Hi everyone,

Just a reminder that if you haven’t already registered for the Xmas Meal, today is your last chance!

See the original post for details.

Looking forward to seeing lots of you on Saturday!

Alesh tells me that so far he has around 20 people for the Xmas Meal.

If you’re planning on coming along and haven’t yet registered, don’t forget that we need names and menu choices by Monday December 4th at the latest. Meal details are in the original post.

Also, if you sent an email but didn’t get any reply from Alesh, please send him another one - or send it to me (click on the envelope at the top of the post when you’re logged in, or send it using the Contact Form, choosing “Website problems”). Your place is not confirmed until you receive an email from Alesh.

Finally, don’t forget that if you’ve registered, then you’re liable for the cost of the meal, whether or not your turn up - so if your plans have changed, and you can’t now make it, please email again.

Apologies, I made a right mess of the previous posting, so I’ve deleted it, and started again!…

The GLUG Christmas Meal will be at Strada, St Paul’s Churchyard (opposite the Cathedral entrance), at 7pm on Saturday 9th December.

We need bookings in advance, with your choice of Main course and Dessert. The menus are given at the end of this post. There are no limits on numbers so please bring loved ones, friends, relations and potential GLUG members.

The cost of the meal is £28.10 including service, but not including drinks (although if we get sufficient numbers they may throw in some wine). There is also a Vegetarian menu at £18.60 - see below for details.

The final date for booking the meal is Monday 4th December.
Important Note: Although payment is not required in advance, if you book a place for the meal, you will be liable for the cost of the meal, whether or not you actually turn up. (You can cancel your place up until 4th December without penalty)

Please select your choice of Main Course and Dessert from one of the two menus below, and email your choice to Alesh, who is organising the meal, using the Contact Form (select “GLUG Xmas Meal Booking” from the drop-down list). NB: Your booking is not confirmed until you receive a reply from Alesh - and the GLUG emails have a habit of going into his Spam folder, so if you don’t hear back from him, he may have missed it - just try again.

There’s now a spare place on the Tenerife trip, 8th-16th June 2007. Please contact me for further details. Flights cost around £160 and 6 days’ diving is just 194 euros. Accommodation and meals extra - but not expensive.

Update: The dates are now a day earlier than previously published
Following the success of this year’s Red Sea trip (as documented in October’s Diver Magazine including a front page coup), I am pleased to announce that I have booked the magnificent MY Blue Seas for 19th-26th 18th-25th July 2007. The 2007 safari will take us to the stunning outer Daedalus Reef and then south to the beautiful Rocky and Zabargad Island Reefs. Check them out!

The details are as follows: Return flights from Gatwick, transfers, 1 weeks liveaboard including all meals and soft drinks, at least 3 dives per day including free Nitrox (with conditions) and our final day will be spent at The Coral Beach Hotel. I have negotiated a £80 per person discount with our friends at Oonasdivers, giving a cost of £995.

I hope you can join me to dive these amazing reefs and enjoy the comfort and spaciousness of The Blue Seas vessel. Please do not hesitate to contact me with any questions and I look forward to your reservations. Places will be reserved on a first come first served basis.

To reserve your place, you need to pay a deposit of £200 by calling Oonasdivers on 01323 648924, and telling them you want to book on the GLUG trip. Please note that all payments are non-refundable unless either (a) you provide a replacement diver to take your place, or (b) there is a waiting list at the time you cancel.

I will also be at the Dive Show on Saturday if any one wants to meet up.

Best wishes for now

CHARLIE STEWART

PS. You can email me by logging into the website, and then clicking on the envelope icon at the top of this post

I’m in the early stages of planning a trip to the South of France next year. The diving can be as deep or shallow as we choose but wrecks in the area tend to be in the 25 to 45/50 mtrs range so this trip is for divers with previous and good experience of deeper diving. I’m thinking of doing nothing deeper than 40 mtrs but this is not a trip for beginners.

I will open this trip to selected well-behaved divers from my BSAC dive club. This would be either the first or third week of September 2007 and I have two boats in mind:

I’ve noticed that only 19 people out of 99 club members have filled in the AGM & Xmas Meal Poll.  If you haven’t already voted, please go to the GLUG Homepage and do so - there’s an option for “I can’t make it”, so even if you’re not coming, please vote.

Neil.

Please note that the GLUG Xmas meal (see previous post) will be preceded by the GLUG AGM.

The AGM is your opportunity to tell the committee what you want from the club - and to vote them out if you think they’re not doing a good enough job!  We therefore encourage as many members as possible to attend the AGM - even if they don’t come to the meal.

So, if you plan to come to the AGM, but not the meal, please vote for the date and time you would prefer the AGM on.

(If you can’t make the AGM, you can email any comments/concerns etc. to the committee in advance, and we’ll make sure they’re heard).

At last night’s club meeting, it was decided that the GLUG Xmas meal should be on the weekend of the 9th/10th December. The meal will take the place of the monthly meeting.

I’ve added a poll in the right-hand sidebar, where you can vote for your preference of either Saturday evening or Sunday lunchtime (Note: You need to be logged in to the site to vote). We need your vote ASAP, since once we have the date we still have to find a location!

I’ve got a couple of spaces on Autumn Dream on 2-3 September. This is not a GLUG trip - it’s my local BSAC club, but they regularly mix in with GLUG and are house-trained. Two GLUG members are already on the trip in addition to myself. Accommodation, diving and meals amount to £123. Contact me asap if interested.

