After lots of emails and organisation, the day of the First Aid for Divers training at the club had almost arrived. I went to bed the night before (admittedly not particularly early) having set 2 alarms to ensure I was up bright and early. My intention was to leave my house by 8am so I could get to the club in time to help our instructors – Dave Tressider and Chris Hunka – set up for the day, and to make tea for the students as they arrived. I woke at 8.16am, both alarms having failed!

Needless to say, I was too late to offer any help to the 2 instructors and didn’t have hot drinks ready for the attendees. However, thank you to Marcela Turanova who made me a cuppa as soon as I rushed through the doors of the club with 1 minute to spare before the start of the training.

The First Aid for Divers course provides basic first aid training relevant to the types of accidents and illnesses that may arise in a diving environment. Of course, these are not all exclusive to diving and it therefore provides a good basic skill for all situations.

We started with some theory on the principles of first aid and the roles of a first aider, followed by a practical session on casualty examination. This role play allowed the creative and budding actors amongst us to really ham it up! In addition, we learned what to record and monitor in a casualty and the importance of this information.

This was followed by theory sessions on identifying and treating different conditions such as shock, wounds, burns and injuries to muscles, joints and bones. These sessions were accompanied by a PowerPoint presentation with some rather graphic pictures of each condition – certainly not for the faint-hearted! We also looked at summoning help; hygiene; and first aid kits.

Armed with an understanding of different injuries and illnesses we practiced bandaging and dressing wounds using the contents of a basic first aid kit and improvising with the equipment that would be available on a dive boat. We used hoods to secure dressings to simulated head wounds; dive gloves to hold dressings in place and reduce bleeding to hand injuries; and weight belts as slings (with the weights removed of course!)

During the day we also covered minor barotraumas (mask squeeze, ears, sinuses and teeth) and conditions such as sea sickness, hypothermia, hyperthermia and exhaustion. Much of this provided an excellent reminder of topics we all cover as part of the Ocean and Sports Diver syllabus.

The day, almost at an end, we had another practical session focusing on splints and moving casualties. Again we improvised with equipment and materials that would be available to us. Some of the most creative and effective splints were made from an inflated BC around a casualty’s legs, and an inflated SMB or fin between a casualty’s legs, all secured with weight belts. Lots of fun and an opportunity to let our imagination run wild!

This was a very full day but the content and excellent presentation skills of our 2 instructors made it enjoyable as well as informative. I can highly recommend it and would encourage as many club members as possible to attend future sessions.

Many thanks to Dave and Chris for their time, and to Mark Cockram who supported them further with his knowledge and experience gained in the police force. Thanks also to the students who are now better equipped to assist all club members should first aid be needed (although, of course, we hope we’ll never need to put the skills into practice). Students were:

• Mark Cockram
• Julia Colato
• Tony Colato
• Marcela Turanova
• Graham Evans
• Ros Hepple
• Barry Duplock
• Kevin Morgan
• Dorothea Klinge
• Leanne Collinson

Finally, for those interested in this or any other BSAC skills development courses, go onto the South East region website for dates and details of training available to us all

> Click here to visit the SE Region

The Saturday involved lectures and presentations on subject such ‘How people learn’; ‘Planning and preparing a diving theory lesson’; ‘Presenting a diving theory lesson’; and ‘Teaching practical diving skills’. We then, hastily, ate a sandwich whilst setting up our kit for the afternoon’s pool session.

This consisted of our instructors running through some examples of teaching practical skills (and I urge you all to practice them several times a season; it’s amazing how rusty you get). After 2 hours in the pool, the day still wasn’t close to finishing. We then spent the rest of the afternoon doing some brief planning and preparation on theory and practical lessons that we were to deliver ourselves the following day.

Having left the venue and collected a take-away on the way home, we then spent the rest of the evening designing a 10 minute theory lesson and a 20 minute practical session, which we were to deliver on the Sunday. To make it even more difficult we couldn’t choose our topics: we were told what we were teaching!

I did eventually fall (literally!) into my bed at 12.30am and the alarm appeared to go off a couple of minutes later. We were back at the venue by 9am on Sunday, with our lesson notes, props, and nerves!

We all presented our theory lessons first thing; they all went well and some very innovative visual aids were used. I also think that, secretly, we all quite enjoyed it despite the anxiety!

We were all a little more relaxed during our next lecture on ‘Teaching diving in open water’ and had a long lunch break (15 minutes!) before kitting up to deliver our practical sessions in the pool.

