Blog

Saad has published a new book: “9 Annoying Laws of Scuba Diving”.

To quote the author: “A hilarious look at some of the sabotage we scuba divers have to deal with”.
Available from Amazon: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B082PGGKYW
The hard copy will be available in January.
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Joining BSAC:
New members to BSAC can join Sharjah Wanderers Diving Club via the website, https://www.bsac.com/membership/select-branch/ . If you enter Sharjah, the club appears. Existing BSAC members can renew by logging into MyBSAC or using this link, https://www.bsac.com/membership/rejoin-today/

Join BSAC and claim your free dive! (406 members only).
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BSAC general website: https://www.bsac.com/home/
Remember also:
DAN insurance website: https://www.daneurope.org/home

​As predicted, the weather precluded any diving last weekend, so we all had a lie-in, which is not such a bad option every once in a while.
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Going back to last Tuesday, we gave Richard and Sharon a good send-off with the now traditional gift of a Karen’s Dhow plate, suitably engraved. A couple of photos below. One or two of you may recognize the photo on the cake from the “pirates” evening a couple of years ago.
Richard has asked me to print the following:
Sharon and I would like to shout out a huge thanks to everyone for the wonderful send-off last Tuesday night. The picture on the cake was just perfect and the card and glassware will both take pride of place in our new digs – wherever that ends up being, hopefully to be confirmed this week! 
Thanks also for the treat of having some of the old videos on display and to reminisce over some of the great dives and overseas trips enjoyed over the last 8 years with the club. Muscat (2011) will always have a particularly special place in both our hearts as our first 406 Eid trip. ‘Last Tango in Dibba’ will also endure as an all-time favourite video and one of the most pleasurable dives courtesy of videographer and dive buddy that day, Peter Jackson. The trip down memory lane brought back many other happy recollections …… of the days when I did actually go diving! 
Of course, the non-diving activities have been equally fabulous – the various themed socials, the East Coast camping trips and Geoff Patch’s Wadi Adventure weekends in Al Ain (aka ‘The Winning Formula’) were all tremendous times with some truly legendary antics whilst imbibing with great friends…. many of those antics involving Derek Roberts, naturally. To every single person who I have dived or drunk with during the last 8 years, thank you for such treasured times.
I think it’s also an opportune time as the outgoing Chairman to record, on behalf of all the readership of this wonderful bulletin, our appreciation to you, Ian, for keeping the weekly updates going. The number of well wishers who got in touch with us from far and wide – some within an hour of your email going out – bears testament to its effectiveness and the extent of followers who thoroughly enjoy keeping a link with this special club. As we will too.
As mentioned on more than one occasion around the dive club table, you never really leave BSAC 406, you just transfer to the Exiles sub-division and as many a former member has proved you can always come back for a visit! Personally, I hope to make as many returns as Mike Anthony.
Talking of which, I managed to extend my flight to the 11th so can make the Christmas Party. We’re also planning to meet up with Janette in Scotland on Friday, so I’ll send you a pic or two and a couple of ‘minutes’ from that encounter if it goes ahead!
See you in a couple of weeks.
Richard.

​Amidst some very busy times lately, logs are back online. With quite a few months worth of dive logs and BSAC 406 news to catch up with, please stay tuned for some amazing tales from near and far. 

​As usual our Dive Officer Ian sends out the weekly in club email updates. My apologies for being slack on the uploads. It’s good to be back. 

​To begin then, last weeks’ Dive Log is as follows;

It was a frustrating weekend for diving. We had five on the boat and duly set off for the Taha and Mariam Express. We made good progress but at about three-quarter distance it became clear we were heading straight towards an ominous black cloud. This by itself would have caused a rethink but when we started to see lightning in front of us, we did a swift U-turn. Driving a boat into a thunderstorm isn’t sensible even if you weren’t thinking of putting divers in the water and getting caught in an unexpected storm is no fun at all. I’m sure Cathy, Peter and Derek would agree.

Back at the club, we used the time to field test some new regulators in the pool. No problems. Otherwise it was relaxation with some refreshments. There are worse ways of spending Friday.
The forecast for next weekend isn’t promising but we’ll post a dive and see what happens.

The forecast for next weekend isn’t promising but we’ll post a dive and see what happens.

DAN insurance website: https://www.daneurope.org/home

The Dive Club meets every Tuesday night in the Dive Bar.
See you there.
 
 

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2019 AGM
This year’s belated AGM will be Tuesday 12th November. Nominal start time is 8pm but if anyone is coming but running late, we can wait a bit.
Brian Lugg seems a bit full of himself at the moment. Won the lottery?? Found a new shipwreck?? Or maybe South Africa had a good result at the weekend??

We didn’t go out last weekend on account of too many people doing other things. Instead, some news of 406 alumni overseas.
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First up is Volker Motzkus who was a regular diver from 2013 to 2015 before returning to Germany. He sent the following report from Gozo:
Coming back from Gozo, I thought it appropriate to let the honourable members of the BSAC 406 know how the travels went and how the diving was. To make it short, it was fantastic!Before I go into more details, I posted my logs and some of my pics here:https://www.divelogs.de/pics/Motze
Please let me know if the links work for you, they appeared to work after I logged out, but you never know. [NB – the link works]But I am posting a pic I took while snorkeling in X’lendi Bay, as an appetizer:

​Geoff Patch reports from the sunny south coast of England;

Further to the successful 406 Exiles reunion in early August, Mike Dalton and his lovely wife Zulfa joined myself and a few members from Loughton Sub Aqua Club (BSAC 365) for a weekend diving out of Plymouth at the end of the month. After a 5 ½ hour drive on the Friday, taking in the delights of the British motorway system (M25 / M4 / M5 / A38) we convened at the ‘Boringdon Arms’ public house / BnB  in Turnchapel on the outskirts of Plymouth and close to the Mount Batten Watersports Centre (https://www.mount-batten-centre.com/), where Indeep Diving (www.Indeep.co.uk ) are based.

