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!
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