From Friday 16th to Sunday 25th June 2006, 37 members of CUSAC, 30 tents, 3 minibuses, and one RIB travelled down to Falmouth in Cornwall for 8 days of amazing diving on our annual summer trip. It is an extremely valuable trip for the club as it is the time when the most people earn their qualifications. During this trip 9 novices completed their Ocean Diver training and 1 person completed their Sports Diver training - congratulations to them! Many other people progressed with their training by passing assessments that count towards Sports Diver and Dive Leader training. There are now several people on the brink of getting their next diving qualification.
Recently qualified Assistant Diving Instructors and Dive Leaders were able to build on their experience by teaching lessons and leading novices on their first open water dives. People with the necessary qualifications were able to develop their boat handling skills under the supervision of the club's experienced coxs'ns.
One of the dive sites we used is Porthkerris Beach where shore and RIB dives can take place. Porthkerris is ideal for training novices, as it is a sheltered site with a gently sloping beach, and lots of underwater life can be seen around the rocks close to the shore. Novices need to undertake 5 assessed open water dives to show they are able and competent underwater, for the safety and enjoyment of themselves and their buddy. All the instructors are very understanding and nearly all their time is spent training our novices and qualified divers. At the shallow depths around the rocks many spider crabs, wrasses, starfish and even a John Dory were spotted.
On our much loved RIB Indecision, divers can travel to a wreck called the Volnay, a good site for newly qualified divers to build their experience on. It is 20 meters below the surface, and its boilers are still identifiable where sometimes conger eels can be spotted. More commonly large colourful wrasses and starfish are seen.
Marazion Beach, near Penzance, is another dive site used on the summer trip; the RIB takes 8 divers out at a time to the wreck of the Warspite just off St Michael's Mount for training. It was here a Bull Husk was spotted in amongst a lot of kelp. The beach provides a good base for the RIB to travel out to wrecks within the bay - sites are available to suit the qualifications of all divers - ranging from newly qualified Ocean Divers, to our experience Dive Leaders.
Two night dives were done on the trip; these are exciting because the underwater environment looks completely different in the dark and marine life that only come out at night can be spotted. On the Wednesday night dive off Swanpool Beach, a large cuttle fish was seen.
During the week divers also the chance to spend at least a day on a hard boat called Patrice II, which is skippered by Mike who gave us a lovely cup of tea to warm up after our dives! His boat can go further off and around the coast where more marine life can be spotted. Along a gully near Gull Rock, many Dead Mans Fingers, sea cucumbers, sea urchins, a squat lobster, Velvet swimmer crab and a lobster were found. Around a wreck called the Hera a Moon jellyfish and a Scorpion fish were found. Who knew there was so much to find under the waters of the Cornish coast!
The social side of the trip is also great fun and you really feel like you know everyone by the end of the 10 days. This year we had a fancy dress night where everyone put a great deal of effort into their outfits. It was great fun with games organised to keep us all laughing. On Thursday night we had our annual BBQ on the beach, with so much food and more games including a sand castle competition - where a stunning mermaid won! We kept warm with a game of rounders and an assault course-type game.
Everyone gets to do at least one dive a day and many people do 2 or even 3, therefore most people have over 15 dives during the week, which is a fantastic way to build up your experience. It is a very economical trip; with 8 days of diving, camping, travel, and fun costing relatively little more than the price of spending just a weekend on a commercial hard boat in the UK. The club works very hard to make this trip the success that it is, with a lot of organisation required by the committee and our instructors.
