The MCS (Marine Conservation Society) and BSAC are calling up British Scuba Divers to join the Battle for Britain’s seas. Join them for a march on Parliament to demand Marine Reserves Now within the Marine Act, which will be published in draft on 3rd April.

MCS, BSAC and public aquaria have collectively gathered over 100,000 signatures in support of a network of highly protected marine reserves, to be delivered to Environment Secretary, Hilary Benn outside the Houses of Parliament. We need YOUR support, so please register as a demonstrator today. Email Sandrac@bsac.com giving your name and contact details.

NB: Only the first 100 Divers will be able to take part in the march (on a first come first served basis). Please DO NOT simply turn up on the day without registering first.

More details:
Date: 3rd April
Assembly Time: 11:00am
Assembly Point: In front of County Hall (by London Aquarium)
What to bring: Mask & Snorkel. (optional: Diving suit, booties, fins, but NO Dive Knives, Tanks, or Weights).
NB: There will be no changing or storage facilities

A Marine Reserves Now! T-Shirt will be provided to participants.

The March will start at 12:15, to arrive at Old Palace Yard at 12:45. There will be a photocall with divers congregated outside the Houses of Parliament and presentation of the Marine Reserves Now! petition to the Environment secretary at 13:00.

May I remind you that the show price for this trip is valid till Monday (17th March) morning only. Please see Events Page or my previous post #1287 for details.

I am organising a diving trip with www.pharaohdiveclub.com in El Quseir at a show price. Miles of beautiful reefs especially attractive for photographers. The trip is also suitable for less experienced divers.

One week HB accommodation (twin/double rooms) at the Fanadir resort, 5 days of shore/RIB diving (two guided dives a day + unlimited house reef diving) and transfers from and to Marsa Alam Airport; all of these for £195. The quote is valid till Monday 17th March.

Boat trips to Elphinstone, Dolphin Reef, Abu Dabab etc available at supplement.

Return flights departing 04/06/08from Gatwick to Marsa Alam, returning 11/06/08 are about £289 with Thomsofly (tonight online quote).

In order to secure your place on the trip, you have to book your return flight to Marsa Alam (dates as above) and email your confirmation to Steve at info@pharaohdiveclub.com and copy to me by 17th of March.

After this date the show price no longer applies, however, if more people will be interested I will try to negotiate the best possible price.

Diving courses and kit hire available. See website for prices. The show price for the PADI OW valid till 17th March is £225 BB or £275 HB accommodation, transfers, full course or referral + 3 days diving and full kit hire for 5days. Additional cost is about 35 Euros for the PADI Certificate.

Please e-mail me (or Steve directly) if you have any questions. I look forward to meeting some new members in El Quseir.

Ray’s asked me to sort out group tickets for LIDS, and a place for a meal afterwards.

For those who’ve never been before, LIDS is the biggest Dive show in the UK, and takes place at the ExCEL centre in Docklands. There are 100s of exhibitors, as well as talks by leading Dive professionals.

You can find more information at the Diveshows Website

Tickets are £7.50 (£10.50 on the door), but group bookings of 8 or more are entered into a prize draw for a £4000 holiday for 8 to Malta, so it makes sense to book through GLUG.

If you’d like a ticket, please email me (link on the Events Page, if you log in). Don’t just leave a comment here - I may not see it.

Post-LIDS Social Dinner

Since a few people will be coming from afar, and staying over in London, it’s a great opportunity for a Social meal.
After a bit of conferring with Ray, I’ve chosen Busaba Eathai, near Googe Street tube, and about a 15-20 minute walk from Old Compton Street. Busaba is a Thai restaurant in the “Wagamamma” style - but with nicer decor, and this one has a private dining room, seating up to 22 people.

They have three set menus (details to follow), priced at £16, £19, and £24pp, excluding drinks and service. I’m not sure as yet whether we all have to choose the same one - but probably. Although they don’t have a specifically Vegetarian set menu, many of the dishes are vegetarian, and they will do an extra couple of dishes specifcally for the veggies among us.

I’ve booked the table for 8pm - I wanted a bit earlier, but they’re already booked from 6-8pm. We have to be out by 10pm.

If you’d like to come to the meal, please let me know ASAP by emailing me (link on the Events Page if you log in). Again, please don’t just leave a comment on this post. I will need payment in advance, once we’ve decided on a price - either by cheque or by online transfer.

Hi everyone,

Hope the cold dark wet skies are making you think towards the coming years diving, new friends and adventures!  Just a quick mention to say that I have uploaded a few more snaps to the website gallery of the recent xmas meal knees up (go on take a peek…you know you want to!) and a reminder to say it is only one month away now (Sat8th March) till the forthcoming LIDS London Dive Show event (see their website for lectures etc.  & note:group ticket entry arranged if sufficient numbers).

Of course for those who have energy left after all that walking around (or cash not spent!) there is also the optional meal afterwards in the city for those who are interested in attending this as well.  Venue & menu will be on site shortly for the post show meal which was a well attended success last year. Hopefully see you all there - Cheers Ray.