The nerves kicked in again but, based on feedback received, we all did very well – a huge sigh of relief all round. We then returned to the classroom for another lecture and some more exercises.

Eventually the weekend came to an end with congratulations and our certificates being handed out.

This was a fantastic experience and I think it should be compulsory – and not just because I want everybody to go through the stress and exhaustion that we did! If nothing else, it makes you appreciate the effort needed and complexity of teaching the sport. I’ve always held the instructors in high esteem but, following this, my respect and appreciation of them has increased further. It’s not as easy as it seems.

Finally, well done to the following who attended:

• Dean Mitchell
• Mark Cockram
• Kevan Tulip
• Sarah Hamlyn
• Marcus Sharp
• David Allen
• Jackie Maskell

…and, of course, myself!

Then I read the report about the dive boat that sank off Plymouth this year. The skipper and his mate went into the water without buoyancy aids or thermal protection. The life raft failed to release from the wreck. One of the divers onboard nearly lost his life trying to get out of the wheel house as his drysuit had him pinned him against the ceiling and he was unable to get out of the doorway. Although a Mayday was sent for some reason no one heard it. When they eventually managed to get into the life raft the survivors were projectile vomiting over each other due to the swell. Thankfully, a passing yacht saw their distress flare and coordinated the rescue. From the time that the skipper thought there was something wrong with the boat until it sank was just four minutes! Thankfully, no one died but the harrowing report that one of the divers put on the web makes for sombre reading and convinced me that maybe I should learn some basic sea survival skills.

So it was that nine of us set off for BOSS (British Offshore Sailing School) in Portsmouth to do their basic sea survival course. When we got there we met our instructor who had spent 34 years in the Royal Navy as their chief survival instructor. The first part of the course is all theory and is carried out in the classroom with the help of some excellent photographs and video.

All the basic theory about sea survival was covered from the different types of equipment and how to use it to “what to do if” scenarios. The instructor punctuated the theory with real life examples, such as the sinking of the Estonia car ferry a few years ago. Unfortunately, most of the life rafts on the Estonia were upside down when they came to the surface. As the passengers hadn’t seen a life raft before they thought this was normal and so sat on top of them. This meant they were open to the elements and practically all of those who made it to the life rafts died of hypothermia. There were 989 people on the Estonia and only 137 survived, 852 either drowned or died of hypothermia.

We also covered the sinking of the Yacht Uozo off the Isle of White in 2006. The three sailors on board were all very experienced and all had the proper offshore sailing equipment on. All of them drowned. Two of them died after 3 hours and the third one died after 12 hours. The reason that there is such a big time difference between the first two and the third drowning is that the first two didn’t have their crotch straps on their life jackets done up correctly. This meant that as they became hypothermic they could no longer pull their life jackets down keeping their heads above the water. As they let go with their hands they sank beneath their life jackets and drowned. These scenarios highlighted the fact that it isn’t enough to just have the equipment you must know how to use it if it is to work as intended and save your life.

After the theory part we headed down to the local swimming pool to do the practical part. We were issued with foul weather gear (offshore sailing jackets and salopettes) and life jackets. We were then shown how to enter the water, swim whilst fully kitted and swim as a team. We then went on to deploying the life raft. The one we had was an 8 man life raft with full canopy and survival equipment. Marcela was tasked to launch the raft which meant tying it onto a secure point then pulling the inflator cord. If you haven’t seen one of these rafts self inflating I would recommend it as it’s quite a spectacle. We then all got in by stepping in form the side of the pool. Richard being the shy retiring type was first in quickly followed by the rest of us. The rafts are filled using a CO2 cylinder and once filled the excess vents into the raft which makes it a tad difficult to breath when you first get in not to mention claustrophobic.

When we were all in (which was a bit of a tight squeeze) the door was closed and we were left for a few minutes to appreciate what its like to be in one of these rafts. It was amazing how hot it became with the body heat generated by all those people. Next we had to get into the life raft from the water which is a lot harder than it sounds with all the wet weather gear and life jacket. We then had to work as a team to do all the different tasks such as deploying the sea anchor, bailing out the water, dealing with the casualty (Dave, had broken his leg) and posting a lookout. We then went on to learn how to turn a life raft over in case it deployed upside down (as in the Estonia sinking). By the end of the session we were all elated but rather tired.

