Newsletter
Issue 4 - 21 April 2007

Club News
On Tuesday 3rd April 2007 the club held its AGM at the British Legion, the new committee as voted at the AGM are:
Chairman - Gary Howard
Secretary - Angela Gregory
Treasurer - Claire Fennell
Membership Secretary - Milly Howard
Equipment Officer - Jon Pearce
Boat Officer - Pete Mowatt
Social Secretary - Deborah Davis
Training Officer - Len Sumner
Diving Officer - Simon Fennell

Please remember that from now on to use the pool on a club night you MUST sign in first. The pool Marshall will have the signing in book.

The RIB (Dunbalin') is now down at her summer quarters in Ferrybridge. She was checked over, de-winterised and run out on Good Friday. The engine worked perfectly, as we expected, minor problems with the bilge pump and radio connection were rectified.
We have purchased Harbour Dues and Diving Permit for the year, so we now need to make sure that we use the RIB as frequently as possible to get our money’s worth.
Seven of us went out to dive, in and around, Portland harbour on Easter Sat-urday to make sure everything worked from a diving point of view. It did.
Weather conditions were perfect and everyone is now looking forward to a great season of diving aboard Dunbalin'.
Ron Purcell has had a grapple hook made that will hopefully help us 'catch' a wreck or two. Time will tell!

Be at Big and Little Tuesdays to find our about RIB dives. They will be adver-tised by email but it is likely that some will be at short notice, especially if the following weekends weather looks good.
If you are particularly interested contact Simon Fennell (DO) or Pete Mowatt (BO) and we will make a point of informing you of upcoming dives. We are hoping to be able to include Ocean Diver trainees for some dives, in order to gain experience, subject to availability of Dive Leaders to accompany them.
Watch this space for RIB dives.

Dive Review by Pete Mowatt
Lyme Regis Saturday 14th April
Eleven divers plus one non-diver enjoyed an excellent day aboard Miss Pattie diving the Bagitano and the Sawtooth ledges. The weather could hardly have been kinder, slightly overcast until the afternoon, and at about 20˚C above water, just perfect for drysuits. Calm seas, viz of 5-7m and virtually no current to speak of (even for the Sawtooth ledges drift) made for perfect diving conditions.
Congratulations to James who clocked up his 100th dive, he and Vicky col-lected scallops on the ledges to take home for a celebratory meal.
Ron is perfecting his wet drysuit technique. He successfully flooded his dry-suit (again) during the first dive on the Bagitano, but has failed, so far, in finding a method of drying it, and himself, in time for his second dive. The rest of us didn’t mind, as it meant that he could help Andy in kitting and de-kitting us.
Tony spent most of his surface interval upside down, draining, as he too had tried Ron’s technique. He obviously needs more practice as significant damp-ness was the result, rather that total flooding, and was still able to complete his second dive.
Alan, forgetting that he was in the UK, rather than Mosambique, decided to leave his hood and gloves in his car. He is made of stern stuff though and boldly braved the water. He was however, still very grateful of the loan of Ron’s, now redundant kit, for his second dive.
We all agreed that the Bagitano is well worth another visit with plenty of ‘wreck’ to explore and abundant marine life. Jane wants to go back as she still has NEVER seen a conger (does she dive with her eyes closed?).
The Sawtooth ledges also had a variety of life, particularly the abundant sea fans, but it would seem that Pete and Stuart were the only ones that found them. The Ledges are easily missed being only 200yds wide by a mile or so long!!
Clive has learnt his lesson arriving an hour early, and with all his kit, ensur-ing he would not ‘miss the boat’ this time.
Sean and Rob should not go without a mention, but there is nothing to say about them except that Rob put in a lot of work helping Pete to plan the day (thanks Rob) and Sean drove Rob down (thanks Sean). Just remembered, Sean does a great DSMB deployment… without line attached!
Oh, and thanks to Andy who although he couldn’t dive, still came along and helped out on the boat.
The day was rounded off by a couple of beers and a chin-wag at the Crown, Bridport before we all made a safe journey home.

Forthcoming Meetings / Diary Events
26 April 2007 – Lifesaver course exam / Handy Cross SP
01 May 2007 – BigTuesday / British Legion 20.30 - South Africa Trip
05 May 2007 – Cubs & Seals Dive, Plymouth - Organiser: Alan Davis
09 May 2007 – Training Dive, Wraysbury - Organiser: Len Sumner
12 May 2007 – Dive, Portland - Boat: Dunbalin Organiser: Paul Coxon
(The Clubs Full Dive/Event Program is available on the club website)

Dive Notice
26-28 May 2007—RIB Dive Kimeridge, being organised by Vicki Billings
Spaces available please contact Vicki to book!!
Messages from the committee
Len Sumner - (Training Officer)
New Training Team for 2007
Some changes to the training team have occured this year, the team now consists of the following very friendly and helpful people (honest!—ed)
Jane Mowatt - Theory co-ordinator
Amanda Radley - Open Water co-ordinator
Simon Cook - Pool co-ordinator
Len Sumner - Training Officer
If you have any training related questions, please feel free to ask and we'll do our best to help.

New Course
New Ocean Diver course has just started with 5 students, four of whom are completely new to diving and one (Eunice) has crossed over from the dark side!
Please join me in welcoming them to the club, they are:

• John Comley
• Eunice Kendall who lots of us met at the Christmas party
• Diane Lichfield
• Ian Price
• Helen Prior
• John Young
• Tamara Pearce
• John Comley

So if you spot some new faces down at the pool please introduce yourself and make them feel at home.
Training still remains one of the main sources of income for the club, so if
you know anybody who is interested in either a try dive or the full blown course, please give them my contact details (Len.Sumner@maxima.co.uk).

If you think you can put up a HWSAC training poster at work, again, please let me know and I'll send you the latest one.

If you have recently gone through the Ocean Diver course, but need to complete some missed theory lessons (especially ST2), please let Jane know which lessons you have missed and she will send you the dates for the missed lectures on the new course.
Up coming events

• Instructor meeting - to be arranged in the next couple of weeks, proba-bly at the Squirrel on a Tuesday night. If you are an instructor, assis-tant, want to assist in the future, please come along. We want to make the training as save as possible for the coming season and need every-body to help.
• Once the current Life Saver course is out of the way (end of April) we will organise a couple of sessions at the pool to go through:
• How to run a try dive
• What is involved in assisting at the pool
• If you want to help, please come along to these session.
• May 9th, evening training sessions being run every other week at Wraybury

Congratulations & Thanks
- Paul Coxon has just passed his Theory Instructor Exam (TIE) and is about to do the Open Water Instructor Course (OWIC).
- Jane Mowatt, Amanda Radley and Rob Taylor are about to do the Instruc-tor Foundation Course (IFC) in London - enjoy.
Thanks to Paul, Jane, Amanda and Rob for going down the instructor train-ing path and if any of you are interested in doing the same, please have a chat to me, Simon Fennell or Gary Howard

Diveoku
Please see the pdf.

Notice from Author
I hope you have found this newsletter informative. Please send me you comments / re-quests for the newsletter to me at: info@wycombesubaqua.com