News
It’s a 24-hour dive, dive, dive for charity
Nearly 70 members of St Albans SAC recently took part in a 24-hour diveathon at the Cottonmill Swimming Pool to raise more than £1,500 for the Scuba Trust.
They whiled away the hours playing underwater hockey, hand tennis and even found time to read glossy magazines as they completed their marathon charity dive.
The event was organised to celebrate BSAC’s 60th anniversary as well as the re-opening of their newly refurbished lido pool which they lease from the local council. The open air pool has had a major £50,000 overhaul thanks to funding through Sport England. Thanks to the grant, the restoration has seen leak repairs and the refurbishment of the formerly unusable poolside changing rooms and showers.
The revamped pool means the club can offer it as a community resource for other local clubs, including a local canoe club.
Lisa Shafe, a diving instructor with St Albans SAC and one of the organisers of the diveathon, said: “The whole event was fantastic, absolutely brilliant, even if we are all shattered!
“Our aim was to have 60 divers in the pool over the 24 hour period and we beat that with 68 divers taking part. The combined dive times of all the divers amounts to 72 hours 20 minutes.
“And we had a target of raising £1,000 toward the work of the Scuba Trust, which helps people with disabilities enjoy diving, and we have easily topped that total through our on-line charity giving site and pledges.”
She added: “As a club we were delighted to welcome the Mayor of St Albans, Annie Brewster, along. She enjoyed some snorkelling with us while we also had several people come along to have a go with try-dives.
“I’m absolutely thrilled that, as a result, we have three new members signed up as club members while a further seven people are considering whether they want to join the club and take up our wonderful sport.”
According to Lisa, the scuba divers came up with all sorts of novel ways to pass the time as they completed the diveathon.
She said: “We started at mid-day on Saturday and went through until 8pm. Unfortunately, we experienced some pretty heavy thunderstorms and came out of the water just after 8pm until they cleared.
“The pool is in a residential area and out of respect for our neighbours we stayed out of the water, to keep any noise to a minimum, until just before dawn going back in at 3am and staying until mid-day on the Sunday.
“Some of our younger club members enjoyed an energetic game of ‘octopush’ which is a form of underwater hockey. Others had a game of underwater hand tennis while I decided to settle down with a good old magazine for a quiet read.
“Glossy magazines will survive being dunked underwater for a couple of hours before they disintegrate so my aquatic read proved no problem.”
She added: “As a club we couldn’t be happier, we have raised a fantastic sum for the Scuba Trust, attracted some new members to the club and also supported Help for Heroes. What a brilliant weekend!”
To find out more about St Albans Sub Aqua Club, visit http://www.sasac.co.uk/
Fire on Monroe Bravo is the latest book in the Jack Collier series by Fred Lockwood. Our story begins with our lead characters, Jack and Sandro, owners of Marine Salvage & Investigation Company, arriving on the Monroe Bravo Oil & Gas Platform in the North Sea. Having secured a contract for their vessel the MV Stavanger to act as support ship to the platform for TransGlobal Oil, our protagonists are on a celebratory visit.
However almost as soon as they arrive a series of explosions rock the platform, causing huge damage, loss of life and the very real danger of a massive human, ecological and financial disaster.
As the danger mounts for both our heroes and the surviving workers, Jack and Sandro will have to escape the inferno, all while trying to save the platform and the men still trapped unable to help themselves.
The disaster sets the scene for the unfolding story lines following the fate of the platform and our main characters, the police investigation into a suspected terrorist act and the actions of TransGlobal Oil as they attempt to navigate the pubic outcry and financial repercussions.
In his eighth book, Fire on Monroe Bravo, Fred Lockwood delivers an explosive thriller, with plenty of above and in-water drama, and our heroes fighting for survival, what more can you ask for?
We thoroughly recommend this read and look forward to the next in the series. For more information about his book series, you can check out the reviews of his previous books here on Scubaverse.
