Sunday Catch Up

It's been a while since the last post, but we've been very busy! With the ongoing problem of the major film unit being in the deep pool, and not being able to find a suitable alternative, we have had to try and move all pool diving to South Woodham Ferrers on a Thursday night. Luckily enough, SWF is big enough to cater for all of us!

Over the last two Thursdays, we have had six confined open water students on two courses coming to their end and five new students starting their courses. We also had three scuba reviews, the SEAL Team and the Young Divers in as well as DSDs, plays and swims! This has put a lot of pressure on Janie to make sure we have enough kit of the right size for the evenings.

Last weekend we were at Nemes with nine students from Writtle College and three from South Essex College, completing their PADI Open Water qualifying dives over the two days. There was a great effort from team members who went down for the weekend, including Saturday boy Nick who was pumping bottles back at the dive centre, although he may not have the right idea!

Following the big weekend, there was a lot of kit to be washed, checked, dried and put back in the store. On top of the normal everyday runnings of the shop, this took us all the way through till Thursday morning, just in time for that evening's pool night! All the equipment is transported in the trailer, with hanging racks, front and rear doors, and a low threshold so it is easier to walk in and out of, which we find more adaptable than a single large van. All the equipment is loaded back onto the trailer on a Thursday night and returned to the dive centre on Friday morning to be washed and checked again before going back into the store.

At 7am Saturday morning, Gary was back at the dive centre starting to lay out kit for another weekend of training and lake cleaning, shortly followed by staff and students. The more time spent organising and preparing, means we have more time to spend with the students on dive days. This year, we have refined our dive paperwork but this is an ongoing process, with the aim of making dive days as smooth as possible. Not only do we have to complete all PADI paperwork, we have to satisfy Health & Safety Executive (HSE), as we are considered commercial divers, but we hope to minimise the amount of paper we have to store for seven years.

Ian Herbert, Joe, Andy and Daniel Herbert (no relation), were all staffing yesterday at Nemes. It was fairly quiet at Nemes this Saturday and because of this, we managed to complete qualifying dives 1, 2 and 3! Whilst this was going on, we were getting ready for today's training and a lake clearing! Ian H. and his students were back at Nemes on Sunday, with Gary working as a rescue diver. At the same time, Carol Vickers and her team were completing Lazar's open water course. As well as the open water course, Ian H. was completing Summer Harris' dry suit course too. After a very successful day, we have three new open water dives and one new dry suit diver! Well done to Lazar, Mark, Francesca and Summer for their achievements!

As this was going on, we had a team of divers at Bourne Mill millpond in Colchester, attempting to survey the bottom and clear any major items of rubbish. We will have a full story next week from Dave who headed the team. Dave was working with Cheryl, Rhonda, Tony, Janie, Brandon and Graham, with Mark Prior covering the surface support and taking pictures.

This week, Gary has a very busy week mentoring at Basildon Academy, continuing Jupiter House confined open water and giving the opportunity to Years 5 and 6 at Purleigh primary school to complete the BubbleMaker experience, and at Cold Norton primary school, we are in the Year 6 class talking about scuba diving and getting the students ready for their BubbleMaker experience.


Upcoming Events:

11th July - Gilwell UK Scout Headquarters: Offering DSDs from 6pm till 9am, as part of Gilwell 24 (24hrs of non-stop activity!)

12th July - Chepstow: Day of diving!

25th & 26th July - Stoney Cove: Deep, Wreck, Search & Recovery and SMB courses with Carol Vickers.

If you want to join one of the courses, or join us for a dive that weekend, please get in touch with the dive centre on 01268 520111 or 07960 140520.

Sunday Catch Up

After any weekend, there is always the mundane job of putting kit away. This is just as important as prepping the kit before you dive: making everything is washed down, checking for any damages, etc. getting ready for the next dive. As an active dive centre, this takes a good portion of our working week, and as the season goes on we’ll have more to do each week!

The big film shoot at Basildon, which finished on Monday, ended up being a late night for the divers and film crew. They finally got home at around 4am Tuesday morning!

