Diving gone quiet?

case_sensitive

I want to get a boat dive in this weekend in Dublin, but Oceandivers have gone all quiet and other PADI clubs don't seem to be running at all in Sept. Is this the designated month off?

Are there any clubs I could go diving with this week that are operating? Flagship, discoverscuba and irish diving don't have a scheduled dive from the look of their websites :-(

Benny-c

case_sensitive wrote:

I want to get a boat dive in this weekend in Dublin, but Oceandivers have gone all quiet and other PADI clubs don't seem to be running at all in Sept. Is this the designated month off?

Are there any clubs I could go diving with this week that are operating? Flagship, discoverscuba and irish diving don't have a scheduled dive from the look of their websites :-(

Have you thought of your friendly neighbourhood CFT Club, they may be looking for members.

case_sensitive

I paid €369 to do my OW (plus getting to and staying in El Cabron), and I'm about to pay €400 for my AOW, so €270 to do a conversion course that still only gets me Ocean Diver seems like a bit of a waste, all I want to do is dive! None of this 'our association is better than yours' crap. I picked PADI because worldwide it's the most recognised and has the most members, but it seems I need 3 different certifications to dive here, bah humbug.

I may join a CFT or BSAC club for regular diving, but this weekend I want a simple boat dive with a buddy who doesn't drink their air down in 30 minutes.

seadeuce

Do yourself a favour and look up the CFT clubs in your area. You will find them on:


http://www.irishunderwatercouncil.com


Then make contact with one. Their insurance allows guest divers two dives before there's any talk of joining the club.
A nice way of sussing them out, getting your dives in this weekend, then saying goodbye with no obligation.

BTW crossover guidelines exist for every agency, BSAC et al, and are not based on economics. Plus, in a club you do not pay for training as all instruction is given voluntarily. That 400 you're spending will get you up to another starting post where it all begins again - you no pay, you no get training.

Your choice entirely.


Seadeuce

aidob

case_sensitive wrote:

I want to get a boat dive in this weekend in Dublin, but Oceandivers have gone all quiet and other PADI clubs don't seem to be running at all in Sept. Is this the designated month off?

Are there any clubs I could go diving with this week that are operating? Flagship, discoverscuba and irish diving don't have a scheduled dive from the look of their websites :-(

oceandivers are useless imo ... very lax information wise , and dont get back to you when they say they will ,

if your wanting to upgrade the dive club in Arklow are doing PADI upgrade courses atm , the look decent too , but cos its in Arklow bit far ...

was gonna go do the CFT myself but gonna leave it till the new year cos I jus started an evening course on top of college , plus the better weather too ,

my only hope atm is that the DIT aquatic club do the diving again , lectures for all type of qualifications bar PADI ...

smcmullan

Not good news at the moment. Clubs are taking boats out of the water, weather forecast ain't good. I was doing some rescue training off the Muglins there on Sunday and the visability was appalling, measured in centimetres rather than metres, worst I've seen in 140+ dives. I needed a torch to read my gauges at 16m and ambient light only kicked back in around the 4m mark. Its a lovely pea green soup out there at the moment.

Scuba.ie

I wouldn't give up, its just the weather! If the viz is bad, then why join a club to bring you out to dive in it?
Nothing against clubs :-)

case_sensitive

Actually, I took a combination of advice from here, I went out with, but didn't join or convert to, a CFT club :-)
The guys from Trident took me out on their RIB very inexpensively, and I got along great with them, couldn't say a bad word against them, but the viz was astonishingly bad. We were in the water (15/16 degrees, virtually trpoical) on Sunday by 13.30, but at 8m I couldn't read my SPG without the aide of a torch (just bought off Ebay!) and the only way I could stay with them was to park on Pat's right knee for the whole dive. Spent more time looking for dive buddies than at sealife. All the same, a dive's a dive and it cost a measly €10 and we had a pint after. I'll almost certainly join up when the viz clears a bit, though the €30 you save over each Oceandivers dive gets chewed up by the €400 a year fees. If I was going out every week it'd be worth it I suppose.
So, in short, the wind and rain last week made diving an absolute waste of time, I think I'll go for a plunge in the Grand Canal Basin, there's nothing to see, but viz is clear most of the time, good for practice.
Ordered a tank off Ebay (monstrous P&P), it's going out of test soon, where would be the best place to take it for a test?

Evil Phil

€400 is not so bad if you think about it. At €30 a dive that's 14 dives to start saving money. They dive twice weekly in Dublin (from what I can see) 7 weeks of that and you're done. Hmmm ...

Benny-c

case_sensitive wrote:

but the viz was astonishingly bad.

Still................a dive is still a dive, just think if you had gone with a centre and shelled out €50-60 and the vis. was crap, would you have got a refund??


Dont think so