I am from Brazil and believe it or not, Scuba Diving is not a popular sport over there. We swim, we snorkel, but that’s it. Of course, some places teach […]
5 Reasons why you should learn to dive before going on Holiday
You’ve decided to go on an amazing holiday overseas for an unforgettable trip and thought about learning to dive there. I’m going to tell you five reasons why you shouldn’t.
- Get the most out of it
When you plan a Holiday, you get expectations, you spend money, and you want to relax and enjoy all you can of the place you’re going to and the time you’ll have there. What happens is, the Open Water Scuba Diving – the first official step to Scuba Diving – is a serious and technical course you have to take in order to dive safely in the open seas and it takes 4 practical days to do so, plus the time you have to study the theory before making the actual course. Now, imagine if you take four days out of your holidays just for a course, when you could be actually diving, tanning, drinking or eating.
Learning to Scuba Dive on a Holiday trip won’t allow you to get the most out of the trip and neither the course unless you are spending enough time, and 4 days won’t make any difference for your whole Holiday.
2. Learn in your language and culture
When you go outside your country you can’t be 100% sure, you’re going to have a native English speaker giving the course, which means you can miss some of the talk and details when you could have someone helping who fully understand your doubts, your culture and the specifications of where you live, so you won’t just be able to dive in your Holidays, but also when you get back home.
Here in the UK the water temperature, depth and visibility are different from other places in the world that you might be going for your Holidays, and diving doesn’t have to be an occasional hobby, but a sport you do when you can/want, and someone that understands the weather in the UK can probably understand what you’ll go through, whats the best equipment, and tips, and to be honest, after diving here, you’ll be qualified to dive anywhere, and then, when you go for a Holiday you’ll be more prepared and knowledgeable about what you’re interested in, what you want to explore and discover.
3. Guarantee
As I said earlier, the Open Water Course it’s the first official course you take to learn diving. There are different places you can go to learn, but it’s imperative to look for a place that is PADI certified, as PADI is one of the safest and recognised curricula in the world and is a certification for life. So, you’ve got to make sure; you are taking this course in a trustworthy place.
Many places and hotels have their own courses, but they are not worldwide certification like PADI, which means you’ll be only certified to dive there, no other place will recognise it.
4. Financial Plan
Instead of getting a surprise spending on your Holiday or an extra spend, you can actually plan your diving course previously to the Holiday and organise your finance to do it first, knowing exactly how much everything costs, if you want to buy something or wait for a most appropriate moment, what you’ll need for the course.
We get many clients that went diving on a Holiday that wasn’t part of the plan and actually paid way more they would if they had done in here because they didn’t know if diving was for them, so they paid an expensive course for the whole family to try diving and then realised that they did like diving, but would take too many days to complete it during their trip, and they end it up doing here, regretting of the one they paid that wasn’t valid for anything and more expensive than ours, and also that they missed their chance to dive into an amazing . So, if you can plan your trip the best way possible and go prepared for almost everything and just worry about enjoying your time, better.
If you don’t know if diving is for you, there are safe and not expansive ways to try it first, before getting into it with all. For example, we have the Try Dive sessions on Mondays and Wednesdays evenings that were made especially for that, with professional and experienced instructors.
5. Pressure
Last but not least, you won’t have a pressure to buy and do things you are not ready and prepared for yet. As we know that some places take their students to learn diving in places they are still not comfortable with or ready for. When you take the course, you’ll learn that you are responsible to say no, to say you’re not feeling ok, something is wrong, or that you need something, and learning that in a place that won’t judge you for it, but will respect you, without any pressure, will give you more confidence to say “no” anywhere, if you need.
*”But should I Scuba Dive on my Holiday Trip?”
DEFINITELY! Scuba Dive is so much fun! And if you are going somewhere on the beach, you’ll be seeing just half of the place if you don’t go diving. Scuba Diving is the way to meet the underwater world, which is an entirely different world from what we have, full of creatures. So, it’s totally worth doing it.
If you want to give Scuba Diving a try, you can do a session we call “Try Dive“. The “Try Dive” session, as the name suggests, it’s just a taste of what Scuba Dive is, since pretty much everything you’ll do are things you’ve never done before, it’s an entry-level way, to test it if is for you, not having to invest, until you are sure. You don’t get a certification for this one.
