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Want to get your PADI Rescue Diver Fees paid back? You can with Divecrew. Join the Divecrew Rescue Diver Team and assist as a Safety Diver at Human Race events: Open Water Swimming Events and Triathlons in Dorney Lake, Marlow and the River Thames. Of if you fancy something completely different how about a Safety Diver at Tough Mudder events. Working these events is fun and you are helping in the community. Tough Mudder Winchester attracted 20,000 competitors. Dorney Lake Open Water swims often have 4,000 swimmers. Not only are you helping keep competitors safe, you get paid too. £40 for swim events. £150 for Tough Mudder. That’s how you get your Rescue Course fees back.

If you are interested just become a Rescue Diver. The chances of being called into action are rare. However, if we are needed, you are dropped into a maximum depth of 4 metres of water. Your job, find the body recover it to the surface hand it to the surface life guards and the medic team. Job done.

Tough Mudder and for that matter the River Thames can be challenging with viz.  Tough Mudder we work on the obstacle called Walk the Plank. Contestants scale the  4metre platform then drop into a dug pool of 4 metre deep water. Needless to say after a few hundred muddy contestants Viz is zero. At the end of the day we do a finger tip search of the bottom of the pool to double check no body. After 8,000 to 10,000 contestants, after a metre there is no light. You need to be comfortable with these conditions. The last Tough Mudder I did, there were 20,000 contestants, we recovered 31 GoPro cameras, one Sony head cam and an iPhone 5.  We return all the found cameras and phones to the organisers for repatriation with their owners.

If you want to know more about these volunteer events, contact Martin at the Dive Centre. 2015 events will be scheduled in the new year and once again we will be looking for volunteers for the swim events, triathlons and Tough Mudder.

Roots El Quesier – Luxury Dive Camp.

Martin went along with senior instructors Ivor Bradley and Richard Cullen to check out this new Divecrew destination in the Red Sea. Martin was accompanying our first Duke of Edinburgh Gold Award student Matthew Harwood.

Roots is about 1.5 hours bus ride (south) from Hurghada Airport. Roots is British owned and managed with Steve and Claire. If you read the reviews on Roots, there is not a bad one to be found.

Roots is predominantly shore diving with two excellent house reefs (North and South) separated by a sandy channel which was great for teaching. The house reefs have resident turtle and dolphin, plus all the usual culprits. The sandy channel slopes away and one can soon get depth of 40 metres plus. There are also local boat dives available either speed boat or day boat.

Whilst in Roots we undertook self reliant diver, underwater digital photography and advanced open water.

Divecrew are working with Steve and Claire on a few fronts, offering some great diving and great courses.  Duke of Edinburgh Gold Award is one, Marine Research is another (Steve is just building the onsite laboratory now) and school’s referrals. Roots is ideal for young people as it is on its own in the desert, no distractions. The camp is also controllable by design.  The shore diving is a short walk out of the camp to the beach area, where there is another Roots restaurant and changing facilities. Diving on the house reef is unlimited.  You walk, your gear is brought to you; you dive, at the end of your dive your gear is taken back to the dive centre when you have finished, washed and left to dry. Bliss.

Matthew learnt to dive with Divecrew undertaking his Open Water and Dry Speciality in the UK. In just six weeks, he was undertaking his Advanced with Martin in Roots, swimming with Dolphin and Turtles. As part of the award, Matthew went to a local school and also undertook reef clean ups, roping as many divers in as he could.

Steve and Claire are investing more money into the new services including anew swimming pool, new bar and reception area and upgrading the chalets. The all stone chalets are really nice, photographs of the site and chalets can be found in our holiday section of the website or the Divecrew facebook page.

You can take your duty free on board and/or use the honesty bar.

Dive guides: Big Al (from Manchester), Ahmed latif

Excellent briefings both safety and dive sites using multi-media. Guides pay attention to detail.

Diver checks excellent, well managed by the guides. Guides very knowledgeable.

Information giving by guides is very good, guests constantly updated and kept informed.

All safety equipment in place and Emergency Action Plans, good diver safety systems in place.

Two zodiacs available. Food all freshly prepared by the head chef, really good and varied.

Saloon bar, honesty bar beer £2-50; wine red £9-50 and white £14-00. Mixers tonic, soda etc £0.50.

Tea, coffee, soft drinks included, help yourself. Fresh fruit. Biscuits and chocolate biscuit bars available FOC on the bar. Chilled water dispensers on two decks.

Boat was clean, well equipped, well maintained and spacious. Very stable boat in the water. Guides relaxed and allow considered dive guests their freedom to dive as they want, guided or unguided.

Crew efficient and very pleasant.

