The club is very fortunate to have a rib moored at Littlehampton Marina. However to actually ‘go’ diving someone has to actually drive the rib to the dive location. The club recently ran a training sessions spread over a couple of weekends and a number of divers decided to train to become Boat Handlers. One of these was Tracey-Anne Green and this is what happened:-
I have recently completed a boat handling course with 5 of my diving colleagues. It involved 2 theory classes and a day out on the boat!.
We even learnt how to tie knots, Reef Knot (securing sails), Clove Hitch (Securing lines), Round Turn & two Half Hitches (Secure the end of a rope to a fixed object), Fisherman’s bend (for anchors & shots) to name a few.
The course is great fun and is a practical course on driving the boat, reaching the dive site, dropping a shot line, to even recovering a diver who has gone overboard (not a real person I must add, but a buoy!).
The first weekend after I passed the course I was able to drive our club rib down the marina from where our boat is moored at Littlehampton to the Iron Ore wreck site. We dropped the shot, but missed the wreck by a little bit so with help from the other divers we recovered the shot and on our 2nd attempt we hit our mark.
I love to scuba dive and now having the boat handling qualification this has given me a greater understanding of the waters we dive in and who knows on your next dive I may be driving. Next up is finishing off my Dive Leader qualification!
By Tracey-Anne Green
Our club is full of fantastic opportunities for members to undertake all sorts of training in order to widen their diving experience – well done Tracey-Anne and everyone else that passed the course.
