by Tim.

Sunday 21st March, 2010 : Duncan turned up with his old dry suit to test his new twin-twelve rig for the first time in open water. This was under the watchful eye of our DO; once he had gone home and fetched his own dry suit, that was! Don’t worry Mike, your secret is safe with us. D’oh!

At the end of our first training dive, while trying to make some adjustments to Rhys’s weighting, we between us somehow managed to drop one of his integrated pouches. It didn’t float! The flat rigid shape meant it didn’t sink in a straight down direction either! Anyway, it made our second dive all the more purposeful as once we got the training component out of the way we then had the task of a real search and recovery to do. I’m glad to say the story had a happy ending. Rhys and lost pouch are now once again re-united. Well done to Rhys who today had OO3 and OO4 signed off.

A well deserved de-brief was held at the Royal Oak to round off a very enjoyable and successful days diving.

Other related news: A new deep water entry/exit platform has been constructed at the beach end; which is great because if gives you the flexibility to do wade or deep water entry/exits from the same base. A real boon for training.

Another bit of really good news: During the summer months Cromhall is going to be open on Thursday evenings until 9:00pm! So the prospect of an après-work dive & BBQ will be on the cards.

For those of us who live on the Cromhall side of Bristol an added benefit of the Thursday late opening is the opportunity for a late fill of air or Nitrox before the weekend. With their gas charging system you don’t even need to have O2 clean bottles if you want Nitrox 🙂