Then, if you do like it and decide to invest in a course, we have the PADI Open Water Course, which is a 4-day course built to develop your knowledge and skills underwater, so you can dive safely. The PADI Open Water is a lifetime certification, recognised worldwide, which means you can dive any place in the world.
ANDARK SEA SURVIVAL COURSE
If you don’t know us yet, we’re one of the UK’s largest watersport’s retailers specialising in Scuba Diving, Sailing and pretty much all Watersport activities. We are also a PADI Career Development training centre, teaching people to dive from a beginner to becoming professional Instructors.
We sell products, equipment and clothing, and we also have an indoor pool and a purpose built diver training lake facility that allows us to go even further with our client’s needs, making it possible to help them learning, developing skills, and training their abilities on water, for professional or personal purposes such as scuba diving, helicopter escape training and sea survival training.
Offering the necessary products and training to our clients which allows them to get the most comfortable and safe experience possible, so they can be prepared for any situation above or below water, is extremely important to us.
The RYA Sea Survival Course is an essential course for anyone going to the sea this season and wants to learn some Sea Survival training to have a better understanding of how to use the safety equipment on board your boat.
We not only run Sea Survival Courses for sailors, we also run them for those who fly offshore commercially, as a pilot or crew, even within a “short” distance. The sea survival training for pilots is an add-on to our Dunker sessions. (Helicopter Underwater Escape Trainer). This is so the pilot can learn how to use life jackets, get into lift rafts if their aircraft went into the water.
The RYA Sea Survival Course is a one day course and you’ll get to experience first hand the problems of entering an uncooperative liferaft and assisting others while fully kitted out in wet weather gear and a lifejacket. You will also learn about life jackets and how they work, use of flares, EPIRBs and PLBs (Personal Locator Beacons), etc. You can see our Training Manager in the video below explaining it.
To see when the next courses are run, click on this link. Sea Survival Course
Andark Spring Sale Event
Are you ready for the Season ahead?
We all know that we are now entering to the best and most wanted Season of the year. The sun is out, birds are singing and the water looks more and more attractive. I don’t know about you, but all I want to do is enjoy the most of it, especially on outdoor activities, getting exercise, taking some natural vitamin D (if you know what I mean) and just appreciating the great weather and contact with nature, to be honest.
Now, maybe you already have the whole season planned, dinghy sailing with your friends or scuba diving with your family on Holidays, but maybe you don’t. Maybe you already have great hobbies and activities that you love doing, or maybe you want to start something new but you’re not quite sure what you would like to do. So that’s why I wanted to write something for both of you.
Here at Andark, we don’t only sell diving and water sports equipment, we actually want to give people new experiences and open a whole new world for them, and we do that through our experience of more than 40 years now, also selling great products of the best brands available on the market so people can appreciate their above water or underwater moments, protected, safe and comfortable. Not only that, but we also have Scuba Diving Trainings from beginners to professional, certified by PADI, which means our students are certified for life and are able to scuba dive in any place in the world! Pretty cool, isn’t it?
So I would love to invite you over and introduce you to the watersports and underwater world, but if you are experienced, I know you want the best, and you want it from someone that understands what you’re looking for, so I would like to invite you too. Especially this weekend, we are having a BIG Sale Event at our store, starting on the 18th of May at 9am and ending on the 20th of May at 5pm, and it will be the perfect time to start something new or to buy that thing you’ll need for the season ahead. We have a massive selection of products for Sailing, Scuba Diving, Swimming, Snorkeling, if it is on the water, you name it.
I really hope you come, and I’ll leave a video below for you to see what you can expect.
Cheers,
Days and Times:
FRIDAY 18TH MAY 9AM – 7PM
SATURDAY 19TH MAY 9AM – 5:30PM
SUNDAY 20TH MAY 9:30AM – 5PM
PSAI Advanced Nitrox and Decompression Procedures
Jake writes about his first experience with technical diving at the National Diving and Activity Centre, Chepstow.
This course serves as an entrance to the world of technical diving. The jump from recreational diving is huge and as a result, three days are required to develop the skills and the change of attitude required to conduct safe diving practices. The process started with studying the manual, which everyone really looks forward to at the start of every course.
