Nemo 33

After just returning from our trip to Brussels, I thought I'd fill you all in with the pros and cons of everything we did, including Nemo 33.

The weekend started off when we opened the shop at 5:30am on Saturday morning. Everybody arrived on time and we headed to Nemes Diving Academy in Kent. We then left there at 7am and drove through to Folkestone where we all got some breakfast and headed onto the tunnel. Being my first time on it, I guess it did feel a bit weird but we had a fantastic driver who made everything feel safe. The only con I have on the tunnel was that the toilets smelled atrocious. Other than that, it was pretty fun trying to amuse ourselves.

Calais! As we got to Calais it was raining! but we still had another few hours on the road so most of the passengers went to sleep whilst the rest of us chatted. Having had no traffic, no accidents, nothing getting in our way, the journey was actually very pleasant. On arriving at our hotel, we booked in and I gave out room combination numbers. The facilities in the hotel were lovely however the staff weren't very helpful. Once everybody had settled in,  we arranged to meet in the lobby at 2:45pm. We then drove to Nemo 33 where the real fun began.

After all of the boring paperwork, I took a look around the shop, the bar and the restaurant to find it was very nice but small. Our pool session was at 5pm and we were not permitted to get changed until 4:45pm. This meant a lot of rushing around as we thought we were getting in at 5pm. We were wrong! We waiting for the last session to finish, then were instructed to get fins and masks and get into the pool. This was to allow 10 minutes for free divers. So after this period was up, we got out of the pool, got our kit together and got back in! We finally descended at 5:25. My buddy and I decided to go to the  deepest point first just to be safe and luckily there was only 4 people down there as the amount of bubbles was astounding. As we ascended, there was a tunnel that you could go through, at either end there was a hole where you could stand up and talk to each other. I can't stress enough how dangerous this is and would advise that NOBODY does this. It's so dangerous, I don't know how there hasn't been a casualty yet. It's basically all carbon dioxide.

After this, we just poodled around at different depths and made it back to the surface at 5:55 giving us a 30 minute dive when essentially we thought it would be an hour! Nevertheless, the experience was good. Now that I've been, I probably wouldn't consider going back.  The changing rooms afterwards became full of water and there were no private cubicles. So after awkwardly shimmying out of our wetsuits, we dried our hair and got out! The next stop? THE BAR!! I definitely needed a drink after the 4am start! I ordered a cocktail which was essentially a glass full of vodka. People form Brussels can definitely handle their drink! When the coach turned up, we headed back to the hotel, got changed and then headed to the Italian restaurant down the road!

On arriving at the restaurant, we discovered that they didn't speak a word of English but they were very nice and helpful! There was a lovely man playing music live, he was very talented. After stuffing ourselves with pizza, pasta and everything else on the menu, we headed back to the pub! A very cheap pub too. I was told that we made it back to the hotel at around 12:30am. After a good gossip and a lot of good food, we all slept like babies.

On Sunday, we all grabbed breakfast (which may have included cake and donuts) and took our seats on the coach, where serious games of eye-spy, guess the animal and 21 questions began. Then we arrived at Brugge! Despite the absolutely freezing whether, Brugge is beautiful! Full of churches and chocolate shops which were thoroughly inspected by most of us! We then took shelter in several different restaurants whilst the rain blew over. After eating our entire bodyweight in food, we went to yet another pub! Although it looked like we wouldn't make it out alive, it was surprisingly friendly. At about 4:30pm we started walking back to the coach with bags full of chocolate and alcohol. We headed back to England an hour later.

The journey home was full of karaoke, pranks and general silliness but it was great to unwind in a coach full of fun people. We headed to Nemes first then to Orca and made it back for a late dinner at 9:30pm. I'd just like to thank everybody for making it such a fantastic weekend. Although we all come from different backgrounds, everybody was friendly and there wasn't a single problem!