I have managed to negotiate a couple more places on a trip to El Quseir (4-11 June) at a special price of £195. The price includes 7 days HB accommodation, 5 days of diving (two shore/RIB guided dives per day plus unlimited shore diving on the house reef) and transfers.

Any PADI training is available on request and the prices are very reasonable.

For example: a friend of mine, who is doing PADI OW referral, pays £245. The price includes the same items as for qualified diver above plus training and equipment. Additional cost is 35 Euros for the certificate.

Please e-mail me for more details if you are interested.

Anna

I have had a number of e-mails from potential members asking about possible training - numbers sadly cannot justify an overseas dive trip. However, if any member would like a ‘refresher’ to diving - or, let’s say an Open Water Course - as your BSAC and PADI training co-ordnator and instructor - I would be happy to run a weekend course in Guernsey/UK if there was sufficient interest. I have a swimming pool for use here in Guernsey - plus some nice sheltered shore dive sites - but would need a minimum number of people.  For GLUG members - or potential members - I would be happy to do this at ‘cost’ price. If anyone is interested, just drop me a note.

Kind regards

Fred

GLUG is running a training trip to Sharks Bay with Oonasdivers from 24th-31st October.

The trip is open to non-divers who would like to learn, to qualified divers who’d like to take a further course, and also to qualified divers who just fancy a dive trip to the Red Sea.

The cost is £439, plus whatever training you want - Basic qualification costs £200. For other courses see the Events Page.

The great thing about doing your basic qualification at Sharks Bay is that your initial training is done in a shallow area near the beach, rather than in a swimming pool - so you get to see fish even on your training dives!

The price includes flights, accommodation, and transfers to and from the airport. If you’re not already a GLUG member, you will need to join - but it only costs £10!

For more information, please contact us using the Events Page, choosing “Dive Training” from the drop-down menu.

Dear GLUG members

Just a quick post to say hello to all our members. I’m Chris Lee and am delighted to take the role of chair for 2007.

I would also like to welcome our new committee members and a hello to those remaining in post, I look forward to working with you all over the next year (please treat me gently ;-)).

I’ve been a GLUG member over the past couple of years and have enjoyed being involved in UK and European Dive Trips as well as training to bring me up to BSAC Sports Diver.

Please feel free to contact me should you have any queries and I shall do my best to help out or connect you with someone who can.

Happy 2007 diving everyone and hope to meet most of you at some point!

Chris Lee

I received this email today from Gaynor of Kenna Ecodiving, near Barcelona in Spain:

My partner and I had been diving here for a number of years before coming to live on the Costa Brava; and had noted a big difference between the protected and unprotected areas.

So we began a research project to look at diversity within the sea grass in a local bay, initially to make our own diving more worthwhile. Soon diver friends from the UK and Ireland were joining us regularly and we started to feed our data to a Catalonian conservation organisation CRAM.

The project has grown from there and we now have volunteer divers coming from all over the world to help with our research, especially budding u/w photographers and divers with an interest in conservation.

In return for the help in gathering data we offer free ecodiving and some intial training on species identification and data collection techniques.

Volunteers (up to 6 per week) stay in a lovely apartment, with private pool, and are collected from Girona or Barcelona airports and brought down to the boat each day for diving.

Have a look at our website to get more info on the sea grass (Posidonia oceanica), see photos, etc.

Members of your group would be assured an excellent stay with great diving and with much fun to be had.

Best regards Gaynor

Their trips cost €223 (approx £160) for 1 week, including airport transfers, accommodation, and up to 10 dives (weather dependent).

If anyone would be interested in organising a trip, or just going on a trip, please leave a comment below.

GLUG MEETING MINUTES 7 FEB 2006

Officers’ reports
UK dive coordinator (Corinne)
o UK trips are filling up fast. There is one space on Corinne’s trip to Scapa Flow.
o All GLUG spaces on Fiona’s Farnes trip are full and there is a waiting list of GLUG members. There are still four Pink Tank spaces and Fiona will open these up to GLUG shortly.
o There are still two places left on Fiona’s Swanage trip.
o Check the website for latest details.
o Some months ago the possibility of a trip to Jersey was discussed. Lots of members interested Neil to contact Jersey contact to explore. Action Neil

Treasurer (Alan)
o Apologies for absence

Membership secretary (Fiona)
o 30 paid up members so far this year. Fiona will send out reminders to those who have not yet paid.
o Anyone who has not paid their sub by the end of March will be deemed to be no longer a member and will not be able to access the members’ area of the site. Action Fiona and Neil

Publicity officer (Kirk)
o Nothing to report this month

Webmaster (Neil)
o Our website host had hardware difficulties leading to the site being out of action for several days. It is now up and running again.

