By Robert Vella
I got the urge to take up SCUBA diving last summer. The decision was a little bit out of the blue (haha!). I’d been snorkelling a couple of times on holiday, and spent a fair bit of time in the sea here in Worthing growing up, but I wanted to try something completely new to me. Both of my parents trained as divers through their local BSAC club (albeit a long time ago now) and since then have had the chance to dive around the world and bring home plenty of stories, which definitely helped spark an interest.
My first visit to the club was for a try-dive. My instructor introduced me to the pieces of SCUBA gear that I would be using for that evening and helped me assemble them. The focus that night was more on getting me in the water and giving me a great first impression. I sunk down and took the first few breaths through my regulator underwater, all whilst completely relaxed, which was a fantastic experience in itself! The try-dive also gave me a taste of some important skills, such as buoyancy control and mask clearing. By the end of the evening, I was taken into the deeper pool to have a go at clearing my ears to match the surrounding water pressure. So much to learn already! I thought I’d definitely be coming back for more.
Around the start of December, I found myself back at Splashpoint, starting out on the Ocean Diver course with a couple of other trainees, who were just as keen as myself. I also got to meet the instructors, who would not only be taking me each step of the way through the course, but also who I would be enjoying diving with after qualifying. The idea was to build up experience in the pool one night every week over the winter months, ready to get out into the open water as the weather started to warm up the following spring. At the same time, I had been sent an online ‘eBook’ to read through in my own time, which explained the theory that goes into diving in good detail.
Over the next few months, I attended one pool session almost every Monday evening. Starting with a basic swim test, then learning how to assemble my own SCUBA gear, performing a ‘Buddy check’, perfecting my ‘weighting’ and buoyancy control to stop me scraping along the bottom or “shooting up like a polaris missile”! Mask removal and clearance, swimming along with no mask, finning techniques, regulator retrieval, the different ways of entering the water, breathing from a buddy’s alternate air source, even how to bring an unconscious diver to the surface safely and more! By having the same instructors every week, I soon got used to the format and knew what to expect each week, as well as the typical hand signals used to communicate underwater.
Overall, I felt that the instructor’s training was done in a very calm and controlled way. At no point did I feel rushed or pressured into doing something that I was unsure of. Everything was done at a pace that I was comfortable with and I certainly felt safe under their supervision. It’s a given that not all of these skills come naturally, some took more practice than others. I’m very, very grateful to my instructors and everyone involved in training for giving up their evenings and keeping their patience with me on a few occasions where I didn’t get something right the first time or messed something up.
By the time April had rolled around, us trainees were ready to start demonstrating these skills in ‘open water’. To kick off these open water dives a trip to Vobster Quay was organised, an inland quarry in Somerset. The week before we were due to visit Vobster Quay, I came down with a bad cold and ended up very congested, unable to clear my ears. Not in a state to dive at all. I still travelled to Vobster to help out with the trip and see the site for myself, but didn’t get in the water.
The instructors could see that I was keen to catch up on what I had frustratingly missed out on. Soon after Vobster, they very kindly offered up one evening to take me for a shore dive at the beach next to the Lifeboat station in Selsey. If dived at the right time, the beach drops off fairly quickly to a comfortable 5 metres of underwater depth. I was able to practise and demonstrate the skills that I had missed out on at Vobster.
On my next dive around a month later, I went out on the club’s RIB (moored at Littlehampton) to dive the sunken Mulberry unit near Pagham harbour. This was followed a week later by the Indianna shipwreck off the coast of Worthing. These dives were my first chance to experience the real deal while still training. My first trip on the RIB to the Mulberry Harbour was one I’ll definitely never forget. The sea was flat, the sun was out, the visibility was good and diving was just the best thing to be doing on a day like that. I couldn’t believe how much marine life I saw on these two wreck sites. You don’t really appreciate how much is out there under the waves, even at such a relatively short distance from the coast.
After going out on the RIB a few times, I really started to appreciate the club feeling that there is in Worthing BSAC. Being on the RIB is a great time to get to know different members in the club and share experiences. After a total of 5 open water dives, I was able to demonstrate all of the skills to qualify as a BSAC Ocean Diver, which I’m over the moon about!
My plan is to spend the rest of this year enjoying some more great dives, before progressing on to the Sports Diver course and perhaps take part in some of the special interest courses the club has to offer.
Thank you once again to everyone in Worthing BSAC who has helped me get to this stage!
