February Meet

[samdive]

The next saltFree meet will be the 21st and 22nd February. Please let me know if you would like to come.

We will stick to our winter meet plan of

Meet lunchtime Saturday, dive about 2pm
Saturday night - pub, dinner, sleep, spoon, whatever
Sunday am - dive around 9.30 am
then home

As always we need safety scubies as well as freebies.

Bring all your winter warmers and Christmas present kit to try out.

Costs - as usual, £6 to get in per day, £5 per day for scuba cover.

Deepest Bear is coming too.

If you would like to come please mail me and let me know what depth you are after so we can let you know we can cover you. Take it easy, it will be chilly.

Sam x

 

[samdive]

you guys never fail to amaze me.... loads of takers for the February meet!

COOL!!!!! I get to get my gimp mask out again....

Sam x

 

[daveking]

Youknow I willbe there. I have missed deepr blue for a while so I thought I should take a look
Dave

 

[Donna]

Hoooorrraaahhhh - just had confirmation that I can off load my kids for the weekend so Martin and I will be there....

Where's everyone staying?

Donna

 

[samdive]

FEB 21/22

Names on the list so far:
Hardest Dave
Deepest Dave
Guy
Shaun
Naomi
Sam
Laura
Mark H
Justin
Simon, Tess, Haydn - Sunday only
let me know if you're not on there and want to come

Sam

 

[Donna]

Martin and I will be there to if thats ok?

Laura I think Fin and Mark will be coming to do scuba cover?

Donna :t

 

[Donna]

Oh, Martin and I will be there Sat and Sun, not sure about Fin and Mark Laura - chat to them on Sunday?
x

 

[samdive]

thanks Donna, you are in, my apologies you did tell me!

 

[laura storm]

Your Scuba Support Angels (so far) for the Feb weekend will be:

Lars
Martin
Fin
Simon
Becky
Mark D
and Angelfish

Bring it on saltFree hardcore!


L*

 

[Donna]

It'll be positively boiling!! Especially as we'll have only been back from the red sea a week!!!!

Sam - your gloves - are they scuba pro? Can you order them off them web anywhere?

Donna

 

[samdive]

my gloves

are scuba pro, 5 ml semi dry with extra seals - try www.scuba-zone.co.uk
they don't have a web shop but phone them and they would post you some

Sam

 

[samdive]

OK - names on the list for the Feb meet 21/22 are

Deepest Dave
Hardest Dave
Guy
Shaun
Naomi
Donna
Me
Mark H
Laura (Angel)
Justin
Martin (Angel)
Donna
Haydn (Sunday only)
Tess (Sunday only)
Simon (Angel)

Please can you let me have your best guess depth by monday, email or here if you are not shy. Max depth this meet will be 30m as we are anticipating very chilly water, around 5C.

Dive times 1.30 pm on Saturday, 10am on Sunday. One session each day.

Word of warning - if you want to come to the meet the weekend before the competition you need to get your entry in very soon as it is filling up.

I'll be the one in the gimp mask

Sam x

 

[freedive Lisa]

I'll be thinking of you all. I may even dive under the ice in the US and think about saltfree!!! Have fun, see you all when I'm back in April for a lovely bit of that Chepstow water! CAN'T WAIT!!!

 

[samdive]

Spoke to NDC today. Water temp is 8C at surface dropping to 4m at depth... bring the winter woolies!

There will be a positive flurry of Angels at the next few meets as they are already in training for the competition. A few are the Archangels - the old hands! and you will also be meeting a few new Cherubs! - Angels in training...

Be prepared to let a bit of practising be done upon you..

At the February meet we have:
Laura
Lars
Marcus
Martin
Fin
Mark D
Simon (converted to scuba it seems!)
and Becky

almost one each!! hope all those bubbles don't give us hypothermia! ; ) and thanks to Laura for organising

Sam

 

[samdive]

AIDA ** Freediver at February Meet

I have three more places if anyone would like to use this weekend to complete their AIDA ** Freediver qualification. If you want to do this you will need to be in Bristol on Friday evening for a pool session 8-9pm - then you can go on to Chepstow to your B and B (about half an hour away). We will then meet at the NDC Saturday morning about 9.30 to knock the theory on the head before the others arrive for the dives.

This time its FREE and its personal (except £3 for pool entry and we need to find somewhere to study on Sat morning) - and only available to regular saltFree-ers. The idea is to get a few of you up to instructor level so we can run some courses on the weekends we don't have a regular meet if some of you want to get more diving in and earn a bit of pocket money. Performance requirements for AIDA ** Freediver include a constant weight dive to 15m and a lift of an unconscious freediver from 10m. You need to have the AIDA ** cert before you can go on to *** and Instructor though.

Let me know soon as I can only teach four at a time and Deepest Dave has already booked his slot.

see you there

Sam

 

[samdive]

lift from Bristol?

Could anyone pick up new Angel Becky from Bristol on their way to NDC on Saturday? I will give her lifts the rest of the weekend but am going to be at NDC early on Saturday to teach some of the others the AIDA course theory

can you let me know
thanks
Sam

 

[samdive]

Courses

A few of you are doing the AIDA ** and possibly PADI Freediver courses with me this weekend

We will be doing the theory for these courses on Saturday morning (10-1 Mark and Guy) and on Sunday afternoon (after diving for about 2 hours)

The whole course consists of pool, open water and theory but you don't have to do it in any particular order, or all on the same occasion, so if any of the rest of you want to hang around on Sunday, if we can find a corner of Portakabin, do stay and do the theory with us and we will sort the rest out later.

let me know if you are interested. AIDA **/PADI Freediver is pretty simple and well within all your reach. It gets a little tricker with the ***/Advanced Freediver but you need to do this one first if you want to go on.

Sam

 

[samdive]

Thanks to everyone who showed up this weekend - angels and freebies - for a fab weekend in
not that easy circumstances. As Dave and I decided over chips and hot chocolate, it could have been an endurance
test and somehow it was a laugh instead! Nice one, all of you and thanks for listening to my
safety rant and taking it too heart too!

Big up to Laura and the angels in training who all passed with flying colours! Hope Simon gets
his camera fixed so you can all see the expression on my face, not quite ready to hang around for the FHOF
and going quietly blue with cold and hypoxia.....

see you all again soon, it can only get better now.. surely..

Sam

ps everyone with numb feet this weekend, eric f has given us some advice on the freediver guest book
worth taking a look.

 

[Jon]

As far as the numb feet go I can tell you that switching to a Specialfins mono has allowed me to wear much thicker socks on my feet for winter diving- 5mm OMER's to be exact. This is much more comrtable than my old Waterway with the 3mm's that still cramped up my feet after 20 minutes.

Another thing that helps is hot water, as Eric mentioned on the other site. We have jugs, and coolers, full of the stuff on hand for ice diving. I have actually stood in it after spending an hour in the ice. It is also a good place to store the digital camera in between shots so the batteries last a bit longer.

Here's a shot of another instructor warming up his hands between students with our hot 'cooler'.

BTW: It also works really well for warming up those cold finger tips.

Jon