That ’ s a healthy number of try divers , how did you increase your presence ?
The pinnacle - a trip to St Kilda
The revised , welcoming website was key . Community projects have been a strong thread running through the years . One of our earliest , in the 1970s , was the recovery of a steam shovel called the Navvy from a flooded quarry in Arlesley , Bedfordshire . The Navvy has recently been restored and is now in a museum in Cumbria . A professional historian has recently documented its history and produced a DVD of the story .
What about recent projects ?
For the past 15 years we have been actively involved with Bedford Borough Council in the annual Great Ouse River Clearance . Volunteers clear the banks of a stretch of the river in the centre of Bedford , while BedSAC divers clear the actual river . The amount of rubbish that comes out is amazing , including prams , pushchairs , traffic signs and cones , computer printers , bikes and even a motorised bike . BedSAC has always organised and managed the dive and recently a few members of Bedford Scuba , the other BSAC club in the area , have joined us .
Post-clearance banter
The river provides quite a focal point ?
Yes , we have also surveyed the river bottom before dredging work to enable the local community boat , the John Bunyan , run by a charitable waterways trust , to extend their range upstream and turn around safely .
Any other river-based work ?
We helped a commercial company engaged by the local council to rebuild a balustrade beside the river after a lorry knocked stonework into the water . We removed the old coping stones and balustrade spindles from the river below the breach for our usual fee - a donation by the company to the RNLI . We recovered far more than the two coping stones and five spindles we were told had been knocked in . We are also in demand for surveying and clearing obstructions from local fishing lakes .
And other outreach work ?
We often get asked to talk to primary school children who are learning about marine topics , including conservation . We have a presentation of video and stills from our various dives worldwide ; it is essentially an underwater trip around the world , including UK diving , with a commentary and a map . We take diving kit with us to allow them all to try it and pretend that they are divers . Last time we delivered four 90-minute sessions with video , questions and kit .
The river haul
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