FAQs

Based on experience over the years, please find answers to questions you might have about training and diving with HWSAC

Training

How much does it cost to become a qualified Ocean Diver (basic diving grade) with HWSAC?

• Excluding the purchase of personal kit (please don’t buy anything until you are sure diving is for you and then seek advice from your instructor / other club members), roughly £480ish. This includes annual BSAC and HWSAC membership, but excludes entry costs to open water dive sites and / or dive boats and also personal kit rental.

How long does it take to become an Ocean Diver with HWSAC?

• A lot depends on the availability of instructors (we are all volunteers) and the students (other commitments that conflict with planned training).
• Typically it takes between 3 and 6 months.

Do I need to be a fantastic swimmer?

• No, you need to be able to swim 200m without stopping and you will be tested on this as part of the Ocean Diver course. The more comfortable you are in water, the easier you might find certain skills (e.g. mask removal and refitting) but we have never had to give up on anybody yet.
• As long as your happy to come along, we are happy to train you.

Divers

What does HWSAC offer members?

Access to a 25m swimming pool with a 3.5m pit
We rent the pool at the Wycombe Leisure Centre (Handy Cross) every Thursday night from 20:45 to 22:30.
Members can use the pool for swimming, snorkelling, testing out new and / or recently services kit or just come down for a chat.

We have a membrane nitrox compressor housed at the Leisure Centre, offering air fills to members for free and nitrox fills up to 36% at very reasonable rates.

We have BCs, Regs and Cylinders for rent to members at very reasonable rates if you don’t have your own kit or need some additional equipment for an exotic trip or expedition.

Training
We run regular Sports Diver(SD), Dive Leader(DL) and Advanced Diver(AD) training within the club, These courses being run based on demand, but normally one SD course per year, a DL course every 2 or 3 years and AD course every 4 or 5 years.

We are also able to run several of BSAC skill development courses (SDC) within the branch, again based on demand.

Social
On top of meeting every Thursday night at the pool, we arrange several social events throughout the year (Covid 19 permitting) including:

• Summer BBQ
• Christmas Black Tie party – always good fun !!
• Christmas fun quiz
• Curry nights at local restaurants
• Guest speakers – Monty Don, Andy Torbet and Mary Rose representatives are some of the ones we have run in the past

UK Diving
We have an extensive annual UK diving program that covers both recreational and training needs. Places that we regularly visit include Scapa Flow, Shetland Islands, Farne Islands, Isle of Man, Lundy, St Abbs and all the regular dive sites along the English Channel (Plymouth, Brighton, Portland, Kimmeridge etc.)
We also use most of the southern UK inland dive sites (Wraysbury, NDC Chepstow, Vobster etc.) for training and keeping dive skills current during the off season.

Overseas Diving
Over the years the club has organised and run many exotic diving holidays to numerous destinations including – Cuba, Corsica, Mexico, Indonesia, Galapagos, Normandy, Naples, Red Sea, Mozambique and South Africa.
These holidays are open to all family members, not just divers as we want to see the real destinations as well as their underwater critters.

Club Rhib
Well we had one until it was stolen over the summer of 2020. We are currently waiting to see how much money we will get back from the insurance before we decide as to whether we attempt to replace the boat and if so, when – Covid 19 is not good for anyone and we have to consider club finances and when we will get to some sort of normality.