Meet our youngest qualified divers, On right, Alex franklin-green age 10

Taylor Mace age 10 A recent visit to vobster quay saw two of our youngest divers qualify as junior open water diver and junior scuba diver. Well done to both of you, and considering the vis was an all time low approx 2.5metres at best, I think they done pretty well. Taylor Mace junior Scuba Diver and Alex Green Junior Open water diver. good stuff!!

PADI Solo/ self reliant diver course now running

Course Overview The buddy system works, it works well, but many divers are often left in precarious situations by an inexperienced diving partner. The purpose of the Self-Reliant Diver programme is to provide the skills needed to extricate oneself from such a situation and to emphasise the importance of proper dive planning as a means to avoid such situations in the first instance. What’s Involved This course has four components: Knowledge development, equipment workshop, skills development and open water dives. The course will cover aspects of dive planning, risk management and equipment for self-reliance. In addition, this course focuses on improving basic diving skills such as buoyancy control and trim. This is a challenging course that will help you identify your strengths and weaknesses and develop an awareness of your own limitations. Course Skills Out of gas drills, pony bottle deployment, buoyancy and trim, backup mask swap whilst hovering. Why Do the Course? This course will appeal to divers wishing to increase their safety awareness whilst diving. The course will also benefit divers wishing to get exposure to technical diving without wanting to commit to a decompression based course. What’s Included The course fee covers instructional time, gas fills, certification costs 1 pool session and 3 open water dives ( the first dive covers skills assessment to determine your level of competence). What You Need In addition to standard scuba equipment, students are required to have a spare mask, a delayed surface marker buoy, a spool/reel with 30m of line and a fully redundant gas supply (e.g. pony bottle , twin set or side mount system).   Pre requisites - To enrol in the course, you must be 18 years old and be certified as a PADI AOW Diver (or equivalent). Whilst not required, divers are encouraged to have completed a PADI Rescue Diver course. 1.       Have a minimum 100 logged dives 2.       Be 18 years of age or older 3.       Successfully complete a dive skills assessment by a PADI Self-Reliant Diver Specialty Instructor. Cost £160.00. This includes pony cylinder & regulators hire  and PADI certification. The cost does not include your site entry fees. You may also count this Specialty certification toward one of the five required Specialties for the Master Scuba Diver Certification.

Side mount course distinctive specialty

Sidemount diving configuration essentially means you take one or two cylinders and place them under your arm on either side of your body, instead of mounting them on your back. Sidemount scuba was initially developed as an approach to gear configuration for advanced cave diving in unusually tight passages where traditional back mounted twin cylinders were cumbersome. Due to the comfort, ease and simplicity of the system, Sidemount is now becoming very popular not only in caves and wrecks but also in open water recreational diving.