Update: The same trip is being organised for May 26th-28th 2007
Hi all
Sark is one of the smallest of the Channel Islands. A truly fantastic experience to visit an island where there are no cars and the only means of transport is your bicycle. Don’t worry, our skipper will transport your diving equipment on his tractor to and from Creux Harbour to our accommodation.

Please visit:
http://www.sarkci.com/
and
http://www.visitguernsey.com/

Our skipper will arrange boat transfer to/from Guernsey harbour to Sark, leaving Guernsey on Friday evening and returning on Sunday – time to be arranged.

Accommodation will be for two nights at Le Grand Fort, a self catering cottage situated on the north coast of Sark – a mere 10 minutes cycle to the harbour. Ray, my dive buddy, if we ask him nicely, will do one of his speciality meals one evening in the farmhouse.

Two dives per day – with dive sites to be arranged. You will certainly be impressed with the excellent viz which is as good as the Mediterranean.

If you wish to make a long weekend in Guernsey, I can provide you with details of accommodation here in Guernsey.

Please note – adequate diving insurance is obligatory and I suggest that you have sufficient travel insurance for this event.

Cost per diver - approx GBP128 subject to 12 divers which can be broken down as follows:

2 dives per day GBP30 x 2 days = GBP60
Transfer to/from Guernsey Sark= GBP18
B&B accommodation x 2 night = GBP50

A deposit of GBP75 will be required with a refund only being made if the trip does not go ahead or if another diver can fill your place. Please send your cheque together with the attached booking form.

If you have any questions - just let me know and I will do my best to answer. (Log in, then click on the envelope at the top of the post to send me an email).

Due to a cancellation, I now have one place available for the trip to Deep Blue Resort in Utila, Honduras, from April 28th - May 6th.

The big attraction at Utila is Whale Sharks. Although we’ll be lucky to actually encounter one during a dive, there is a very good chance that we’ll be able to swim and snorkel with them during our surface intervals - during early May there are sightings most days.

Other than the Whale Sharks, however, the general Reef Diving around Utila is very good. There are over 50 buoyed dive sites, and attractions include Hawksbill turtles, Stingrays, Eagle Rays, Reef Squid, Nudibranchs, Flamingo Tongues, Barracuda,… need I go on? The reef itself is quite varied, with sites such as Blackish Point - a gorgeous overhang, shot through with shafts of Sunlight, and “The Maze” - a wonderland of Canyons, with abundant fish life.

As well as GLUG members, there will be divers from a couple of our sister clubs in the US, and from Plongee Arc-en-Ciel in Paris, so the entire resort of 10 rooms will be gay-occupied. The resort itself is on a strip of land between a sandy beach and a lagoon, and accessible only by boat. If you want to go into the local town, then you can generally be transported across free of charge during the day - a nominal charge may be made at night.

We’ve negotiated a considerable discount from their normal rate of US$1392 (inc tax). The price for GLUG members is US$890 for the week, which includes air-conditioned accommodation, all meals, water and iced tea, 3 boat dives per day, unlimited shore diving, and airport transfers, and taxes, but excludes flights. The only extras are other drinks (beers are around £1 each), Nitrox (US$100 for the week) or Equipment hire if required, and gratuities for the dive and resort staff.

To get to Utila involves taking International flights to San Pedro Sula (on the Honduran mainland), then a 25-minute flight to La Ceiba, further along the coast, and finally a 7-minute hop across to the island itself. Getting there will entail an overnight stop either in the US or in San Pedro Sula, and for this reason we will need to leave the UK on 28th April in order to arrive on 29th.

Currently, Travelocity is showing a cheapest price of £560 for the International flights (Damn! I paid £680!). The Domestic flights will cost approx US$160.

The final payments for the trip are due by the end of this month, so if you’re interested in going, I will need full payment of US$890 plus the US$160 (to be confirmed soon) for the Domestic flights - this works out at around £615 at current exchange rates.

You can download a trip brochure here (ignore the references to the first week being sold out!). If you’re interested in joining us, please email me (log in, then click the envelope at the top of this post, or use the Contact Page).

UPDATE (15th Feb): The place has now been refilled

DEPARTING THURSDAY 31ST AUGUST

For all you Red Sea fanatics, I will be posting another Oonasdivers discounted trip, this time to The Red Sea Safari Shagra Eco Village. For those of you, who read my entry in the news letter, I was really impressed with the set up at Shagra. As well as Shagra’s house reefs, the amazing Elphinestone, Abu Dabbab, Nakari and Shaab el Gadeer reefs are easily accessed from Shagra. Shaab Samadi ( Dolphin House Reef) - great for budding photographers - offers a days hard boat diving, just an hour south of Shagra.

We are being offered the best accomodation, in the very comfortable Madyafa Guest Houses ( en-suite), flights and transfers ( less than an hour from the airport) all meals, soft drinks , teas and coffees ( with afternoon cake) and unlimited diving for £671.00. If we get 12 people or more, then a futher discount will be available.

Check out Oonasdivers website for further information and photographs and, if you have any questions do not hesitate to contact me.

Hello Divers,

I just learned that EV, the restaurant is happy to receive the final confirmation of guests for the dinner by the evening of Tuesday the 29th November.
So anyone who may have thought they’ve missed out by missing the deadline has now got another opportunity to sign up for dinner and the AGM.
See you on Saturday the 3rd December.

Gerhard

So far Gerhard has only had 12 members contact him about the Xmas meal on December 3rd. We have to tell the restaurant the exact number by this Friday (18th), so if you want to come, but haven’t yet told Gerhard - do it now. You can find Gerhard’s contact details on the Events Page when you’ve logged in.

You can find the full details of the Meal and AGM in this post.