The weekend was to consist of two boat dives on Saturday and Sunday respectively with a mix of OC and CCR divers onboard. Water temperature would be ~16 C, so dry suits or thick semi-dry wet suits would be needed. The intended sites for Saturday were the Persier and HMT Elk. Unfortunately, the sea gods had other ideas resulting in a very lumpy sea and the decision to dive within the breakwater where the waves were a little more forgiving.

The first site was the Poulmic, a French ship sunk by an acoustic mine in 1940. The wreck sits in ~18m of water (low tide). Visibility was reasonable at 5-6m but a heavy surge was present adding to the existing nausea caused by the lumpy sea.  I was diving with Nick, both of us on a rebreather, but with little to see other than the largely broken up wreck and a few Pollack we decided to end the dive after 36minutes. The second dive was to be on a sheltered reef in ~8m of water, which I decided to give a miss and save my scrubber lime for the next day.
Fortunately, Sunday brought much fairer weather, and with ‘ropes off’ at 10.00 we headed out of Plymouth on ‘Panther’ towards HMS Scylla, a Leander class frigate deliberately sunk as an artificial reef in 2004. Nick and I descended the shot line tied to the starboard rail, headed aft and dropped to the seabed beneath the stern where large shoals of fish could be seen in the 6-8m vis, along with some very large crabs. The ship had been adequately prepared before the sinking, with several access points cut into the hull and it was not long before Nick and I were having a good rummage around the engine room. Meanwhile, Mike (diving with Tania from 365) was enjoying a guided tour of the wreck, which sits upright in ~27m of water. After an hour of exploring the various decks and corridors (and avoiding some large conger eels!) we headed back to the surface and a welcoming brew accompanied by a pasty.

The second dive of the day was on the James Eagan Layne, a Liberty ship built in 1944 and hit by a torpedo in 1945. The JEL sits in ~18m of water with bow pointing north towards shore, as the Captain was trying to beach her before she sunk. Much of the hull plating has deteriorated leaving the ribs of the ship standing proud and presenting a wonderful lattice for light to enter the hold areas. The wreck is home to many varieties of fish, conger eels and some very large blue lobsters!

So that was our weekend done and all that was left was to pack our gear and enjoy the drive home! Apart from some inclement weather, everyone had an enjoyable weekend diving some of the many wrecks that line the UK south coast, an area well worth a visit.
 
http://www.promare.co.uk/ships/Wrecks/Wk_Poulmic.html
http://www.promare.co.uk/ships/Wrecks/Wk_Scylla.html
http://www.promare.co.uk/ships/Wrecks/Wk_JamesEaganLayne.html
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Apologies for the lack of an email over the last couple of weeks. This was due to my absence on leave, not a complete lack of activity although we did miss out on one weekend.
Going back to Friday 9th August, we took a boat out to Mike’s Tug and Victoria Star. I acted as a non-diving boat driver for this one, partly due to an impending flight, also because I wanted to get back early. On the boat were Mike and Brian with Matt and Richard from DSDC joining us for the day. Mike’s Tug was an appropriate destination as Mike has returned to the UK after completing his period of leave cover, so it was his last dive (until the next one).
Since I wasn’t underwater, any description is second-hand but I gather the viz was reasonable and all four enjoyed their dives.

For the second dive, I made an executive decision to return inshore to the Victoria Star rather than hanging around offshore to dive the Jumbo or Neptune. This was mainly in the interests of time-saving, given that the surface intervals could be completed whilst on the move. It also proved fortuitous since the sea state picked up significantly later on and a return trip from the Neptune to Al Khan would have been hard work.
Again, I don’t know much about the diving except that Mike and Brian did some exploration in the engine room. After that it was back to base for some refreshments.
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The following weekend, Brian tried to organize a dive but he was almost the only one still in the country so nothing happened. Last Friday on the other hand, Allen took a boat to the Dara. With the summer almost over, at least in terms of holidays, people are starting to reappear and we should have some good diving in the weeks ahead, sea state permitting as always.
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We have some new fans above the dive table which work a treat and will provide some much-needed ventilation post dive and Tuesday evenings. Thanks to Peter for organizing the installation and to the Main Club which put up half the funds.

The Dive Club meets every Tuesday night in the Dive Bar.
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See you there.

DAN insurance website: https://www.daneurope.org/home
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Further logs to follow with write ups for upcoming Oman Dive Trip in October – Maldives Live Aboard –  Med Diving –  and some dive trips closer to home with some of the brave hearted. 
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Please contact a member of the Dive Team for more details about the Oman Trip. Last year was magnificent with Whale Shark sightings and an abundance of marine life.  Members and non members are welcome. 

​Dive club meets every Tuesday in the Dive Bar. 

​See our flyer for contact details if you are interested in becoming a member of the Dive Community. 

​Safe Diving.