This really was a fantastic course but one thing kept coming back to me throughout the day: why is this not compulsory for people who regularly go out on boats? As divers we spend a lot more of our time on boats out at sea than Joe Public yet there are no BSAC courses, or any other agency courses, which deal with sea survival. The skills we learned would be just at home on the club RIB, a liveaboard in the Red Sea or Scapa Flow or even on a day boat on the south coast. I would thoroughly recommend that as a diver you seriously consider doing this course. It may one day just save your life.

Many thanks go to Chris Knight who not only organised the day but who also acted as our minibus driver and videographer. Thanks also go to Chris Hunka, Dave Allan, Richard Rayner, Trish Emery, Marcela Turnanova, Mark Cockram, Brett Champion and Roz Hepple, my fellow survivors, who all contributed to making this an excellent, highly informative and very amusing day.

Blimey, that was cold. I am told that it was about eleven degrees in the water, but it seemed colder to me (and I was in a dry-suit). Anyway, we got some training done for Barry, Dorothea, Rory and Alison.

Rob and Brian and myself were instructing for the day, with help gratefully received from Dean and Sarah who are part of a sizeable contingent from our club undergoing the forthcoming instructor foundation course. Top stuff!

Thanks to instructors Chris Hunka and Rob Lea and to helpers Sarah Hamlyn, Dean & Kerstie Mitchell for making the day a success and helping to move everyone along their in their respective training. I think we will be able to boast a few new qualifications soon.

The weather was an interesting mix of sun, hail and midges. For some it was their first open water dive but all emerged smiling if a little (or in some cases a lot!) cold. There were the odd hitches with at least one high speed drive back home wearing a wetsuit to retrieve a BCD from a kitchen table but the day was judged a great success with many drills signed off.

Thanks to Gren (who organised the day) and his fellow instructors Bret, Chris H, Dave B and Rob.

The theory lessons began with basic boat information and lots of technical terms that you really should know so that you can knowledgably speak about ‘four-stroke engines’ and ‘planing hulls’ and distinguish between your aft, stern, port and starboard with some confidence. Incidentally this all went to pot on the day when we kept trying to go ‘left’ and ‘park’ the boat.

We also covered actually getting the boat anywhere near some water, how to tow, legal considerations, how to launch the RIB  and basic rules of road when you do get it out on the water. These seem to consist of giving way to everyone else in every known situation. Trickier to remember are the different buoys and markers that you will see and the types of flares and emergency equipment that you need to carry.  If you’ve ever been on a RIB before you suddenly realise that there are lots of things you’ve never had to think about before because someone else has sorted it all out.

There was some knot-tying practice which quickly made clear who had spent time around boats or in the Boy Scouts and who had not. Apparently the old adage of “If you can’t tie knots, tie lots’ was no longer good enough. Lastly, we looked at voyage planning to start thinking about planning dives, working out slack times, having back-up plans and all the necessary information that you need about harbours/ports, coastguard numbers etc. This involved working out the longitude and latitude of Newhaven marina and the wreck of the T.R. Thompson with some interesting, possibly inaccurate, data produced.

On Saturday 17th, the day of the practical, we picked up Dave Tresidder and then Britvic. Gren towed the RIB down to Newhaven; a task made more difficult by the fact that there was torrential rain and it would have been difficult to see much at the best of times but certainly not when you’d just attached a 6-metre long dead-weight behind you. Still we made slow, sedate progress down to Newhaven arriving just before 08.30. 

We were all so keen we were all there on time and so terrified that Dave was going to start making us do ‘boat things’ straight away that we were all in our dry-suits about 5 minutes later. Saturday’s trainees were Alex Coombes, Mike Ford, Jonathan Markwell, Dean Mitchell, John Parrish, Mariuz Izydorek (who had to suffer Dave calling him Maurice all day), Gren Hamlyn and me.

Despite our keenness we had to wait a while for the Marina to open so that Geoff, the other instructor, could get his RIB ‘Manta’ released. We were very impressed with Manta which is a fetching green colour. As Geoff said it makes it easier to report it missing if it’s not orange like everybody else’s. We were also very impressed with the laminated folder that contained lots of handy tips on what to do if the engine cut out or the alarm sounded as well as detailed pictures of the engine for more hard-core in-situ repairs. We did a thorough check of all the kit on board, during which Geoff gave us handy tips like actually checking that the anchor was attached to the RIB. We pumped up the tubes and then, armed with life jackets, got her in the water.

The sky in Newhaven was clearing up and the sun was trying to break through but there was no getting away from the fact that there was at least a Force 5, if not more, blowing outside the safety of the harbour wall. Still after a bit of gentle manoeuvring both RIBS poked their noses out to see what was going on. Well, it’s fair to say that it was pretty dramatic out there with three-metre high waves topped by white horses. 

