Project AWARE International Clean Up day - Sub-Mission's Grand day out.

Thank you to everyone who attended the Project AWARE Beach Clean Up on Saturday. We had a fantastic day with the most amazing weather and gorgeous sunny skies.

 

Katy had planned to clean Bull Bay but upon inspection the beach was incredibly clean, which is testament to the local community’s effort to keep litter off the beach. So, we decided to drive down to Trearddur Bay and clean up the main public beach at the top of Ravenspoint Road. Just as Trefor Beach fooled us into believing it was a clean beach, we actually collected a massive 74kg of rubbish on what looked like a well looked after area. The tide must play some part in washing fresh rubbish ashore everyday as this is a beach that is regularly cleaned.

 

With our team of 48 volunteers, including the group of Cub Scouts who came along to give us a hand, we set to work collecting rubbish from the shoreline and underwater after a briefing from Darren and Katy. The underwater teams found very little litter and again this may be attributed to divers collecting on their dives, although what was found was collated and carefully disposed of.

 

Some of the items found on Saturday include:

 

• 243 Lengths of fishing line
• 232 Food wrappers / containers
• 94 Glass Bottles
• 105 Lengths of rope
• 134 Cigarette stubs
• 1 Firework
• 1 Nappy
• 1 Plastic Bucket

Thanks to Tim, Barry and Jen who were on hand to keep us refreshed and fed all day with drinks and a Barbeque.

 

Thanks to everyone who volunteered their weekend to come along and participate in Project AWARE International Clean Up day. Hopefully you will realise that actually we can make a difference each and every time we visit the coast. Keep up the good work!

 

This will be Sub-Mission's last Beach and Underwater Clean Up this year, but if you would like to get involved, we have plenty of exciting idea's for next year already!

Help for Heroes Discover Scuba Session

Steve, a member of Sub-Mission Dive Club was tasked with organising an event to raise money for ‘Help for Heroes’ as part of a company wide charity initiative. He decided to drag his colleagues along for a PADI Discover Scuba evening with any donations being contributed to a charity that is doing some incredible work for our brave service men and women.

The evening went swimmingly with all of Steve’s colleagues eager and enthusiastic to give Scuba a go. Andy even brought his son along to experience the thrill of breathing underwater. There was plenty of laughter during the session especially when it came to doing acrobatics down at the deep end of the pool! There were some pretty impressive head spins on the bottom as well as somersaults.

Steve got involved by taking plenty of pictures on the night and actually participated in the underwater race and although he came first, we all know he cheated. The real winner of the evening is the ‘Help for Heroes’ Charity as Steve managed to raise over £100. Thanks for organising a great evening Steve and we hope that other organised events are just as successful.

Congratulations to Dawn who has achieved the prestigious status of Master Scuba Diver Trainer!

As I’m sure many of you who have had the pleasure of diving with Dawn will know that she didn’t find UK diving easy to begin with. She decided that she never wanted to get back into the water after her PADI Open Water Diver Course in the depths of a very cold February! But look at her now… there was just no stopping Dawn after the PADI Advanced Open Water Course. She is certainly a great ambassador for hard work and determination overcoming all obstacles.

Dawn became an Instructor last year and has been busy passing on her knowledge to our customers ever since. Otherwise known by the staff as Dawn Von Harsh, our divers know that Dawn is actually the epitome of patience, caring and encouragement that gets many students through the tougher aspects of some of the courses.

Not one for standing still too long, Dawn has been working towards her next step up and has now achieved the qualification of Master Scuba Diver Trainer. This shows her ability to teach a range of PADI scuba courses and also recognises that Dawn can teach at least 5 PADI Specialty Courses, including Deep and Wreck.

We can’t wait for Dawn to get stuck into teaching PADI Specialties and I’m sure that you will all join us in congratulating Dawn on her positive attitude and sometimes sheer determination to keep achieving. Well done Dawn!