A few of the students that completed their rescue course at the weekend came in to the deep pool Tuesday evening, to practice their skills. This is something we do as staff on a regular basis to practice our own skills so that we are always prepared.  At the same time we had four students from South Essex working with Ian and Rhonda, completing their confined dive 1. Nick was working with two other South Essex students who had started their course earlier, and so have now completed their five confined dives and are ready to go to open water when the weather improves. At the same time as this, there was a final pool practice for the people on the Red Sea liveaboard, who all flew out yesterday.

Gary went to South Woodham Ferrers on Wednesday to run the Bubblemaker and DSD children’s holiday programme at the pool. We find this to be great fun, but as a company it also feeds onto the SEAL Team and Junior Open Water courses, because we give young people the opportunity to try diving for the first time. Gary then took all the equipment back to the dive centre, where both himself and Janie spent the afternoon cleaning, checking and hanging back up the kit.

Thursday night was a quiet night in SWF pool, with South Essex College having finished their confined water and the new SEAL Team will not be starting until the 16^th April. Having said that, Dave started an open water course with two students, both who are off overseas in the near future! Although they have signed up for the referral course, and originally wanted to do the qualifying dives overseas, after spending some time with Dave and finding more out about UK diving, both of the students are now going to complete their course in the UK!

Friday was spent checking out kit for the Red Sea trip, with students picking up BCDs, wetsuits, and other pieces of equipment. The students have all met each other over recent weeks in the pool, so there was a lot of excitement and anticipation about the trip! As well as this, Jamie was going through Calum’s knowledge review for his advanced open water, as these can be done retrospectively. And then in the afternoon, both Calum and Steve were working with Jamie going through the rescue course knowledge reviews and how to use the O2 equipment.

Janie opened the shop up on Saturday, which was a quiet event, but did get some photographs sent from Gill and Marcia who are on a two week trip diving in the Philippines. Check out some of the photos below! 

But at 11am at Gatwick Airport, everyone else was checking in for the outbound flight to Sharm El Sheik, and we will have a report on this in next week’s catch up! But follow our Instagram account for some pictures of the trip, as Gary will be attempting to master social media to upload some photos! @OrcaScubaDivingAcademy

Sunday Catch Up

On Tuesday we were in the deep pool in Basildon. Carol and Ian, fresh from their Instructors Exam, were teaching their first Open Water course! Ian was working with Paul and Carol with Mark as Dive Masters. Both courses are going well, with all objectives being achieved. Rhonda was carrying on with her Rescue course, going through the emergency action plans in the classroom, where the students compared each other’s plans to see if everyone had completed it efficiently. We find this exercise very useful, especially as most of the students have mentioned they want to move onto a Dive Master course, where they produce a more in depth Emergency Rescue Plan. Rhonda is going to open water on the 29^th March, with the Rescue course, so if anyone else would like to join in to refresh their rescue skills or would like to be a ‘victim’, please let the centre know!

Wednesday afternoon, we had more theory lessons in the centre with Sophie, Eden and Lee, going through open water theory. Doing the theory on a separate day to the pool tends to take the pressure off young students, as there is no hurry to get in, therefore making the slower pace more relaxing for the students.

After Janie had a day off on Wednesday for her mum’s birthday, she had a very busy day Thursday sorting all of Tuesday’s kit and preparing for South Woodham Ferrers pool night that evening! Once again the pool was busy with Writtle College, getting ever closer to their open water dive as they complete Confined Dives 3/4. The group of 15 is broken down into three teams, some of which have progressed further than others. The SEAL Team are still having great fun with Jamie leading the students. There are only two weeks left of the course, and their progress is really beginning to show! Development of skills is something we notice but can sometimes fail to relay to our new divers. At times, we have filmed the students throughout the course, which is always a source of amusement going over the old footage with the students so they can see their own development. We find this a brilliant learning tool too!

Gary had an early start Friday, dropping off equipment to the dive centre, to be sorted, checked and put away, but also to reload certain kit for the Basildon Academy Sport BTEC students. The Academy students had an hour and half pool session Friday afternoon, where we practice the skills they have learnt. Again we saw the progress they made since they first started the course!