We started off with some fast handling. Geoff demonstrated the good way to ride the waves, powering up them at an angle then killing the speed so that you drop over the other side and can then turn and make use of the trough until the next wave approaches. He then demonstrated the uncomfortable way to do it which I didn’t see as I had my head clamped firmly between my knees as I clung on with every fibre in my body to avoid being flung off the RIB. I think the upshot is don’t drive straight at waves and don’t go over waves if you are parallel to them – the boat will be fine, you however will be swimming back to shore. 

Although the weather was challenging and it was physically tough steering the boat for all of us this really was good fun if you were the one driving. This was also the point where I saw the most dramatic sight of the day, Britvic skippered by Dave heading in-land pursued by the type of wave you only ever see in surfing films. It was with some relief that we saw that they’d managed to out-run it. It was also at that point that we decided to head towards the marina for some practice manoeuvring.

We practiced coming up on a dive site and deploying a buoy and recovering the buoy afterwards. While lobbing a buoy over the side was fairly easy it required more skill to accurately approach the buoy, kill your speed and pick it up. Killing the speed is even more important when you’re picking up divers so we refined this by practicing ‘man overboard’. We learnt that you can’t just turn round but instead need to alter your course by about 20-30º for a few seconds before making a hard turn. This means that you end up coming back in the exact opposite direction of the one you’d been travelling in rather than forming a large circle and taking longer to reach the person in the water. It seems counter-intuitive but does work in practice which is very satisfying.

Next we tried emergency stops. It’s pretty easy to stop the boat suddenly but if you don’t then turn and motor out of the way you will be engulfed by the wave of water following you. This is the marine equivalent of the emergency stop in your driving test with you motoring along at speed waiting for Geoff to shout ‘Stop! at which point you have to stop the RIB as fast as you can. 

We broke for a late lunch during which we all tried to dry off, regain feeling in our fingers and re-insert our arms back into their sockets. The afternoon was devoted to slow manoeuvring which is when you realise that going at speed in a straight line is dead easy and mooring up a boat isn’t. Trying to keep our speed under 1 knot meant we were far more influenced by the wind and the tide so you have to do everything very slowly and in some cases just see which way you are drifting before deciding which way to turn or whether to use the weight of the engine to bring the RIB alongside the mooring. This is hard going forwards but we then moved on to reverse parking which was really challenging. Keeping the RIB under 1 knot was also quite tricky as we all struggled with the controls so there were a couple of 2 knots plus landings.

We also tried ‘kedging’ which is a way of anchoring the RIB close to shore and moving it inland by letting out rope so that you can, for example, off-load a casualty when you aren’t near a port or harbour without having to beach the boat.

At this point the weather had eased off – the calm before the storm literally – but it was starting to get dark so we headed in. Geoff very wisely had his RIB towed back into the marina on the basis that a Force 8 Gale was no weather for it to be sitting in.

After a swift pint in the pub to reflect on the day and what we’d learnt we headed home, grateful that we weren’t part of the group the next day when they were forecasting a Force 6-7.

Anecdotal reports suggest that the wind wasn’t as bad as predicted so they got out into the water, did their drills and came back safely so all credit to Team B: Mark Cockram, Bret Champion, John Fowles, Ros Hepple, Tom Holt, Rob Lea, and Marcela Turanova.

This is a good, fun course – for which many thanks to Dave Tresidder and Geoff Cleary from Manta Divers – and I suspect that there will be a lot of competition this year to drive to boat and practice manoeuvring possibly to the extent of chucking people in just so that we can pick them up – you have been warned!

We have covered in the past the importance of correct weighting and the ability, and importance, of ditching weight in an emergency. There are, however, times when we add additional weight during the course of a dive that may have implications that we have not previously considered.

Visit the section here

All members welcome, training requirements will be in liason with the training officer and you can join us for either or both days and can stay over on the saturday night if diving sat and sun, there is a good pub in frome with accomodation.

A list will go up in the new year.

