CLUBFOCUS
George Irvine-Sisk and Ollie Burke at the granite quarry
Paul Haynes, George Irvine- Sisk and Heather Todd under the cliffs near Stonehaven
What life do you see?
The sea life is varied, lots of soft corals, anemones, crustaceans, fish and nudibranchs. We frequently see seals; and dolphins often pass by. We have seen orca, and basking sharks are becoming more frequent visitors. There’ s a great variety of seabirds; puffins, razorbills, gannets, cormorants are common and there are frequent underwater sightings of guillemots chasing the huge shoals of sand eels that visit in summer. Most members carry goodie bags to collect any litter and fishing tackle found on dives. The tackle is donated to local anglers to be reused or melted down and used for club weights. We also seek out trapped and lost lobster pots which, if we cannot free and return to the owners, we ensure are disabled.
Any wreck diving?
Members have found and documented nearly 60 shipwrecks in 25 years. Offshore, there are literally hundreds, but they are deep and only dived by the club’ s small but growing group of technical divers. There are some shallower wrecks, but they are broken up by the huge seas on our exposed coast.
What does your training schedule look like?
We typically have 12-16 Ocean Diver trainees per year. We run dedicated training trips where instructors focus on taking members to their next level of certification. We have already booked up a week-long trip in March to put 32 OD, SD and DL candidates through their training. We provide free drysuit training to the many overseas-trained divers who join us as wetsuit divers. We also run club SDCs and in the past year have put 23 members through boat handling and 17 through Chartwork and Position Fixing courses. We also help our local university club with training; in common with many student clubs, they struggle for instructors.
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Rachael Green and Jim Burke at The Garvellachs
Impromptu chartwork SDC
Doug Blake, Hannah Johnson and Keith Williams enjoy post-dive snacks
Tell us about your instructor team
We have a National Instructor, 12 Open Water Instructors, two Assistant Open Water Instructors, and 14 Assistant Diving Instructors. We hosted a local Instructor Foundation Course in May, which six of our members attended. Despite the growing team, aligning instructor availability with trainee availability and weather remains complex.
And finally, what is the club planning for the next few years?
We want to grow our instructor base and continue to offer training and diving opportunities to anyone wanting to explore the underwater world. If funds allow, we would like to purchase a second RIB. We want to actively encourage under-18s to join us and build their experience and confidence. We see great value in collaborating with other clubs, so we’ ll continue to support other clubs using our facilities; we are always keen to help anyone who asks. Ultimately, we want to do more expeditions to exciting dive locations and are looking at potential trips to Rockall, the Coryvreckan whirlpool, Chuuk Lagoon, the Solomon Islands, Socorro Island and the Philippines. �