Dry suit course in the UK

[Amy B]

I know of a really good dive school in Plymouth, if you're interested PM me and I will give you the details. I've just done my drysuit speciality with them no probalem (though to be fair I learnt in a drysuit, and all but 10 of my dives - in the Red Sea in a 5mm wetsuit - have been UK drysuit dives, so I am quite experienced!). I did the speciality in my new drysuit and it was fantastic. Even saw a sharks egg ("purse"), which, as a marine biologist, was rather exciting!

We have some excellent diving here in Plymouth if you wanted to do a few dives, such as the new artificial reef Scylla, and one of my personal favourites the James Eagan Layne. There are lots more fantastic dives too. I was recently suprised to find just how much life there can be on an eel grass bed for example! (I've had to organise some diving surveys for the local Marine Conservation Society group and English Nature on them). There was also a nearby kelp park which was huge and just so fascinating... Anyone else ever get tempted to swim right into one? I know it's a stupid idea because I'd get tangled up (I'm not stupid, hence the reason I didn't do it!) but is just so *tempting*!!

 

[Conor]

Hope you managed to get in the water. As you said yourself a lot of us 'warm water' divers have experienced cold, poor vis etc on our travels, so as long as we (like all divers) dive within our skills and expereince then all will be cool.

I'm in the same boat to an extent, have managed a handful of uk dives and about 15 dry duit dives, very much still finding my feet in the dry suit (so to speak), but am hoping to try and find more time to get into this UK diving thing this year.

BTW, I'm based in Cambridge, so if you find yourself needing a buddy then its worth asking, even if its just a bimble around wraysbury or Guildenburgh.

Cheers

Conor

 

[TTA]

Thank you to everyone who replied! Thought I'd give you an update on what I eventually ended up doing...

I did end up doing my dry suit course during the May Bank holiday in Falmouth, Cornwall. Having been trapped in the caravan queues during bank hols before, I'd opted for the option of hopping to Newquay from London by plane then driving down to Falmouth, which worked a treat!

Dive shop was very good and the instructor thorough whilst doing the course. We did manage to make end of the first dive (i.e. after skills) and the second dive a couple of shallow dives off a small RIB, so we got to see some of the local underwater life. Was brilliant!!! Loved it! And the next day we managed to get out and do another shore dive in the region - took some pics of stuff around, bought a fish ID book for the UK and am busy learning about a completely different set of fish and underwater creepy crawlies now (have only dived Malaysia (east coast and South China Sea), Belize, Africa so far).

Thought dry suit diving was great - amazing not to have to shower completely after every dive And it was a lot more pleasant that I'd imagined - wasn't as cold as I was expecting - in fact not much colder that if I'm repetitive diving sometimes in warm water (and we were diving gloveless...hehehe). And didn't run into any complications with bouyancy etc.

Anyway, all in all, buddy and I loved it! Can't wait to continue with UK diving, taking all the right precautions of course. We were very lucky and had absolutely perfect weather/conditions when we were there - bright sunshine, little wind, not too much surf, water temp of about 13 deg C, 6-7m viz. So SI was done soaking up the sun on the beach - perfect.

Thank you for all your suggestions so far - will definitely investigate them - and if you have any other recommendations for good places to get good experience, do drop me a line!