Belated Sunday catch up

Sorry for our slightly delayed catch up this week, but here is what we have been up to in the last week. 

It was the last week in school before the summer holidays and this meant Gary was in and out of schools a lot.  He did his final DSD session with Cold Norton Primary school at South Woodham pool. 

At Basildon Academy, it was the last visit to see the guys Gary has been mentoring, he set them up for the summer and wished them well. Gary said goodbye to Laura Chapman who was his liaison at the Academy as she is leaving for pastures new, we wish her all the best for the future.  

We did not have access to the deep pool on Tuesday night, as though the filming had finished, visibility was poor so we are now waiting for the pool to be emptied, cleaned, refilled and heated.

Thursday night we were back in South Woodham pool with plenty going on.  A family with DCY finished their confined sessions and prepared to head out to finish their course at Nemes, Gary was running the last Seal Team and Jamie was with Bernie and Vince, also getting ready to go to open water. 

On the 18th and 19th July we were at Nemes; DCY was with his group of students (all related!), Ian Herbert was with 3 students from local colleges (South Essex and Palmers) and Jamie had 2 new open water divers and 1 new dry suit diver. 

After just over a months filming, we were finally back in the deep pool on the 21st July and what a busy welcome back it was! Callie, Harry and Harrison from the Seal Team had their first experience of the deep pool whilst Jamie and Rhonda held more open water courses.  DCY was training with his new trainee Divemasters teaching DSDs.  We also had some old friends pop down for a bit of fun and to get wet. 

Thursday night was quiet, but for Jamie working on his duck diving, Rhonda taking open water students and Gary working on a DSD. 

Friday was all about getting set for the weekend. We had staff and students at Stoney Cove, Nemes and Guildenburg and therefore had to ensure all of the kit was fully checked and prepared for them, the students did well and the photos below confirm this. 
  

 

 

 

My final thought for this catch up is around one of our most popular trips of the year - diving with the grey seals in the Farne Islands. With such a huge interest we have added another trip to the calendar, the weekend of 31st October to 1st November. If you are keen to go or would like some further information, please contact the centre.  If the last trip is anything to go by, the places will go fast!

Gilwell 24

Saturday 11^th July 2015

2am – fly in, fresh from the Red Sea.

7.15am – back at the centre, see Ian off to Nemes for Open Water.

17.30pm – arrive at Gilwell.

18.30pm – begin a night of DSDs, with our own ‘24’ to envy Jack Bauer.

After a busy week of diving in the Red Sea, all the kit had to be washed and checked.  Once the kit was sorted out it was loaded up again into the trailer.  Luckily, it wasn’t our first time and with all of the tanks and kit we were taking with us, we were able to fully utilise the space we had.

Gilwell is the Scout HQ for England and once a year in July the association run ‘Gilwell 24’.  This is 24 hours of non-stop activities for Adventure Scouts; from driving lessons to paintball, white water rafting to high wire, live bands to film showings, fun fair rides and many, many more - including Scuba Diving.

                                                                           

We have helped out for the last 4 years, running the night shift from 6pm till 8am with the help of many Orca staff. This was a great night with a total number of DSDs sitting at 297…annoyingly short of 300 but still a great effort!

Following a quick unloading of the gear and a process in place for dealing with the constant stream of divers through paper work, briefing and then into the water, we were underway and we had the first divers at around 6:30pm. 

                                                                           

   

All of the people we met were having a great time, even when the weather turned against us and the hours ticked through the night with little or no sleep.

With so many DSDs and no compressor, we had to take all of the tanks we could get our hands on.  Dave Moss was doing the tough job of decanting air from the 15 and 12 litre tanks into smaller ones.  This is no simple task, Dave managed to keep us stocked with plenty of air throughout the night.

All of the kit was checked for air and defects after each dive.  A team of 4 divers were in the water at all times rotating every few hours.  The pool was outside and heated but it didn’t take long to feel the chill, we were in shorties but there were comments about dry suits for next year!  The frequent runs to the burger van and hot drinks van kept everyone going and in good spirits until we packed up to head home at around 8am.

All in all, a great night and we are looking forward to next year.

Belated Sunday Catch Up!

Apologies for being away for so long - we have been extremely busy with the end of the school year and so we have been doing quite a few school visits! And we recently had a trip to the Red Sea too, which we will tell you all about in a future post!

25th June: Gary visited Purleigh School's Year 5/6 class, who all got the chance to get in the water to experience using scuba gear and to have a splash in the pool! We also had another big pool night at South Woodham Ferrers that evening with several Open Water courses running alongside DSDs!

26th June: Gary went to Writtle College to present Nicole Wood with an award from PADI for Helping People of All Ages Get into Scuba Diving! Congratulations again for your hard work!

27th June: We went to Nemes during the day to complete open water dives and in the evening there was the annual staff BBQ - a way for Gary to say thank you to all the hard work everyone does throughout the year!

28th June: We were back at Nemes the next day to finish off the Open Water dives!

29th June: Gary spoke to PADI about Assistant Instructors who have been out of teaching for a long period of time and want to get back into teaching. As well as this, Gary spent some time of the phone to Emperor Divers in Sharm El Sheik arranging John McDonald's accommodation and weeks diving for him! Later that day, Gary and some of the Orca staff travelled to Kent to meet up with Nemes Dive Centre, who were hosting a PADI Forum, presented by Terry Johnson. The forum was to update us on PADI's expanding e-learning, interactive and touch systems of learning, which coincided with the PADI webinars. At this event, Gary was presented with an award from PADI to Orca Scuba Diving Academy for Exceptional Growth as a PADI Dive Centre. Without the help of all our staff, who put in endless hours of work during their evenings and weekends, this award could not have been achieved. The award was a complete surprise to Gary and the team and he would personally like to thank everyone who has helped over the last few years!

30th June: Writtle College students started to come to the dive centre to pick up their kit for the Red Sea trip and to also book their Advanced Open Water courses!

A message from Nicole, Writtle College Student:

"With thanks to Orca and Writtle College, we had another amazing trip to the Red Sea! The week started off well with everyone getting used to being in the water and improving the skills they had learnt and only got better when I saw my first shark and getting up close with a pod of 6 dolphins for the first time. It was great being able to watch the students learn and develop their skill just like I had done the previous year, getting to see some of the changes that can happen to the reef over time and revisiting the wreck where the growth of coral could be seen which was very interesting. All of the staff were friendly and helpful as always and we can't wait to hopefully return next year."

2nd July: Gary took the final group of Year 5/6 pupils from Purleigh School to the pool for their scuba diving experience.

3rd July: Writtle College and Orca set off to the Red Sea! More information on this in a future post!

11th July: Ian H. headed to Nemes to start open water dives, whilst Gary returned back to the dive centre just hours after getting back from the Red Sea to start sorting out all the kit from the trip! This was to get ready to be used for Gilwell 24, later that day. We will have a full report on what went on in a future post!

12th July: Ian H. was at Chepstow with a big group of students completing their open water dives. John, Rachel and Kevin all completed Dive 1 of their Deep Diver speciality, Dive 1 of Search & Recovery speciality and Open Water Dives 2, 3 & 4! Maz also completed her Peak Performance Buoyancy, Deep Diver & Search & Recovery to finish her Advanced Open Water course!