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Recognised as the UK's Most Successful Branch!
at The British Sub-Aqua Club's Branch of the Year 2009
Awards
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Welcome to Mid Herts Divers!
Here you'll find information about the club, what we do and where we meet. You'll also find a repository of interesting
and useful scuba-diving information.
We welcome both experienced divers from any affiliation as well as anyone interested
in learning.
Training is performed
by Nationally Qualified Instructors in a safe and structured manner. Theory lessons
are conducted in a classroom environment, followed by pool sessions in our indoor
swimming pool. Open water lessons are conducted at both inland lakes, and coastal
locations including Arlesey
Blue Lagoon, Gildenburgh Water
and Stoney Cove.
Throughout the year, we run Ocean Diver, Sports Diver, Dive Leader and, Advanced Diver
training courses alongside a packed schedule of Skills Development Courses (SDCs) including First Aid for
Divers, Oxygen Administration, Practical Rescue Management (PRM), Automated External
Defibrillator (AED), Wreck Appreciation and Underwater Digital Photography.
We also pride ourselves in our intensive and very successful in-house Instructor
Training Programme. With a perfect pass-rate (so far), we ensure all our branch
instructors meet and exceed BS-AC's strict Instructor training standards.
Membership of the branch
includes both use of branch-owned scuba kit during training and the indoor swimming
pool.
We meet every Wednesday evening at Monks Walk School, Knightsfield, Welwyn Garden
City, Hertfordshire. AL8 7NL between 7.30pm-9.30pm.
Mid Herts divers (also known as Mid Herts Sub-Aqua Club) are branch #1784 of the
British Sub Aqua Club (BS-AC),
the world's biggest diving club.
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Lochaline Trip Report July 2010 Submitted on 22-Jul-2010 23:46:10 by Clive Murphy
Lochaline Trip Report July 2010
Members of Mid Herts Divers, Potters Bar and Stortford Divers enjoyed a great expedition to Lochaline, Sound of Mull on Coast of Scotland last week, with some really good wreck diving, lots of marine life, comfortable boat, great accommodation and food.
We stayed at the Lochaline Dive Centre’s newly refurbished Dive Lodge on a bed, breakfast and evening meal basis and thanks Rod, what a great choice that was! Not only was the accommodation very good but the Dive Centre’s Cordon Bleu chef, Gordon cooked up a superb range of food including a small amount of shellfish freshly “harvested” as appetisers on a couple of evenings.
The Dive Centre's boat "Sound Diver" was very spacious and was with a lift was very stable and comfortable to use. In addition, an on-board compressor meant we could get top-offs between dives, although some in the party did make use of the 300 bar nitrox and trimix available from the Centre.
The boat was skippered by Lee and crewed by Steph who were more than willing to help out with Chartwork and Position Fixing training that was done whilst we were there.
The highlight of the trip were the wrecks, which were very accessible and also generally covered in a complete carpet of marine life, mainly Plumrose Anemones thus satisfying both the “wreckies” and the “marine life divers” in our party. The wrecks were brought to life by Mark who runs the Lochaline Dive Centre who took time out to present
3D visualisations of the wrecks using WreckSightsoftware courtesy of ADUS to aid dive planning.
Wrecks dived included The
Hispania, The Shuna,
The
Rondo – the classic wreck on a near vertical slope running from 9 to 54 metres,
The Thesis and The Breda.
Mark and his wife Annabel are both Underwater Archeologists and have been involved in the exploration of the
wreck of a small warship lost in 1653 that lies against the rocks beneath DuartCastle where we saw cannons and anchor. The site is a designated site and can only be dived under licence. Mark gave us a talk about the history of this wreck and we then took advantage of a tour DuartCastle exhibition of the wreck, possibly “The Swan” to put our diving in context.
Naturally, whilst in Scotland, we had to sample some of the local “produce” at the Tobermory Distillery in the picturesque town of the same name on Mull whilst we had a break between dives!
Many thanks to Rod Reeves for organising the trip including the minibus
| | | Mid Herts Welcomes a New Open Water Instructor Submitted on 22-Jul-2010 22:52:14 by Clive Murphy
Many congratulations to James Coxell for having become Mid Herts Divers latest Open Water Instructor.
James, Well done and well deserved
| | | Bank Holiday Dive + BBQ Submitted on 19-Jul-2010 19:19:49 by Daniel Hodkin. Updated on 19-Jul-2010 19:23:23
Bank Holiday Dive + BBQ
Monday 30th August 2010
Arlesey Blue Lagoon
Time: TBA
We will be sharing the day with North Herts Divers and Stevenage Sub Aqua
Families welcome
I would like people that want to attend to give a deposit of £5 per person to confirm a place, deposit will be returned on the day!!
