems to be the exception rather than the norm which is a shame because it can be very pleasant to dive there. Return to top of page ManadoManado is in North Sulawesi - one of the Indionesian islands. Several club members went out there with other divers from around the region. They stayed at the Tasik Ria Resort and dived with Eco Divers. An excellent time was had by all. Plenty of wall diving, reefs and the occasional shark and turtle. Comes well recommended this one.Wasn't just a diving holiday either. There was some white water rafting and also climbing volcanoes - as if it wasn't hot enough! They Also spent an evening wandering round a pitch black jungle looking for the worlds smallest species of monkey. Return to top of page PwllheliPwllheli is on the Lleyn Peninsula in North Wales. The club dived on the catamaran Shearwater. This boat really is an excellent dive vessel although it has to said the weather was superb for the duration of the weekend. The seas were flat calm and the visibility was excellent. Some of hte divers were lucky enough to get to play with seals so all in all, a cracking weekend.There was only one draw back. On the last day, we were persuaded to leave our second bottles on shore to save weight. The compressor wasnt really up filling a dozen or so bottles in short time and so we ended up sunbathing on the deck for a few hours longer than planned. Fortunately, it was a very warm day so apart from being late leaving, and even later arriving home, no real harm was done. |