Friday
The first day of the course involved no diving (fortunately as I had forgot my drysuit), the purpose of the day was to understand the information learnt prior to the course and to discuss kit setup. We all discussed our own gear, and allowed everyone to view the different ways the twinsets had been set up and regulators routed. Allowing people to comment how it could be done more efficiently or what problems it could present in different scenarios. The most important lesson learnt was that for kit configuration there isn’t a set way that is correct, everyone’s kit was slightly different as it suited what they found most comfortable.
Saturday
By this point we were all eager to see how the modifications would affect us in-water. We had two dives to do, and a lot of skills to practice. Mike and Carl wanted us to build up muscle memory so that in an emergency, the skills would be fluid and done with precision. This involved sitting on the platforms at Chepstow practicing shut down drills, swapping between regulators, finning techniques and many more. The introduction of a stage cylinder altered the way we all dived and the use of an extra regulator took a while to get used to.
Sunday
The final day, all our dive planning had led to this day. We only had to do one deeper dive, so we took the day slow and kept emphasis on keeping calm and relaxed throughout. The dive planned was to 43m, with a bottom time of 15 minutes and a total dive time of 38 minutes. We were going to simulate decompression for a longer dive time to develop greater experience with ascent rates and stopping at set depths. The dive was a success, with me discovering what narcosis feels like at the amusement of everyone else. That is something that is unfortunately going to be brought up in every conversation.
I believe I can speak on behalf of the other students and thank Mike Rushworth and Carl Yates for a seamless course that tested our understanding and abilities and provided a solid foundation for safe diving practices.
Scholars Dive the Kyarra
Myself, Jake and Lucy were thrilled to have the opportunity to dive the wreck of the Kyarra in Swanage, Dorset. The liner Kyarra was a casualty clearing ship, with a quick-firing gun mounted on her stern as a defense against U-boats.
On the 26th May 1918 she was ordered to embark 1000 war-wounded Aussie soldiers in Devonport and return them to Sydney. However, she was hit by a German submarine and sank within 7 minutes.
On the 15th August we travelled down to Swanage pier, and boarded the Divers Down boat, ready to discover the Kyarra. We were diving on 32% Nitrox to give us more time explore the Kyarra. Once we had reached the site we entered the water safely and descended 23 meters down a line onto the ships port railing. There was a slight current as we were descending but nothing that made the descent difficult or dangerous. We observed many interesting features and wildlife, for example we saw the remains of the old bollards in the aft hold area, in which one of them had a crab living inside it! We also saw the rudder post and proceeded to swim to across the Kyarra’s hull. There were various fish living around the wreck.
The visibility was fairly good and overall was a very interesting dive. We agreed prior to the dive to start making our ascent when the first person reached 100 bar, which we successfully managed including a safety stop at 5 meters. During the safety stop we launched a delayed SMB so that the skipper could move the boat close to us to pick us up. Once the boat was close enough we held on the line of the side of the boat and proceeded to the back of the boat where the lift was. When we all were back on board we were all very happy about the dive, and made our way back to Swanage pier!
By Natasha
Scholars Visit to the RNLI, Poole
Between 2011 and 2014 there were 50 fatal diving accidents in the UK, and almost all of them were preventable
This is the figure that stuck with me most after our trip to the RNLI. They are now running a campaign which is trying to prevent more diving accidents from occurring in UK waters, and we were lucky enough to be invited along to see the work they do for ourselves.
The charity was set up in 1824 by Sir William Hillary, with just a small group of sailors on the Isle of Man. It became a foundation that now has 238 lifeboat stations and raises £174 million each year. We started the day with a tour around the main college where all volunteers are trained. On the tour, we were taken to see the wave pool that is used for training. All different kinds of weather conditions can be simulated here, and boats can be used in the pool to practice capsizes, making the conditions as realistic as possible. We then had a go in the simulator. This is a room designed like one of the life boats, with screens instead of windows showing the sea. I was given the role of steering the boat first, and I soon learned I’m even worse at steering boats than cars! Different areas and weather conditions can be simulated, and the training crew have to respond to emergencies. Check out our Facebook page for a video!
The next part of the day was seeing inside RNLI HQ. Here, we saw all the different departments that help keep the RNLI running, such as media, video editing, and fundraising. We were shown the accident prevention campaign aimed at different activities around UK coast: hiking, kayaking and especially scuba diving. We also learned about the work being done abroad in third world countries, such a Bangladesh, where a person drowns every 2 seconds. Here, programs have been set up to warn people of the risks surrounding water, and how to handle any situations when they do occur.