As part of the change to Standing Order subscriptions, and ongoing website improvements, all GLUG members who renew their subscription this year will be required to re-register on the GLUG website, with a new Username (different from the one you currently use).

When we get your completed Membership Form and Standing Order Mandate, we’ll send you an email containg a link to a Registration Page, and a password, which you will need in order to complete the registration. The registration page will allow you to choose your own Username, and will ask for some mandatory information (including Dive Qualification, Contact Phone number, and Next of Kin details), as well as some optional information (alternative contact number, Number of Dives, and a Picture). Once you have successfully registered, you’ll receive another email, containing your password. This can be changed from your Profile page (as can all the other information), once you log into your account.

Note that by default, the Username you choose will be displayed on any posts you make on the Public website (but again, you can change this on your Profile page).

The personal information collected will only be available to Committee members, and will never be given to Third Parties without your permission, but it will allow Committee members to contact you, should the need arise, without having to first go through the Membership Secretary.

Because we’re a non-profit organisation, and we only use your personal information for club-related activities, we are not required to Register with the Data Protection Registrar. However, we do take the security of the website, and the protection of your details seriously.

Any members who have already paid for their 2008 membership (whether or not by Standing Order) should receive an email within the next week or so, giving the Registration Link and password.

It was agreed at the club meeting last night, that all old accounts on the website will be deleted at the end of March this year - so if you haven’t renewed your membership by then, you will lose access to the Members area of the website.

Happy New Year!

Neil.

Apart from our year-round diving GLUG also organises regular social events so that our members can catch up, compare stories or photographs from recent trips and chat about… well, diving.

In addition to our monthly meetings in Soho we also have an AGM and Christmas party in December and a picnic or barbeque in the summer. We host stalls at Pride events, go shopping en masse at the Dive Shows and sometimes meet up with other gay social or sports clubs for joint social events. Our members have organised dry dives in a compression chamber and we have had clubs outings to evenings of lectures on subjects ranging from cave diving to marine life to digital underwater photography.

We also have GLUG weekends at inland dive sites for training and skill maintenance. Whilst not as exciting as real diving holidays these trips are essential in making sure that our openwater diving can be enjoyed safely and that our members have the opportunity to advance their training, should they wish to. These weekends also provide the opportunity for more club socialising and almost always include a few nights in a local pub comparing tall tales and chatting about… well, diving!

On this page you will find details of some of our past non-diving activities. Click on the pictures to be taken to the relevant gallery.
Details of upcoming events can be found on our Events Page.

Please choose from the following:
London Zoo Gay Sunday - September 2008
London Aquarium - August 2008
London and Brighton Prides - 2008
Christmas Dinner - December 2007
Picnic - August 2007
Dry Dive - 2007
Dive Show dinner at La Tasca - March 2007
Cardiff Mardi Gras - 2004

London Zoo Gay Sunday - September 2008

Thanks a million to Brian Broadbridge for bagging Glug a free stall at last weekend’s Gay Sunday at London’s Zoo.
The day was a great success with several new members signing up on the day and 30+ potential gluggers signing up for information on local training.
A special thanks to Brian, Steven, Doug and Chris for lending a hand on the day!

London Aquarium - August 2008

Mother nature had other plans for the GLUG summer picnic this year so, instead of eating our packed lunches in the wind and rain, we decamped to the London Aquarium. The displays and tanks were great and it was lovely to see the fish of the British Isles to well-represented (and with good vis, for a change).

London and Brighton Prides - 2008

GLUG had stalls at both London and Brighton Pride this year. Thanks to all the hard work put in by our volunteers on the days we managed to find a number of new members, both experienced divers and non-divers eager to learn!

Christmas Dinner - December 2007

We concluded 2007 with our AGM, kindly hosted by Gerhard at the Gray’s Inn branch of Konditor and Cook. We then wandered down to Strada St Pauls for our Christmas dinner. Some of us may have gone out in Soho afterwards too… luckily by then the cameras had been put away.

Picnic - August 2007

We finished up the year’s dive season with a picnic in St James’ park. Over two dozen GLUG members turned up and we had enough food to ensure that fitting into our wetsuits at the start of the 2008 season may prove rather challeging.

Dry Dive - 2007

Eight intrepid GLUG members undertook a (loggable!) dry dive to 50 metres in the London Dive Chamber.
We were very impressed by the professionalism of the medics and technicians who run this important facility. During the course of the dive they provided us with a series of cognitive tests and also gave us information on how to recognise and respond to DCI symptoms.

Dive Show dinner at La Tasca - March 2007

After a day of strenuous shopping at the London International Dive Show (during which GLUG members must have poured a few thousand pink pounds into the coffers of the dive industry) two dozen of us met up for a tapas meal at La Tasca. We showed off our new gear, boasted about the bargains we’d found and drank enough sangria to refloat the Scylla.

