Is swimming around under water enough?.

[Finless]

Originally Posted by purple vonny

But then I'm a girl.

.......... and what do girls know (apart from cooking and cleaning)?

[GaryC]

Personally I dive to see the wrecks. Not really into the fish life much. And I must give credit to the fish. All that space in the sea and where are they? On the wreck... They cant be all that daft.

[nigelH]

Originally Posted by GaryC

Personally I dive to see the wrecks. Not really into the fish life much. And I must give credit to the fish. All that space in the sea and where are they? On the wreck... They cant be all that daft.

It's Darwin in action.

If you are a fish and you live in open water and you see a trawl net coming you're probably just by-catch to dump but you're just as dead as the stuff they have a license for.

If you live on a wreck and you see the trawl net coming you laugh, move over a bit, nudge your mate and say, "Somebody didn't check his charts. This one's going to be expensive" and watch the fun.

Smart fish live in wrecks.

[Captain Calamity]

Originally Posted by ray

Hi.
I have been going through in my mind about the number of divers that I have known, trained, over the years maybe hundreds.

But the number of divers that I no who have stuck at it and dived for a lot of years, well there are a precious few.

I booked my open water course in Australia simply because my girlfriend at the time was learning. I came back to the UK and carried on diving only because a friend took me under his wing and taught me the skills and kept me motivated to hang in there. Without him i'm sure my open water course would be just another holiday memory.

I think the problem is the lack of support after the initial course - I know I wouldn't have had the skills/courage/knowledge to find a buddy and book a dive straight after OW, let alone justify spending the sort of money needed to dive in the UK enjoyably.

Perhaps a mentoring system (with newly qualified divers "paired" with more experienced divers) would help persuade them to keep diving until addiction takes over. By "paired" I don't mean that they become exclusive dive buddies, but that they have the same person to turn to for the odd dive, advice, support etc. A similar system stemmed the haemorrhage of newly trained skydivers from my old club (similar problem where most stop jumping after training as there isn't really an obvious and well supported development path).

CC

[ratcliffe]

Originally Posted by nigelH

On my list of inshore wrecks out of Brighton a full one third are just called Unknown and a number.

Now this is very interesting. Are these wrecks that you are working at cataloging in the same way as SteveChesh's group do in Plymouth, or is it just ones that you yourself don't know the names of ? You could have a lifelong project there...

[ray]

Originally Posted by me!

being underwater is more than enough... you never know what could happen... even in quarries you could find something realy odd... i once found a cylinder boot under the 3 meter platform in capers .... if its anyones and they're wondering were it is... Ive got it

Its a start .

Originally Posted by Captain Calamity

I booked my open water course in Australia simply because my girlfriend at the time was learning. I came back to the UK and carried on diving only because a friend took me under his wing and taught me the skills and kept me motivated to hang in there. Without him i'm sure my open water course would be just another holiday memory.

I think the problem is the lack of support after the initial course - I know I wouldn't have had the skills/courage/knowledge to find a buddy and book a dive straight after OW, let alone justify spending the sort of money needed to dive in the UK enjoyably.

Perhaps a mentoring system (with newly qualified divers "paired" with more experienced divers) would help persuade them to keep diving until addiction takes over. By "paired" I don't mean that they become exclusive dive buddies, but that they have the same person to turn to for the odd dive, advice, support etc. A similar system stemmed the haemorrhage of newly trained skydivers from my old club (similar problem where most stop jumping after training as there isn't really an obvious and well supported development path).

CC

Hi.
Are you member of BSAC or PADI trained?, if you are BSAC you usually adopt a buddy within your local branch who is at the same stage of diving as you, hopefully with the same interest in diving, then together you progress and end up as regular diving partners.
If you are PADI it seems harder as you are more off an individual and miss out on the club ethos, and access to a lot of other divers.

[hilrosepaul]

.

[nigelH]

Originally Posted by ratcliffe

Now this is very interesting. Are these wrecks that you are working at cataloging in the same way as SteveChesh's group do in Plymouth, or is it just ones that you yourself don't know the names of? You could have a lifelong project there...

Grief no. My lifelong project is a pile of cargo that was probably a Thames Barge back in about 1890.

The rest are somebody else's problem.

[Lazlo]

It's a good thing that many (most?) of today's divers are not interested in vandalising wrecks. After all, it's not like there's anything left to take now is it? At least, not within "normal" recreational depths.

Indeed, if "spidging" was the only reason to dive, the sport would more or less dead within a year.

For the record, being underwater is enough.

[ray]

Originally Posted by Lazlo

Indeed, if "spidging" was the only reason to dive, the sport would more or less dead within a year.

Onwards and ever more downwards, the plug hole is a long way off yet .