CLUBFOCUS
Manx Lottery Trust in 2024 , which secured £ 2,500 to buy new training equipment . The majority was used to purchase three new BCDs and sets of regulators from our local dive store , Discover Diving .
Tell us more …
Sir John and Lady Lorimer on their first boat dive
The King ’ s representative on the Island , the Lieutenant Governor , Sir John Lorimer and Lady Lorimer are both enthusiastic participants and supporters of many aspects of our island community . They learned to dive with us in 2024 , and we are delighted that they are now both members and qualified BSAC Ocean Divers . Sir John is an ex-commanding officer of the Parachute Regiment and he was particularly keen to dive the wreck of the Racehorse ( of which more later ), which they did with the club on 4 May this year .
Ex-Royal Marine and TV scuba diving celebrity Monty Halls visited the IOM in November 2023 and joined club members for a shore dive in the seagrass meadow in Fort Island Gully at Langness Point .
What is normal club life like , you live on an island so you must have a boat ?
The club has two RIBs , one based in Port St Mary in the south of the island , and the other in Douglas , our capital city , on the
A seagrass dive with Monty Halls east side . This gives us two excellent bases to dive from and we also occasionally take the Douglas boat to Peel to carry out dives on the west coast . Our Equipment Officer Matt Corlett is part of the local RNLI crew and can fix anything . Several members are able to drive the RIBs , and we now have four members who can tow and launch them , so we share out the jobs .
Where is your land base ?
Our Diving Officer , BSAC National Instructor John Kermode , has a large shed that doubles up as our kit store and our Training Officer , Richard Wild , stores much of the kit for training . We also have a good relationship with the IOM ’ s only dive shop , and the other active dive club on the island , Discover Diving , in Port St Mary . As well as paying for use of their compressor and hiring some training kit from them , some members join them for dives every year on their hard boat , Endeavour . It is lovely to occasionally have a seat , head , kettle and a dive lift on the boat . Two of our members have compressors if we need them and we put in a successful funding bid to the
What is your training set up ?
The pool at King William ’ s College in Castletown is a great pool and the deepest ( and warmest ) on the island . We have recently started to use the shallow water off Douglas beach as an alternative to the pool , which is working well . Then open-water training is carried out mainly from Port Erin jetty , which is a brilliant training site . It is a sheltered bay , excellent rocky reef and sand bottom with lots of marine life , with a multi-level concrete pier , with good steps for egress , and has excellent parking and proximity to toilets , pubs and coffee shops .
Diving Officer John is regularly in the UK running training weekends for BSAC . Our club Training Officer , Richard Wild , and club members Pauline Berrie , Lara Howe and Leigh Morris are the other active BSAC Open Water Instructors in the training team . So , we are all set and would just like to see more young people wanting to learn to dive .
How do you organise your diving ?
We dive every weekend ( weather permitting ) typically on Sunday mornings . We have a team of experienced dive managers with different interests . The dive manager of the week will usually put out a WhatsApp to all members on Wednesday after looking at the forecast for the weekend and will plan a boat dive around the conditions and interest of those who are free to dive . In addition to the weekend boat dives , we do occasional shore dives in the summer all around the island .
What is your local diving like ?
We have wonderful diving . Typically , we get excellent visibility due to the lack of any large silty rivers and because the coarse sands around the island settle out quickly after rough weather . There is fantastic scenery above and below the water . There are rocky reefs , caves , swim-throughs , brittle star , feather star and horse mussel beds , reefs covered in anemones , and a huge variety of wonderful marine life including sea birds , cetaceans and seals ( who often say hello under water too ).
There are big tides and strong tidal flows round here , which means we have to plan dives carefully , but it also means we have some spectacular high-energy sites where the rocky reefs are completely covered in animal turf , including multiple colours of jewel anemones .
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