Cardiff Mardi Gras - 2004

A big “Thank You” to those who came along to help at Cardiff Mardi Gras: Ceris & her partner, Paul & Sian, and most especially to Rob & Neil, who not only stayed for the whole afternoon, but also brought along all sorts of nibbles: chicken legs, sausages, smoked salmon pinwheels, and a particularly nice cheese & bacon flaky pastry concoction. What with all that, plus the Metropolitan Community Church handing out cakes from the stall next to ours, we didn’t need any dinner!

Once again, there was a lot of interest in GLUG, and although we only signed up one new member on the day, we gave out almost 300 leaflets. The encouraging thing was that although by the end of the day there were hundreds of other leaflets lying discarded on the ground, we didn’t see a single GLUG one that had been thrown away.

Finally, also a special thank you to Ignacio, Neil’s partner, who has been tireless in helping to promote the club, even though he doesn’t dive!

I would like to thank Fizz and Martin for their reports from both (March and November) Tenerife trips and Jason, for uploading them, inserting pictures and uploading my pictures onto the gallery. Both trips were great fun and Glug established its position as a regular customer of the Tenerife Dive, friendly and professional diving centre, actively run by owners David & Yvonne Taylor with a significant contribution from an instructor and dive guide Maxim Zigelman aka Ami. To these Glug members, who are not familliar with their website www.tenerifedive.com I would definitely recommend viewing it. It is very informative and you can see familiar faces of Glug members if you look at the news pages for March 2007, November 2006 and June 2005. If anyone is interested in diving Tenerife, please add a comment to this post or e-mail me by clicking on the envelope icon, stating when would you like to go. If there is enough interest, I will organise another trip or pass all the information to anyone who may be interested in organising it. There is quite a few pictures in our gallery from Tenerife trips to whet your appetite for diving Tenerife. * WPG2 Plugin Not Validated * Glug members at the bar Via Moana with Yvonne (middle of front row) of Tenerife Dive.

We have a new trip report… and it’s another one from a Tenerife trip (the trip taken in March of this year, this time). If anyone has any photographs to add to it please send them along to me by clicking on the envelope next to my name at the top of this post.
Tenerife by Fizz

Thanks, Fizz.

I’ve just uploaded to the gallery some of my pics from a week’s ‘muck diving’ in the Lembeh Straits in North Sulawesi, Indonesia, which I did at the end of March.

For anyone who hasn’t heard about ‘muck diving’, it’s quite unlike anything you’ve ever done underwater in warm seas. It’s essentially diving over a black sandy (and often rubbish-strewn) bottom, but in which you can find the most amazing array of weird and wonderful critters. For photographers it’s a high-yield destination - there is so much to see that you almost run out of media on a two-tank boat trip!

If anyone wants to see more, I’ve got loads more pics… Enjoy!

GLUG Minutes - March 07

Dear All

Please find the minutes from our March 07 meeting.

I can’t be there on the 3rd April, Brian will be looking after things.

See you all in May!

Regards

Chris

Following on from the successful LIDS March trip all interested club members who missed out (and those who came along… hic! wishing to visit the NEC dive show in October are now welcome to register their interest in events (October). Group trip from London (possibly with shared transport in minibus) or make your way individually.Evening get together in a Birmingham restaurant (possible Balti curry house TBA?) for dinner afterwards. Saturday 13th with overnight stay in central city hotel for those who will overdo it again!!!. Possible group entry tickets once again to the show (TBA).Check out the website www.diveshows.co.uk

Just a quick note to advise that the recent London International Dive Show post dinner @ La Tasca was a huge success and all who came along appeared to have a jolly good time…see the gallery for the new photos (click each to view as gallery entry needs some tweeking!…I need more tuition from Neil as its my 1st attempt!).Regards - Ray”the chef”.

Anyone want to get away for Xmas and New Year this year?

Brian Broadbridge, Charlie Stewart and I have found a great trip to the relatively un-dived reefs and wrecks off Sudan. It’s a 14 day liveaboard, departing 20 December from Port Ghaleb (with flight to Marsa Alam). The boat is Royal Evolution: check it out at www.royalevolution.com/default.aspx. It’s the 14 day Sudan itinerary out of Port Ghaleb. Returns to Port Ghaleb and back to the UK on 3 January 2008. Water temperature will be 25/26C (ish) - but above all, this is an opportunity to dive a part of the Red Sea that the crowds haven’t yet reached.

Cost will be £2,200 (full board etc. on the liveaboard as usual, except that beer and soft drinks are extra; last night in a hotel at Port Ghaleb). The trip is being booked through Oonasdivers.

As well as the three of us, several others have already expressed an interest. If you’re interested, drop me (or any of us) an email and we can fill you in on anything else you may want to know. (But note that Charlie will be away skiing for a week from Friday and I’ll be diving in Lembeh Straits from 22 March until 1 April).

The London Lesbian & Gay Film Festival runs from March 21st until April 4th.

Now in its 21st year, The London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival presents a strong and eclectic programme of feature films, shorts, artists’ film and video and experimental work, as well as a whole host of discussions and special events.

Check out the website by clicking on the logo.