Hi from London!

[Nico dR]

Hi all!

Excited to join this forum! I've been diving sporadically for 3.5 years now and this year I want to do it a lot more seriously. I live in London and I'm looking to join a diving club to go explore the UK waters in the weekends. I'd love to chat with divers here to share experiences and tips. Also really keen on getting into freediving.

Past highlights when diving have been to swim with Orcas in northern Norway, Mantas in the Maldives and a whale shark in Thailand. Some of the key dives still on my bucket list are encounters with humpbacks in Tonga, blue and basking sharks in Cornwall, narwals in Greenland, sea lions and many more!

Looking forward to learning and sharing!

 

[KenGordon]

Find a club or centre

I am a member of Bermondsey, we meet on a Wednesday for pool stuff near Canada Water. As you can see at the link above there are plenty of branches in London, although some are more active than others.

Our list of proper diving (not including training dives at lakes) is found from Dive List

 

[Edward3c]

HI,

Welcome to the board.

@KenGordon beat me to linking to teh BSAC find a club.

You'll find lots of useful information here, and don't be afraid to ask questions.

Kind regards

Edward

 

[Nico dR]

Thanks both! I actually emailed the Bermondsey club yesterday to ask if I could swing by an upcoming Wednesday Also considering joining London Diver

 

[Compressor]

Hi Nico dR. Thanks for joining ScubaBoard. Great introduction. Looking forward to hearing more.

 

[KenGordon]

Thanks both! I actually emailed the Bermondsey club yesterday to ask if I could swing by an upcoming Wednesday Also considering joining London Diver

Ah, I see. You ought to get a reply from Chris, however we are moving email addresses between who did that stuff last year and now so there is a risk of dropping through the cracks, however I am pretty sure I will be at the pool on the 19th.

Choices between No 1 and us might come down to where you live/work. We have been paying extra attention to getting people move down on to Sports Diver rather than just brand new people. That kind of thing does vary between branches.

 

[Nico dR]

@KenGordon yup, Chris messaged me back. I'll try to swing by on the 19th. I'm currently living west but will likely move to the LB/Bermondsey area soon, so it could be a good match for me location wise. What I like about No 1 is that they have a lot of club gear, and in particular drysuits, that I can train with on pool nights. I've never tried drysuit before so being able to practice with it for free is pretty appealing. Do you also have club gear?

 

[KenGordon]

@KenGordon yup, Chris messaged me back. I'll try to swing by on the 19th. I'm currently living west but will likely move to the LB/Bermondsey area soon, so it could be a good match for me location wise. What I like about No 1 is that they have a lot of club gear, and in particular drysuits, that I can train with on pool nights. I've never tried drysuit before so being able to practice with it for free is pretty appealing. Do you also have club gear?

We have three club membrane drysuits, complete with undersuits, which we bought early last year. Unless you are particularly large or particularly small one will fit. We are currently getting various AOW people who are doing Sports Diver through drysuit training to make getting the open water parts of SD nicer. Sport England gave us a grant a few years ago which paid for 10 sets of kit, so we have recent BCDs in a variety of sizes, an embarrassment of cylinders and plenty of regulators. We put aside money each year to build a fund to replace that kit. For example we just bought 5 sets of Apeks ATX40s for cold open water conditions. Living in London space and transport is difficult so we try to help by providing kit for trainee Ocean Divers. That is available to rent for a largely nominal fee if not being used for trainees. Many younger members don’t own or intend to own cylinders. We hope everyone eventually gets their own regs, suits, computers etc.

Our aim is to fill boats and go diving. Empty spaces cost the club money.

Depending on where you work you might also consider Clidive and Helfins. They are both bigger than us which has pros and cons.

 

[Nico dR]

@KenGordon thank you so much for all these details! Learning to use dry suits, stepping up my certifications and going on weekend trips is what I want and it seems you have all that so that's pretty great! Looking forward to meeting the group next Wednesday then!

 

[skippy311]

Welcome!