Saturday was a quiet day in the centre, but the deep pool was used for a film shoot, as it is primarily an underwater studio. We had arranged for one of the Basildon Academy Sixth Form photography students to have a behind the scenes look of how a pop promo video is made. Courtney had a great time working with the photographers, make up artists, sound technicians and dive team, and met the lead singer of The Maccabees, Orlando Weeks. She will also be writing her experience for our blog, which will be published during the week!

Today we were back in the centre to complete the confined open water course we started last Saturday. We used this opportunity for other students to get in the water too. Rhonda completed Petros and Nicolas’ referral, who are off to Thailand next week! Good luck guys and have a fantastic holiday! Ian H. was working with students from South Essex College, who we will be hearing a lot more from in the near future! Nick was working on a ReActivate course, with a mum, dad and son, whilst Carol was working with the youngest daughter on the confined open water. Their next holiday at Easter will be to the Red Sea, where old and new divers will have great fun and we hope to get a report from them on their return! It is always great to see the enthusiasm spread from one generation to another within the family. Following the family theme, we had Dave and his son in the pool for the first time, going through skills with their full face masks. Watching them remove and replace masks and then changing from full face to a standard mask, brought back memories of when Gary did his disabled instructor course, where they had to use full face masks on students who could not hold a regulator in their mouth.

Coming up next week, on Monday we start Basildon After School Open Water course, which is the fourth year Orca has run this course, as we always have great fun working with them! Usual pool times are this Tuesday and Thursday. At this point, Gary would like to say a big thank you to all the staff that work tirelessly and professionally with us. Although the instructors often get a lot of credit, without dive masters and rescue divers and other team members who help out, none of it could be possible. Over the next few weeks, we will be giving the opportunity for some of them to write a blog post to share their experiences of working with us!

Sunday Catch Up

On Monday, Gary was working with South Essex College where all the students passed their final exam on the PADI Open Water course. Well done everyone! They all have one final theory session with the Recreational Dive Planner to complete the theory section of the course too. Although we use computer based open water crew packs and all our regulators have dive computers on them, we still teach the basic dive tables so everyone has the basic understanding and knowledge before moving on to the computers.

We were back in the deep pool on Tuesday night in Basildon. It was a busy night including Open Water and Rescue courses, which are all progressing well. Carol, who just came back from Egypt after completing Instructors Exam, was back teaching DSDs, and two of these students are going onto open water, which will be Carol’s first students starting next week!

Gary headed to Hadleigh, near Southend, on Wednesday to have a meeting regarding working with some young adults with behavioural difficulties. This follows on from the work we do with Basildon Academy and we are planning to also work with SkillForce, who are a charity that works in schools, drawing on the skills of ex-Forces personnel, to inspire young people to succeed. A lot of this work is made possible from the funding we receive from Sport Essex, which help get young people who aren’t sport motivated to get into sports. We feel that this also works to help with their confidence and self-esteem, and to possibly back into mainstream education. In the late afternoon, Gary was working with young students on their Confined Water 1. The 10/11 year olds are taught in centre, rather than rely on them to learn themselves at home in their own time.

As part of work we do with Basildon Academy, on Thursday Gary attended a careers convention for year 10 and 12, along with friends Laura and Steve, who each told the students their personal stories of how they got to where they are today. In the afternoon, Scuba Travel came to the centre to talk about next year’s holidays (2016):

1. One week on a liveaboard to the Red Sea 
2. A week on a liveaboard in the Maldives, followed by a week in a resort on the island. More news on these trips to follow!

As well as this, Janie was getting the equipment ready for South Woodham Ferrers that evening. Again at the pool, we had great fun with the Writtle College Red Sea Trip students, who were split into three groups working with three different instructors, Dave Chapman-Young (DCY), Rhonda and Gary. Nadine was also working with two people having their first experience scuba diving with the Discover Scuba Diving programme. In addition to this, Jamie headed up the SEAL Team, with the help of Janie and Nicole, which ended up with the usual Splash Time - a free for all in the water with students and staff!

