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Calshot Divers on BBC Radio Solent |
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Written by John Greenwood
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Monday, 19 July 2010 17:43 |
More Try Dive dates are planned for Aug/Sep - contact us for details (click here).
 Following our recent Try-Dive advertising we were lucky enough to have Nadine Dukeson from BBC Radio Solent attend for a try dive in Hounsdown swimming pool. Nadine, along with 3 other prospective trainees, were given a brief initial introduction to the Calshot branch and the British Sub-Aqua Club before being shown the more practical side of diving and the equipment involved.
Once changed everyone completed a short swimming test (damn those insurance requirements!) and then progressed to snorkel, where they got to grips with straight leg fining and using standardised hand signals to communicate. Once everyone was happy we moved onto the heavy kit, 12kg cylinders and a few extra kilos of lead to make sure we went down and stayed there - finally we were really diving!
 As soon as we reached the deep end of the pool, Nadine was attacked by the smallest battery powered penguin you can imagine! You know the type, small bullet type body and an exposed plastic propeller that just loves to wrap hair around itself. The penguin still works, and Nadine didn’t mention the hair pulling on the radio – so I think we got away with it! From then on things settled down, forward and backward rolls, break dancing, buddha balancing and messing with the underwater frisbee all of which caused no further injuries.
Nadine’s report was broadcast a few days later on Jon Cuthill’s morning program on Radio Solent.
Listen to a snippet of the BBC Radio Solent broadcast made by Nadine after her Try Dive. |
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Last Updated ( Thursday, 29 July 2010 10:11 )
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Written by John Greenwood
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Monday, 26 April 2010 09:31 |
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We have been talking about the local Sunderland Flying Boats for years in the club, but never actually dived one. Research carried out over the last 6 months had enabled us to pretty accurately locate one wreck and two potential names for the aircraft – PP118 or ML883. This Sunday tides, weather, lifeboats (and a quiet evening in the pub on Wednesday) meant the time was right for a sonar search of the target area.
We launched the RIB from Calshot around noon and on our first pass over the target area we located a 5m high ‘bump’, a couple of quick turns showed we were over something of a descent size! We spent the next couple of hours zipping backwards and forwards taking depth readings every metre or so. From the location of the site, its orientation and its general size it’s quite likely we have found a suitable dive target.
We did a quick run to the second target site and had a look around, but didn’t identify anything in the short time we were there. That’s probably something for next time.
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Last Updated ( Monday, 03 May 2010 14:56 )
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Dusting off the Cobwebs (Valentine Tanks): Dive report 18/04/10 |
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Written by Carl
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Sunday, 25 April 2010 13:46 |
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As the winter months were finally over it was time to dust off all the dive gear cobwebs and get back in the water. Although the start of the dive season is no surprise to anyone it is incredible how many divers don’t prepare their kit for the forthcoming season….well, erm… perhaps I should say its incredible how I don’t prepare MY kit for the forthcoming season!
A quick check of my dive kit the day before discovered two latex wrist seals that were harder than steel and titanium combined and 2 leaky regs. Hmmm, I thought….this could make my first dive with Calshot Sub-Aqua Club a little bit tricky to say the least!
After an easy drive to the top secret boat location and (by my standards anyway) relatively faff free boat preparations, Helen, Ralph, Steve and myself set off to Poole Harbour to dive the Valentine Tanks. “Why are they called the Valentine Tanks?” and even more confusingly – “why are tanks in 15m of seawater in the first place?” are questions I just can’t answer but they are tanks and diveable so that’s fine by me.
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Last Updated ( Sunday, 25 April 2010 16:47 )
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Bank Holiday on the Betsy Anna - 31-08-2009 |
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Written by Ben Rainbow
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Wednesday, 09 September 2009 11:50 |
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It has been a while since I have enjoyed a dive on the Betsy Anna quite as much. We were not too hopeful as the previous week had provided gale force winds which would surely stir up the bottom and reduce visibility to a mere few metres. After a 45 minute run out of Swanage the sun was out as we rolled off the side of the boat and disappeared from the surface. About 10 metres from the bottom I began to focus on the sea bed below, which was surely a good sign. The sunshine was reflecting off the light coloured bottom and illuminating large shoals of Whiting. I had to remind myself that this was not a tropical dive, just Christchurch Bay in August. Once comfortable we swam towards the boilers which were home to a number of lobsters and conger eels. After a full inspection we eased towards the stern of the vessel and past the exposed prop shaft. More large shoals of Whiting parted and revealed the partly intact stern section with many large pouting swimming through the ribs of the ship. I followed a large anchor chain away from the wreck and sat on the sea bed gazing back at the grey silhouette of the stern which rose up a around 3 metres above the sea bed. With plenty air remaining there was still time to inspect the bow section before ascending close to where we began the dive, on the boilers. The best dive I have done on the Betsy Anna for sometime, made even better by the sunshine and great visibility. |
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Last Updated ( Thursday, 10 September 2009 20:35 )
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Black Hawk (Bow) & Nature Trail - 19-04-2009 |
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Written by Ralph Quinn
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Monday, 20 April 2009 21:50 |
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Another weekend and we're hoping for something better than the murk the week before. This week we go west in search of some visibility. The target is the bow of the Black Hawk in the rather scenic Worbarrow Bay, Dorset.
We put the club RIB into the water at Kimmeridge just a few miles to the east. It was quite interesting to watch the various degrees of seamanship on show at the slip; some of the more interesting examples were "we've never launched a boat before, you go first and we'll watch how it's done" (I'll bet that those guys are still in Weymouth with their vodka running dangerously low!) to the explosive launch technique which I can explain on demand but will probably decline a demonstration.
If you read last week's report, you'll know that our echo sounder/fish finder is a tad unreliable at present so we were once more relying on our patent pending Pooley Nav. How did it go this time?
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