Equipment coordinator (Corinne reporting for Steph)
o 2 SMB reels have been purchased plus a new 02 kit. Belts and weights still to be bought.

Dorothy Divers (Corinne)
o One new Ocean Diver student
o DD to run Sports Diver and Dry Suit training in the spring

Other dives
o Dive for Life (Corinne) 85% full as of 2 weeks before the meeting. Will be in St Lucia on 16 September. Check DfL website for details- there is a link from the GLUG website.
o Djibouti (Brian). Brian has researched a trip to Djibouti either over Christmas or New Year. Cost approx £1,200 including flights and six days liveaboard. Brian will put details on website. Action Brian.

AOB
o We have had a very generous offer of a complete set of diving equipment, barely used, from Siobhan who has had to give up diving following a back injury. Members thanked Siobhan for this and Allen will collect Action Allen
o We are running out of T-shirts. It was agreed that we should purchase further supplies. Kirk suggested using an ethical source and will investigate costs. Neil to compare costs with traditional suppliers. Action Kirk and Neil
o The Dive Show will be held at Excel on 1-2 April. Noted that there are ticket price reductions for groups of 8 tickets or more. Corinne volunteered to coordinate tickets Action Corinne

Date of next meeting
7.30 pm Tue 7 March

I’m planning on doing a TDI Nitrox course with Diving Leisure London sometime early next year, and wondered if any other GLUG members would like to join me?

The course will cost £80 - less if I get several people interested. The course takes 1 day, is all theory (no winter diving required!), and qualifies you to dive with Nitrox mixes up to 40%.

(Explanation of Nitrox follows for any scuba newbies out there…)

Scuba 2000 are offering GLUG members a £100 discount on their Red Sea dayboat trip to Hurghada from May 27th - June 3rd. The price for GLUG members is £695, including flights, accommodation and 2 boat dives per day.

This would be an ideal trip for Novice divers, or for those wishing to extend their training, and since the organisers are GLUG members, you can be sure it’ll be gay-friendly!

Please contact Karen via the Scuba 2000 website for more details on the trip.

I received the following from the DFL (Diving for Life) email group on Tuesday, and thought it might be of interest to any GLUG members considering a trip to Cuba. Jim kindly agreed to let me publish it.

Well, I am spoiled for everywhere else in the Caribbean now. This was the spot I’ve been looking for.

40 miles south of the south coast of Cuba out of a small fishing town called Jucaro (pronounced HUKaro), after a four hour boat ride to the small islands, completely uninhabited with nothing but our permanently anchored liveaboard and a second smaller liveaboard for the extra staff.

The routine was up at 7 am, breakfast together, then off for most of the day, every day was at least three dives and three were four dive days, sometimes we ate lunch in a cove, sometimes made it back to the mother ship for lunch, with the day done by about five pm.

Sharks were so commonplace that they were a part of most dives, both big ones and smaller silky sharks that hung around the boat in numbers that were a little nervewracking….try stepping off into the water trying to remember to hold everything and NOT step on a shark. These schools are quite accustomed to the boat and the snacks the divemasters provide and come close enough to actually touch and CATCH!! I had the pleasure of lying on my back after a dive just off the boat and having the divemaster pass me a five foot silky shark to hold across my chest….very briefly, it decided to take off after a short rest, sort of like holding a nervous fifty pound cat. I also found it was a good idea not to hang around too long in the water after the dive playing tag with these ‘brown sweeties’ as the divemasters were rather blase about tossing chum into the water….being in the middle of a feeding frenzy was interesting. Watching the divemaster catch a double armful of shark, pass it to the divemaster on the boat, who then gave the rest of us a closeup before dropping it back in the water leaves me wordless to describe.

I am organising a one-week trip to Tenerife from 3rd-11th June 2005. Suitable for all types of divers, even trainees (who could complete their training over there) - easy diving. Also cheap - should cost no more than £600 all in. Accommodation is in 2-room & 1-room self-catering apartments. Resort is the Tenerife Dive Club . Nearest airport is Sur Reina Sofia.
Suitable for non-diving partners.
If interested, please contact me for further information (logged-in GLUG members can email me by clicking my name at the top of this post).

One of the few diving jokes I’ve come across…

Three diving instructors on a boat. PADI, SSI and BSAC. They have a group of novice divers and enjoying an educational guddle around St Abbs’ head, when the PADI instructor pipes up “I’m hungry, I need some munchies”. He hops over the side of the boat, walks across the water to the shore and starts to walk up the cliff path.