- Title: Fire On Monroe Bravo
- Author: Fred Lockwood
- ISBN: 979-8325324536
Available in a paperback version and for Kindle from Amazon and book stores.
In June we were incredibly fortunate to be invited to dive in Alonissos, a small Greek Island in the Sporades island chain located in the North Aegean Sea. While I have long been a big fan of the Greek Islands as a great holiday destination, I had not had the opportunity to do any diving on previous visits and Mike and I were extremely excited to see what Alonissos had to offer both above and below the surface!
The Sporades are easily accessible via the airport in Skiathos (the first island in the chain), which is served by Jet2 flights from all major UK airports from May through October. Numerous ferries and charter boats make island hopping from Skiathos Town a breeze. After an hour boat ride, the picturesque port of Patitiri was a wonderful introduction to Alonissos, where we were met by our gracious hosts Kostas of Albedo Travel and Dias of Alonissos Triton Dive Center. Mike and I were delighted to be staying at the Paradise Hotel, aptly named for its stunning views over the sea and great location for walking to the waterfront.
Alonissos is beautifully situated in the National Marine Park of Alonissos and the Northern Sporades, the largest marine protected area in Europe. The surrounding seas offer fabulous marine life, including incredibly rare species such as the Mediterranean monk seal. They boast deep walls covered in gorgonians and sponges, stunning topography with caverns, swimthroughs and pinnacles, and the first accessible ancient shipwreck from 500BC!
In locations where historical sites have been reported, the waters are largely restricted, but with collaboration between government, underwater archeologists and dive centres, incredible underwater museums are being created for a truly unique diving experience. Alonissos is home to the first of these, the Ancient Shipwreck of Peristera Accessible Underwater Archeological Site. The chance to dive into history (along with reports of healthy reef life and amazing underwater topography) meant Mike and I were keen to get in the water.
Our introduction to the diving around Alonissos was at the Agios Georgios Pinnacles, in the channel between Alonissos and Skopelos. This fantastic site was named “The Chimney,’ and proved to have a huge amount to see. We got to a decent depth here (over 25m), and marvelled at a colourful reef wall with a wonderful swim through whose rocky walls were absolutely covered with life. As well as brilliant topography there was no shortage of macro life here. We saw numerous nudibranchs, five different species in total. The second dive at Mourtias reef nearby was a shallower dive along a nice wall with lots of crevices. Several moray eels and grouper called this site home. We enjoyed looking in the crevices for lobster and smaller benthic life, such as cup corals and tunicates.
Our itinerary allowed us two dives a day with afternoons left to explore the island with our hire car and evenings to enjoy the famous Greek hospitality. This proved to be a lovely mix of in-water and land based diversions.
The next days diving to the Gorgonian Gardens and Triton’s Cave was to be even better! These two stunning sites are nothing short of fabulous. The Gorgonian Gardens was a deep wall near to the Agios Georgios islands. The ever-present currents in this deep channel meant that the sea life was amazing … the namesake Gorgonian sea fans dotted the wall at a depth of 30 to 50 meters, getting ever larger the deeper we went. Above 30m was by no means less beautiful, with sponges, corals, scorpionfish, moray eels and some rare and colourful nudibranchs.
The second shallower dive of the day was to Triton’s Cave or the Cavern of Skopelos, on the east side of that island. The spectacular rock formations had wild striations both above and below the water making a truly epic topography. The cavern entrance was at 14m, and big enough for a buddy pair, winding up to 6m and passing two beautiful windows out into the blue. Emerging from the cavern, the light at the shallower depths and the incredible rock formations made for a fantastic gentle swimming safety stop and we all surfaced by the boat with massive grins.
Check out our next blog :Alonissos: The complete diving destination (Part 2)” to hear about our amazing dive on the 2500 year old Peristera Wreck!
Thanks to:
Alonissos Triton Dive Center https://bestdivingingreece.com/
Albedo Travel https://alonissosholidays.com/activities/
Paradise Hotel https://paradise-hotel.gr/
Alonissos Municipality https://alonissos.gr/en/
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