I've just joined up and thought I'd post here to introduce myself.
I've been a diver for nearly 15 years (but started when I was 10!), I dive as a hobby and I teach lectures, pool sessions and the odd open water lesson with my local club (Queen's University of Belfast Sub-Aqua Club). I'm currently a BSAC dive leader, though I'm a relatively recent convert from PADI. I'm working on Advanced Diver, and hope to become an OWI in the coming months.
For the last few years I've been plotting on a way to raise some money for charities and to raise the profile of our club. Just over a year ago I decided to try to organise a 24 hour dive in our deep swimming pool, which seemed an awful lot of hassle - there were endless issues with the booking. So last year I decided to scrap that idea and looked into organising the same, but in a local aquarium. Again, it seemed a lot of hassle (problems with running lights all night, and disturbing fish etc.) and the "record" for this dive was very long indeed, and well out of our reach. This year we have organised a dive to attempt to break the record for longest SCUBA dive in cold seas, which currently stands at 13 hours and 4 minutes (despite what the Guinneess World Record crowd say, they haven't updated their records after the fantastic showing by a Mr Devane in Galway).
This time around, I won't be abandoning my plans, I have the full support of my club behind me, and we are definitely going ahead with the attempt. So in April I'll be getting into the lovely Strangford Lough and attempting to spend 24 hours SCUBA diving. The event is called the "24 Hour Bender", hence my silly username, and will raise money for some local marine charities. If you would like any more information about this please let me know and I will get back to you. I wasn't sure if I could post links to the facebook and twitter pages for our event, so I won't for now... I don't want anyone thinking I'm a troll, I'm just a little bit mad, and a little bit motivated, so I'm going to give it a go. Also sorry if this is the wrong forum for this thread, I'm sure I'll get the hang of this forum soon.
Thanks for taking the time to read my post!
I've been a diver for nearly 15 years (but started when I was 10!), I dive as a hobby and I teach lectures, pool sessions and the odd open water lesson with my local club (Queen's University of Belfast Sub-Aqua Club). I'm currently a BSAC dive leader, though I'm a relatively recent convert from PADI. I'm working on Advanced Diver, and hope to become an OWI in the coming months.
For the last few years I've been plotting on a way to raise some money for charities and to raise the profile of our club. Just over a year ago I decided to try to organise a 24 hour dive in our deep swimming pool, which seemed an awful lot of hassle - there were endless issues with the booking. So last year I decided to scrap that idea and looked into organising the same, but in a local aquarium. Again, it seemed a lot of hassle (problems with running lights all night, and disturbing fish etc.) and the "record" for this dive was very long indeed, and well out of our reach. This year we have organised a dive to attempt to break the record for longest SCUBA dive in cold seas, which currently stands at 13 hours and 4 minutes (despite what the Guinneess World Record crowd say, they haven't updated their records after the fantastic showing by a Mr Devane in Galway).
This time around, I won't be abandoning my plans, I have the full support of my club behind me, and we are definitely going ahead with the attempt. So in April I'll be getting into the lovely Strangford Lough and attempting to spend 24 hours SCUBA diving. The event is called the "24 Hour Bender", hence my silly username, and will raise money for some local marine charities. If you would like any more information about this please let me know and I will get back to you. I wasn't sure if I could post links to the facebook and twitter pages for our event, so I won't for now... I don't want anyone thinking I'm a troll, I'm just a little bit mad, and a little bit motivated, so I'm going to give it a go. Also sorry if this is the wrong forum for this thread, I'm sure I'll get the hang of this forum soon.
Thanks for taking the time to read my post!