The last part of our tour was to see the all-weather lifeboat station, including where lifeboats are built and serviced. This was built in 2015 as a way for the RNLI to be able to build their own boats withthe standard of technology they needed, as well as saving the organisation £3 million a year. 3 new lifeboats are made here each year, as well as 398 other lifeboats in the fleet being tested and serviced.
Overall I found the visit to the RNLI eye-opening, as it made me think about how taking the time to have a thorough buddy check, carrying the correct equipment and diving safely within PADI limits can allow me to prevent incidents that could potentially be fatal.
Scholarship Visit to HM Coastguard, Portland
Diving is one of the safest recreational activities, if the rules are followed properly. However, sometimes unexpected situations can occur, in which the emergency services are required. We were lucky enough to see the HM coastguard base in Portland on the 25th June, just a few days before it shut down.
We were warmly welcomed into the base, and shown around the communal areas where the staff can wait for emergency calls during their shift. After, we were taken into the back where the helicopters are kept, which were a lot larger than we thought. One of the pilots, Jerry Tribe kindly allowed us to sit in the cockpit and explained the extensive safety checks and the basics of how to fly a helicopter. He also explained the more details about the helicopter itself, including the physics behind it, fuel consumption and he pointed out where all of the external cameras were. Fraser Rowbotham sat with us in the main cab and showed us where all the medical equipment was, and the procedures followed when rescuing someone, including how they use the winch system. He showed us the equipment used to rescue someone at sea, and how he would attach them to it to safely elevate them into the helicopter.
To finish off this memorable day we took some photos, which you can see below, and we even managed to see the helicopter take off as they were off to do some practice using the winch offshore.
Lastly we’d like to thank Fraser, Jerry and to the rest of the staff at the HM coastguard for such a great day!
Andark Divemaster Scholars 2017
This year, we have three lucky scholars who will be with us for the summer to learn the ropes of the dive center and earn their PADI Divemaster qualification. Meet Lucy, Jake and Natasha:
Lucy Martin-Patrick
My name is Lucy Martin-Patrick and I’m 18 years old. I decided to do the Andark dive master scholarship as ever since I started diving a year ago after doing my open water course at Andark I have wanted to progress even further, and I felt doing the scholarship was a great opportunity for me to do this. Once I finish the scholarship I’m looking to do some volunteering overseas and travel for a couple years. Whilst travelling I hope to dive in as many different places as I can and experience the different cultures.
Jake Keys
I am excited to be on the Andark Scholarship throughout the summer. I began the process a qualified Rescue Diver, having done all of my training through Andark already. I grew up in Southampton and I have just completed my three A-Levels (Maths, Physics and Geography) at Peter Symonds. The scholarship is an opportunity for me to develop my skills further and to pass them on to new divers. I hope to carry on after the scholarship and become an instructor, with the aim of travelling somewhere tropical and enjoying a gap year before University.
Natasha Busjeet
Hey I’m Natasha and I’m 22. I have just completed a masters in Marine Biology from the University of Southampton, and have always had a keen interest in marine life and diving. I was lucky enough to be chosen as one of the scholars this year, in which this divemaster qualification will help me to pursue a career in marine conservation.
We’re lucky to have Lucy, Jake and Natasha here for the summer, and hope this process is as rewarding for them as it has been in previous years. Follow their progress here on our blog, and see what they get up to this summer!
PADI Women’s Dive Day 2017
For the past two years, divers from every corner of the globe have come together for PADI Women’s Dive Day to bond over their love of the ocean and a passion for diving. This growing tradition will continue this year, further strengthening and supporting the female dive community through a day of fun, adventure and camaraderie.
Here at Andark, we have decided to make a weekend of it – because is one day really enough for us girls?
It’s set to be a fun-packed weekend, with visitors from PADI, Red Bull, representatives from scuba manufacturers to showcase their equipment, including Suunto, Cressi and Aqualung. Last year’s Fourth Element Treasure Hunt was such a success that it will be returning to the Andark Lake as well! Finally, our pool will be packed all weekend, with 2 for 1 try dive sessions for new divers, and for those seeking a little more excitement: a chance to test themselves in our Helicopter Underwater Escape Trainer!
Plus, special guest speaker: Maritime Archaeologist, Jane Maddocks!
If you have any questions about the event, please contact katb@andark.co.uk or call 01489 581 755