You probably heard about the Muslim Fundamentalists in Plymouth over the late May bank holiday on the news, well there were two other Fundamentalists in Plymouth that weekend which the world media didn’t hear about. Ian and Trish Emery were the real Plymouth Fundamentalists not because we wanted to blow anything up but because that weekend we had decided to do the GUE Fundamentals course…

GUE or Global Underwater Explorers is and American diving charity that promotes exploration of caves, cave research and advanced diver training. They are closely linked to Halcyon the dive kit manufacturer and the DIR (Doing it Right) diving philosophy.Trish and I had decided to do their entry level course, GUE Fundamentals, which is a prerequisite for doing their more advanced courses such as Cave 1, 2 and 3 and Tech 1, 2 and 3. The Fundamentals course teaches the fundamentals of diving such as no mask swims, out of gas procedures, valve shut downs, rescue skills, buddy skills, DSMB deployment etc. The only difference between their training and other agency training is that GUE require you to have perfect buoyancy and to remain completely horizontal in the water at all times. GUE’s emphasis on horizontal position or trim as they call it comes from their links to cave diving. If you are not horizontal in the water then any fin kicks will be forced downwards which will disturb silt on the bottom and will reduce visibility. Swimming horizontally also make swimming through the water far more efficient which means less energy is required by the diver and less gas is used. Anyone can do the Fundamentals course from Ocean Diver to Trimix Instructor, in fact, GUE prefers people with less experience to do the course as they shouldn’t have picked up any bad habits by then.

Above: GUE divers cave diving. (Courtesy of www.dirdiver.co.uk)

Many people have heard of the DIR diving system which was developed by some cave divers in Florida in the 1980s. They designed a minimalist equipment set up which meant that you only took on a dive what you needed whilst having enough back-up should anything fail. The DIR system has received a lot of bad press as people have tried to pick holes in it and say that it is not suitable for their diving. These criticisms miss the point about GUE and the DIR system. The GUE approach to diving is much more than just about equipment. The system only really makes sense when the whole package is adopted. One of the cornerstones of the GUE system is that all divers have to have identical equipment. This not only results in increased safety as everyone is familiar with everyone else’s equipment, it also means that as a diver progresses to more advanced levels of diving they do not have to change their equipment – the same equipment is used for recreational diving, technical diving and cave diving. Therefore, the diver becomes very familiar with their equipment. The GUE system gets a lot of its strength from this standardisation. However, GUE also put considerable emphasis on team diving and buddy skills as well as a level of expertise in diving skills which far exceed any other agency.

The course was very hard work. It runs over four days and each day starts at 8.30am and doesn’t finish until 8pm. There are eight hours of classroom lectures, swim tests and five dives. Each dive is only in about eight meters of water but dive times typically last between one and a half and two hours. There is lots of messing around with kit so that it complies with GUE recommendations and so that it fits you perfectly. One of the most powerful parts about GUE training is that the dives are all videoed so that after the dive you can see exactly what you had been doing and the instructor can give you specific advice on what to do to improve.

The dives start out relatively easy practicing different finning techniques (the backwards kick is an essential part of the course) before progressing to more demanding skills such as valve shut downs, out of air ascents and diver rescue skills. The diver rescue is very interesting as it is used to get an unconscious diver out of a cave. Obviously a vertical ascent in a cave is not possible so the diver has to be “flown” out horizontally. I would have thought this was impossible but having actually done it it’s easier than you would think.

The fundamentals course has four pass or fail levels. The worst one is obviously a fail and this means that basically you shouldn’t be diving, then there is a recreational pass which means you can do all the skills but they are not good enough to go on to do technical / cave training. You then have a provisional pass which means that you have mastered all of the skills except one or two of the essential skills such as valve shut downs or backwards finning. People who get a provisional can go away and practice and when they master the skill can come back for a reassessment and upgrade to tech pass. Then there is the tech pass which means you can go on to do GUEs more advanced training.

Interestingly, there was another course which was being run in tandem with our course and there were two senior BSAC people on it. One of them was the BSAC training director and the other was a national instructor. Unfortunately, the training director was not able to finish the course but given BSACs recent emphasis on buoyancy maybe the BSAC is thinking about adopting some of GUEs training procedures – remember, you heard it here first.

There are only five GUE instructors in the UK and our course was taught by Brian Allen who owns the Aquanauts dive centre in Plymouth. It is extremely difficult to qualify as an instructor with GUE so all the ones that do make it are exceptionally good and very professional. If you fancy learning more about GUE and the DIR system please visit their website:

http://www.gue.com/

Trish and I had a fantastic course and ache all over to prove it. GUE training may not be for everyone as it does require a certain kit configuration which is expensive to achieve unless you were lucky enough to adopt it early on in your diving career, and the skill levels that GUE think that their divers should have are probably a bit beyond what most people would want to strive for. However, if you want to progress your diving and are willing to do whatever it takes to get there I can fully recommend GUE training.