Landlocked Mermaid

Lately, my diving trips have been plagued by bad luck, bad buoyancy, and bad brain. Now, bad luck is beyond my control and I'm working on the bad brain already; so it's time I have a look at my buoyancy problems. Because when I fix the brain, I'm still not going to have successful dives if my buoyancy is all over the place.  Buoyancy is really important when diving. You wouldn't think so because you're trying to get below the water not stay on top! (Hahaha, I'm trying to be funny there.) But, once under, you don't want to be scraping along the seabed because that reduces visibility. Nor do you want to be floating up to the top because that gives you the bends. Which is bad. You want to be neutrally buoyant - resting in the water, neither sinking down nor floating up. I struggle with this. I am positively buoyant. This means I float. If I was negatively buoyant, I'd sink and have different problems. For me, the issue is getting under the water in...

Capernwray Over the last six months, Chris and I have been training for our Sport Diver course with Shrewsbury Sub Aqua and BSAC . The Sport Diver qualification means that we can dive up to 35m and lead less experienced divers. It takes the knowledge we learned on our Ocean Diver course and takes it to the next level, as you probably could have guessed! It began back in January with...  Ready to learn! BOOT CAMP Over the course of a weekend, back when it was faaarrrr too cold to dive in British waters without a drysuit, myself, Chris and about four or five others learned everything there was to know about Sport Diver theory. We covered six modules over the two days. It was very information intensive, but a good way to learn as we could discuss the more difficult bits with less of a time constraint than when we learned before the practical session.  The modules were taught by members of the club, sharing their expertise and experience which makes ...

I have been looking forward to this Bank Holiday weekend. We were going diving. The original plan was to go to Anglesey and do some wreck dives near Holyhead. I was very excited for this - wrecks are a new facet of diving I am eager to try. But, unfortunately, the weather had other ideas. With there being so muh glorious sunshine early in the summer, I took it as gospel that it would be sunny this weekend just past. As we well know, that was not the case. And the weather in Anglesey was set to be much worse. Like stormy seas, big waves worse. And considering that I felt queasy when it was still, it was probably a good thing the plans were changed. Rather than trekking a long way for a dive with poor visibility, the decision was made to go to Capernwray - as it is much closer and less affected by rainy weather. A quarry filled with submerged vehicles sounded like the much better option. Anglesey will have to wait. The wrecks aren't going anywhere. I hope. The...

In case you missed it, I have been learning to dive since March with Shrewsbury Sub Aqua Club , a branch of BSAC , at Shrewsbury Quarry Swimming Pool. In a rash vest I bought especially. So why do I want to learn to dive? Well, I am a self proclaimed mermaid and what kind of mermaid can't explore the deep? It's more than that, though. I have always loved swimming, despite swimming slower than a Greenland Shark, and have always wished I could see what lies beneath the water. Underwater nature documentaries were always my favourite, as they are a window into that world. But I want to go through that window and see for myself! So, I have learned how to scuba dive. I chose to learn with Shrewsbury Sub Aqua Club as they are my local BSAC branch and I felt like I was in good hands learning with BSAC. The combination of theory, practical and 8 nice long weeks to learn it all over seemed like the right fit for me. And I didn't need to take massive amounts of time off...