Members of Scarboroughbased South Bay Scuba report on their 11th annual summer jamboree, which saw a few changes in 2025
UKDIVING
Shore dive at South Gare led by Simon Wilkinson
South Bay Scuba
Another Grand Day Out
Members of Scarboroughbased South Bay Scuba report on their 11th annual summer jamboree, which saw a few changes in 2025
Every August sees South Bay Scuba’ s Grand Day Out – an event where other clubs are invited to join us and dive together – the more the merrier! As the day approaches, our obsession with weather forecasts deepens, and the worrying game begins in earnest. The 2025 Grand Day Out, however, proved to be quite different from the previous 10 events, though the weatherfretting remained the same.
Due to storm damage over the winter, our club’ s hard boat, Condor, had to be moved onto the safety of a pontoon mooring. There were some available at Hartlepool Marina in County Durham, 40 miles north of our base in Scarborough. Not only would Condor be safer, but we would have a whole new diving area to explore. It turned out there are more than 20 wrecks at depths of 20m or less within three minutes of the marina. And as a bonus there was a much smaller tidal range than we were accustomed to, so we were hoping for longer slack water times.
This change would of course affect one of South Bay Scuba’ s great traditions: our famous Grand Day Out. As the day approached, and with the help of Regional Coach Paul Crinnion, word was spread to other clubs that we would now be operating from Hartlepool, with the aim of diving around Tees Bay.
Discussions were held with the marina’ s manager Shaun Houghton-Birrell, who being a diver himself, wants to encourage local and visiting divers to use the amazing facilities there. He produced an information sheet with everything visitors need to know about launching and mooring, with talk of potential discounts if there were enough visiting divers. In the event, there were plenty of divers and Shaun was true to his word. The marina and staff could not have been more supportive.
Meetings took place with Hartlepool Dive Club, whose club house is alongside the marina, with a view to having the post-dive barbecue and social there – it was the perfect venue and they were keen for us to share their awesome new facility.
As our chosen date of 9 August drew nearer, the number of attendees fluctuated widely. Two clubs had to drop out due to boat engine problems, but we still had five boats involved and members from six other clubs. The countdown had begun.
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