A group of intrepid/stupid young divers decided to dress up as Santa and aid Vobster in their mission to raise at least £5000 for the RNLI. Attendees were Fran, Dan, Beccy, Ben, Jonny and Tristan. In all our keenness, and being students, we left Cardiff at 06:00 in order to ensure that we were able to claim a free Fourth Element Christmas hat. The Scuba Santa dive was scheduled for 11:00, so we thought this gave us the perfect opportunity to get in a nice little dive before that. Strangely enough it seemed that every other diver in Vobster thought this was a silly idea and decided to drink tea and coffee instead! This meant that our two buddy pairings of Dan, Beccy, Jonny and Tristan had full and free range of the quarry with amazing visibility and relatively warm water (8 degrees at 23m!).
After emerging from this dive, all 170ish potential Scuba Santa’s were briefed by Vobster before kitting up and having a mass entry into the water…along with 120 other dive sites across the world! This dive did not go without hitch, though, as Tristan lost his fin to the depths before even entering the water, and Fran’s dump valve came off in her hand…meaning that her drysuit started rapidly filling with water! Needless to say she immediately got out! Luckily Vobster were on hand to lend Tristan some fins for this dive. With so many divers under water it was a contrast to the first dive of the day, with divers everywhere and not much in the way of visibility. Nonetheless fun was had by all. After this dive the winners of the immense raffle were announced with 37 prizes up for grabs! Unfortunately, none of our divers came away with any of the juicy prizes (such as an NHeo computer, Teckcamp tickets, Kent Tooling reel etc), but Ben managed to win a Vobster membership and Dan got a Miflex tshirt. Vobster estimated that they had raised nearly £10,000 for the RNLI – incredible!
We managed to get away at a very reasonable hour of 13:30 and went on to a party courtesy of Charlotte Thomas! Char had prepared canapés, drinks, an amazing curry and an even more amazing array of deserts for her Christmas party guests which included CUSAC! After filling up with some fantastic food and thanking our hosts, the CUSAC divers then headed back to Cardiff after a wonderful days diving, fund raising and gluttonous eating!! We think that every Vobster trip should end up at Charlotte’s!