Well done to the new PADI Open Water Divers and PADI Drysuit Specialty Divers!

And last, but certainly not least was the huge success of the PADI Open Water Divers and Drysuit Specialty Divers. Steve, Bev, Jennie, Vicky and Darren were all successful in completing the PADI Open Water Diver certification and PADI Drysuit Specialty Diver Course.

We would like to congratulate and acknowledge them all for their hard work and determination to get through the courses. The group certainly didn’t find all of the course structure easy, especially when nerves got the better of some of them. Giant stride entry took an amazing amount of courage for Jennie and Vicky.

Thankfully the visibility at Stoney Cove was good at the weekend and although nervous about what the dives would entail, the group got stuck in and enjoyed their time underwater. The skills that they completed on each dive were done with ease and made the Instructor’s job pretty easy.

After completing the PADI Open Water Diver Course they then went onto complete the PADI Drysuit Specialty along with Charles, to enable them to get the best out of their diving all year round. Considering that Charles has only ever been a warm water diver, he did a very good job at acclimatising to the UK waters. Even though he was feeling a bit green at times, he was determined to complete all of the necessary skills. They all had a great dive and a nice underwater exploration in search of the pike, which was a lovely way to finish off a fantastic weekend.

Well done everyone!

Tim, Patrick and Paul complete their PADI Advanced Open Water Course!

Tim, Paul and Patrick were getting stuck into the PADI Advanced Open Water Course over the weekend at Stoney Cove. They chose to complete a variety of dives including Drysuit, Peak Performance Buoyancy, Photography, Wreck, Navigation and Deep.

The three students completed their skills with ease over the 5 dives and certainly improved their buoyancy, amongst other things during the weekend.

The visibility was pretty fantastic giving Tim plenty of opportunity, light and clarity to get some great photo’s underwater, especially with the huge shoals of roach and perch that were ever present on the training shelf. Considering that Paul had not dived in the UK before we were really impressed with how easy he took to Drysuit diving as well as the less favourable conditions that were on offer.

Sub-Mission staff had a blast teaching the PADI Advanced Open Water Course and Ant said that the Wreck Dive was more like a pleasure dive than a training dive. Well done to the three of you!

Sub-Mission Deep Specialty - Well Done Paul!

Sub-Mission ran a PADI Deep Diver Specialty as well this weekend with Paul, who was keen to be able to learn more about the techniques of deeper diving. He learnt the processes necessary with regard to planning, preparation and conducting deep dives as well as experiencing changing factors such as temperature, light and pressure as you go deeper.

Paul was also given a redundant air source to carry on one of the dives in order to get used to differing equipment considerations and configurations. He was also tasked with breathing from this during an extended safety stop to simulate an emergency scenario.

One of the skills that Paul had to complete was a timed task on the surface and then again underwater to see if he was feeling any effects of nitrogen narcosis. The time it took Paul was exactly the same for both tests however; he did say that he had to concentrate harder at depth.

Well done to Paul for a great weekend’s diving and congratulations PADI Deep Diver!

PADI Rescue Diver Course Success

Another weekend finished, another bunch of happy divers with nice new certifications!

We’d like to congratulate Jenny, Jon, Paul and Mark who completed their PADI Rescue Diver over the weekend. They certainly didn’t have an easy ride and by the end of Saturday were suitably exhausted from all of their hard work.

Syd and Darren put them through their paces ensuring that they completed all of the skills required such as dealing with a panicked diver in the water, reacting to a missing diver situation, bringing an unconscious diver to the surface and rendering assistance to an unconscious diver on the surface, as well as many more.

Working in teams, the PADI Rescue students were not only expected to help with emergency situations but actually to manage the situation and control the scene. It wasn’t all hard work though; they all enjoyed the course immensely and had a good laugh throughout. They all came away with a great sense of achievement and we are sure they’ll go away feeling confident to assist another diver should the need ever arise. Well done!