On Friday Gary was back in Basildon Lower Academy with the Sports BTEC students, who are doing really well and we are starting to see all their skills come together. During Saturday, we had an open water referral course start in the deep pool at Basildon. Petros had got in touch trying to arrange an open water course as him and his friend Nikolas, are going to the Philippines at the end of March and could not find another centre to cater to this short time frame and they will be finishing their course off next Sunday. While this was going on, Andy Harris was also in the pool with three young DSDs who had a great time, and two very proud grandparents watched through the window and took photos to share with their family! After taking the open water referral course, Rhonda then took the last EFR course for her rescue students, which one student, Richard, finished this morning. Well done!

We have two pool sessions this week – Tuesday in the deep pool and Thursday at South Woodham Ferrers. We are also back in the deep pool Sunday – times will be posted on Facebook later in the week. Our other new instructor Ian Herbert, will be running a Night Diver speciality course in April. More information about this will become available later, but if anyone is interested please get in touch with the centre!

Sunday Catch Up

This week we had the deep pool on the Monday night, as there was a film unit in during the middle of the week. We took some Discover Scuba Divers and Open Water students in for the evening. One of our Open Water divers, Matthew, has just completed his Masters Documentary Film Degree and was filming the divers in the pool. Matthew will be filming some more footage in upcoming months, but for now check out his recent footage in the video below.

On Monday afternoon, Gary went to South Essex College, where the students did very well with their knowledge review and quick quiz and all passed! We will have another group of students starting after half term, so anyone from South Essex College that is interested in learning to scuba dive, please get in touch with Leanne Crouch, Sport Development Officer for South Essex College.

Because of the deep pool switch this week, on Tuesday evening the shop was open for people to pop in for some theory work and to have a chat!

Thursday evening we were at South Woodham Ferrers pool as usual and we had Writtle College in for their first session for Confined Water training! The students will be completing their Open Water qualification around May/June, in time for a trip to the Red Sea in July! Our 14 Writtle students were fantastic as everyone completed their 200m swim and 10 minute surface float that evening! Rhonda was also in the pool with the SEAL team as well as a few divers in for a play.

Throughout Friday we had several people book in for Dive Fest this year. There are only a few places left for Saturday’s dive and Sunday is already fully booked! But there is still shore diving available and many caravans for anyone that wants to join us that weekend!

We have also started taking bookings for the Farnes Islands weekend in October! It is £150pp for B&B and diving, however this is limited to 12 people, so get your booking in fast! However, there are still 10 places left for diving only, at the cost of £90pp.

Sunday Catch Up

Like every Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday morning, Gary went to Basildon Academy to mentor some of the pupils.

On Monday afternoon, Gary attended South Essex College in Basildon to teach the open water course and knowledge review 2. Students from all three campuses (Basildon, Southend and Grays) are taking part in the course and all worked extremely hard to complete their knowledge review and pass the quick quiz 2.

Finally, on Monday evening, Gary went to Writtle College to teach his first group of students the final theory with the Recreational Dive Planner (RDP).

Tuesday evening was very busy at the Deep Pool. Ian took a number of students for Discover Scuba Diving (DSD). Rhonda, Nick and James all taught Open Water students. We also had one Dry Suit course taking place, as well as old and new friends diving in, just to get wet!

Gary returned to Writtle College on Wednesday evening to teach another group the final theory with the Recreational Dive Planner (RDP).

On Thursday morning, Gary met with Skill Force, about working with several schools across Essex, from primary through to secondary. Orca is very much looking forward to working with these pupils of all abilities!

Thursday afternoon and evening consisted of getting ready for the pool night at South Woodham Ferrers. We had several Danbury Scouts in for a DSD course, as well as the SEAL Team in with Jamie. We also had an Open Water course student in the pool too!

Janie and Gary were in the shop on Friday checking kit and unloading the new stock. While on Saturday morning, Rhonda was in the shop teaching some Open Water Theory with a few of our students.