Send me an email or txt if you are interested in attending!
More details to follow shortly
Cheers
Dan Hodkin
dan.hodkin@yahoo.co.uk
07875463630
| | | Mid Herts Diver's trip to Hodge Close (June 2010) Submitted on 24-Jun-2010 14:45:46 by Adrian Colegate
| | | Cave diving at Hodge Close Submitted on 15-Jun-2010 09:27:49 by Adrian Colegate. Updated on 24-Jun-2010 14:44:18
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As Mid Herts members read these statements about the fantastic weekend organised by Dawn, they will begin to see that this was no ordinary dive, No other dive I have ever done could compare to this one. Let's look at the track to the site, if you could call it that. If you have ever been to Arlesey on a very wet morning and driven down the dirt track you would slip and slide all over the place... well this track was a lot worse with very narrow gates and sharp bends and bumps that could rip your exhaust off if you go too quick. On the return journey Trevor's car couldn't get enough grip to get through one off the gates, so all the heavy dive gear had to be off-loaded!
Once we had arrived at the car park you would begin to think that you had taken the wrong turn. We had come to do some diving and to do that we would need a lake and I couldn't see one... Dawn then began to point to the direction we would need to go, about 70 meters away from the car park was a small stream, which got larger as it entered a 150 METRE LONG TUNNEL!!!! which was very low and dark. We would need to carry all our kit through this tunnel to the end where it opened up into a cavern. As you go through the tunnel the water level gets higher, not a problem for most of us. However Trevor Miller (PAPA SMURF) claims that this was his first dive and that he would need extra surface time before his next one.
We could now see close up, the lake where we would dive, we were in a hole with vertical walls of slate that rose 150 meters above us and on the top you could see trees hanging on by their now exposed roots due to the slate that had fallen away. Once we rested, we would continue on which was now the shortest part of our haul.
So onto the final part of our journey, this wasn't going to be that easy. We now had to lower ourselves and all the kit down a 5 metre ladder made out of scaffold to the steep track that would lead (at last) to the beach area which was only about 4 meters wide and 5 meters long.
We created a "chain-gang" style line and passed the kit from one to the other.
All the kit was now at the waterside ready for our dives. Everything including, as Peter mentioned, the TOILET SEAT. This was a standard toilet seat with a see through plastic bag attached underneath and when assembled would much look the same as a commode. Paul (Rosey) had brought this one along and I know if needed, wouldn't have thought twice about using it! Remember we are on a small 4 meter by 5 meter long area where everyone will have a full view of any user, filling the see through bag! Let’s not forget that us divers are eco friendly and always take our rubbish home! So picture this, a bag of possibly Paul's S**T in a wet bag full of kit being taken back on the return journey, which would be harder after a day’s diving, and then once at the cars being squashed in the boot, well do I need say more?! Paul, please leave the seat at home in future.
Once rested we then began to kit up, Paul happily dropping his dry suit and standing with just his under pants on, unfortunately we were not alone! Across to the side of the lake was a cavern, and a young couple where sat enjoying the surroundings. That was until Paul exposed himself. When Paul realised he apologised and made himself decent. The young couple shouted out that it was OK and they didn't see anything Or was it they couldn't see anything, I can't remember now!
Dawn now started to deliver the safety brief, this covered absolutely everything - nothing was missed, (apart from the toilet seat). It was obvious that she had spent a lot of time in her preparation for this adventurous dive and all of us would have a part to play, from coordination to buddy rescue assistance, and AED and O2 preparation. Having the use of a sat phone and all the correct co-ordnance details for Helicopter evacuation.
Well onto the diving. Hodge close has caverns and tunnels and a max depth of 27meters, all of which were dived, It's a fantastic site but not for the faint hearted and I fully understand why Dawn only wanted Dive Leaders. All of us worked hard and as a well organised team. Nothing needed to be said as we all just got on and done what needed to be done, this is where experience showed. It’s fantastic that a bunch of people from all walks can get together and work as a highly professional team with one goal...TO GO DIVING
Thanks Dawn, a tremendous day out. You have certainly raised the bar and many thanks to my fellow divers:
Adrian Paul Chris Hazel Peter Dan James Trevor Miller
Keith
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The 150m long tunnel to the ladder
 Aerial view of tye quarry
 The scaffold ladder
 At 24 metres down, inside the 30 metre tunnel to the first chamber
 The sign at the entrance to the tunnel towards chamber 2
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