In April, Terri Harman, a journalist for Choice Magazine came along to the club for a Try Dive, below is her article published in Apirl's Edition of Choice.

April is the month to ...
Learn how to scuba dive

If you've ever watched television programmes about the vibrant undersea world and fancied experiencing for yourself the spectacular colours and fantastical shapes of marine wildlife, then how about trying scuba-diving? 

Unfortunately, there's not a lot to see at the bottom of an indoor swimming pool, where I went for my first lesson, but with a lot of imagination I could picture myself repeating the experience off the Great Barrier reef or in the warm waters of the Caribbean! And, most importantly, my free "try-dive" with the British Sub Aqua Club (BSAC) gave me a taste of whether I was indeed cut out to be a diver. 

Every year National Try-Dive Week, sponsored by BSAC in September, offers rookies the opportunity to have a free lesson with a trained instructor at their 1,000 plus branches throughout the UK. It gives you the chance to "try before you buy", and includes using the equipment (aqua-lung, flippers and mask), underwater signals and buoyancy techniques. (If you cannot wait until September, some clubs offer the opportunity for a free trial all year round, see the BSAC website for details).

I went with my eighteen year old son, Patrick, to Bromley BSAC. Patrick had been snorkelling in Cyprus and wanted to try something more ambitious. This was a common reason among our fellow first timers. A young couple, who had been to the Maldives told me, "we snorkelled, but thought how much better it would have been if we could have done a proper dive". Lessons in the holiday resort were really expensive, but they said "had we been experienced divers we could have just hired the equipment much more cheaply". 

Patrick and I had instructor Mike Rountree to ourselves. He first explained how to breathe naturally through the aqua-lung, clear your face mask, and he went through the underwater signs that are vital to understand since you cannot communicate any other way once you're under the ocean waves. Mike stressed how important it is to work together. If you were doing a dive for real, your life may literally depend on your partner. 

Even though we were in a heated swimming pool, you need to wear a T shirt over a swimsuit to protect against the straps of the aqua-lung and the belt strapped to your waist to help support its weight. With all that compressed air in a lead casing, the aqualung is heavy, and unless you're very strong, you need to be in the water, which helps to support its weight, before you can put it on. 

Breathing through the apparatus takes practice, and you have to "pop" your ears by holding your nose and breathing out hard, just like you do when flying, but once you get used to this, and "crawling" along the bottom of the pool rather than actually swimming, you may find you take to it like a duck to water! Patrick, predictably, was much better at it than me, and within five minutes was happily skimming along the bottom of the pool, signalling to Mike like a pro. 

When my turn came, I found it hard to "pop" my ears, which quickly started to feel uncomfortable. I'm slightly built, and the weight of the aqua lung also made it difficult for me keep my balance even underwater. Mike game me some tips to keep my body on a more even keel, and by running one hand along the bottom of the pool, and gripping his hand firmly with the other, I managed to get along. Not an auspicious start to my diving career, but I'm sure I could get good at it, given time and a lot more practice! 

Scuba diving appeals to all ages, and as Patrick and I found, it's something different generations can enjoy together. You don't even need to be a really strong swimmer. Ian Hanstead Training Officer for Bromley BSAC told us, "provided you can swim around four lengths of the pool - speed is unimportant - we consider you good enough to scuba dive". Members of the club range in age from teenagers to 70, and it's a sport that's growing fast. The British Aqua Club boasts some 40,000 active members in branches worldwide, making it the largest single diving club in the world. And as a taster for what could be in store once you become proficient, the Club has just returned from a diving holiday in the Red Sea, which is apparently the Mecca for divers with some of the most spectacular underwater sights in the World. 

Bromley Club had also recently made a trip closer to home, to the colder waters of Scapa Flow in the Orkney Isles, where divers can view the sunken remains of eight German ships famously scuppered by their own sailors in 1919 to prevent them from falling into allied hands. Aside from the diving Bromley, like other clubs, also organises social events on dry land, including a car rally, barbecue, bowling, quiz evenings and an annual dinner and dance. So, diving is also a good way to make new friends. 

Diver training

If you decide you'd like to take up diving following a try-dive, you'll do basic training in the safety of a swimming pool. Diving skills are taught progressively so that each new experience is built upon step by step. 

Following basic training new divers will complete their first open water dive to achieve the BSAC diving qualification of Club Diver, if they have trained with a branch, or Ocean Diver if training with one of BSAC's 200 schools. Both represent the same qualification and divers go down to a depth of 20 metres. The next level is Sports Diver, where the emphasis is on open water training, including diver rescue and decompression stop diving, and divers go down to 35 metres. 

There are three further qualifications - Dive Leader, Advanced Diver and 1st Class Diver, the BSAC's highest diving grade, which is generally the culmination of several years experience.

Costs 

Costs for training vary as they're set by the individual branch or school. You pay an annual subscription to join a branch (£43 of which goes to the BSAC). Anyone over the age of 14 can participate in diver training courses (under 18s need parental consent) and there's no upper age limit. 

As an example of costs, at Bromley BSAC, for an initial £50 you can begin snorkelling. You'll be given a training pack, lecture notes and a reference book and learn all the basic scuba diving techniques. 

To progress onto scuba diving proper, you need to pass a diving medical, for which the club may be able to arrange a group discount rate of £25 (though done privately this could cost around £100). 

Joining the Bromley branch as a full diving member costs £200 for the first year (£170 if progressing from snorkelling), and £125 in subsequent years. However, training is generally included in this membership fee, and divers who would like to progress their skills more quickly can attend BSAC diving school short courses at various centres nationwide free. 

As you progress you'll be expected to gradually buy your own equipment. Typical prices are as follows (these are for new kit, whereas secondhand is often available through the branch as other members upgrade, and clubs can also often negotiate a discount with suppliers). 

For snorkelling - mask, finds and snorkel - £70 Diving - for pool work you need bouyancy compensator and regulators - £500 - for open water you need semi dry suit, tank, watch, weights, knife, hood and gloves - £400 

Find out more 

The British Sub Aqua Club 

Telford's Quay Ellesmere Port 

South Wirral 

Cheshire L65 4FY 

Tel: 0151 350 6200 www.bsac.com 

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