Cabins en-suite and good size. Towels for deck and separate towels for the room provided together with towel robes for after dive.

Day one.

Check in at the airport. Approximately five and half hour flight with Thomas Cook.

VISA is already dealt with escorted to air conditioned coach and given bottle of cold water.

Arrived on the boat short transfer, 15 minutes.

Had dinner whilst bags were loaded onto the large dive deck, chilled.

Bags arrived, set up gear to check all okay whilst in port.

Air and Nitrox available. Nitrox is additional charge.

Nice boat, cabins en-suite, flat screen tv with hard drive films, fridge.

Day two.

Woken at 7am, nice fresh breakfast, sailed 1.5 hours.

Boat briefing are via DVD with supplement by head guide. Great briefings.

Check dive site Podeidon Reef. Max depth 16 metres.

Dived maximum depth of 15 metres and 70 minute dive.

Lunch and moved to a new site, heading north.

The Barge. Broken up wreck, lots of fish, lion, scorpion, stone, crocodile, morays. Morays small to huge, George and Georgina (morays) are wreck residents.

Dived 68 min dive maximum depth 14 metres.

Doing night dive subject to current on same tonight. We are the only boat here Night dives are restricted to 45 minutes.

Took pictures of first at sea sunset @ The Barge.

Dived the barge at night awesome, loads of critters around.

Max depth 14 metres dive time 48 minutes.

Day three

First dive looking for the Ulysses but strong current and dropped in wrong place. L

Actual dive was 65 minute drift dive. 23 metre maximum depth.

Shag rock wreck again another incredible dive.

Loads of soft coral and fish. Open wreck to swim through.

Max depth 15 metre time 63 minutes. Water temperature is 27 degrees.

Moved to the Thistlegorm. Two boats ahead of us. Looking forward to this next dive. Moored on the wreck.

Dived 29 metres and 42 minutes. Banging current had to take shelter. Okay when inside or taking protection from the wreck.

Some good pics of cargo in the hold.

Planning to do a night dive tonight subject to current.

Great dive despite depth and current.

War grave 9 lost their lives.

Night was very good no current – 29 metres and 42 minute dive.

Day four

Dived Thistlegorm again, no current J. What an incredible dive.

Did the inside on two decks, really great dives.

Go round anticlockwise.

Resident turtle big and friendly. Morays, lion, loads of life.

Really easy dive with easy penetration. No silt!

Moved to a new site called Little Crack. Moored in. Lagoon, little crack is gulley that takes you seaward to reef wall. Strong drift through crack, nice ride. All sorts of coral and large puffa fish.

Reef wall very pretty and water crystal clear. Dive time 64 minutes, max depth was 20 metres.

Moved to new dive site called The Alternatives This site is just outside the national park, Ras Mohammed

Really nice pinnacles. One part of boat had thousands and thousands of glass fish on. Also bat fish, moray.

22 metres 63 minute dive. Now doing a night dive in the same site.

Night dive was max depth of 14 metres 46 minutes.

Dive the large pinnacle. Lots of lion fish hunting and giant moray eels. Also lots of feather star fish.

Day five

Early morning start to dive Ras Mohammed Jack Fish Alley.

Short swim through at the start of the dive at 5 metres.

We went into Jack Fish Alley, lovely coral and a nice gentle drift dive.

Found bright red rock shrimps and cleaner shrimps.

Dive time 64 minutes max depth 24 metres.

Moved to new dive site after breakfast.

Went to Shark and Yolando Reef. 800 metres drop off.

Three pinnacles, Yolando has remnants of a wreck, bathroom ware. Loos everywhere and baths too.

Amazing fish life, tons of it.  We dived Yolando to Shark reef due to current. At Shark Reef hundreds of snappers just off the reef in the blue.

Huge morays, turtle, snappers and barracuda. In season there is hundreds of barracuda, biggest shoal in the whole of the Red Sea. Viz amazing.

Dive time 53 minutes, max depth 24 metres.

Lunch then moved again to another reef. Dived another huge wreck Giannis D. Can also penetrate into engine room, work shop and bridge. It is believed it was run into the reef at full speed on purpose as an insurance claim. The devastation is mind blowing.

Dive 21 metres max depth, 57 minutes.

Loads of fish life. Saw the biggest moray I have ever seen, girth was greater than me. Dolphins swam over the wreck.

Diving this area tonight on another night dive.

Dived the reef nothing out of the ordinary. Followed by lion fish hunting using our lights.

17 metres 45 minute dive. No current.

Day six.

Still moored on same reef. Morning dive, called at 6am.

Dived another wreck Carnatic. Old steam passenger ship.

Bit of a swell so zodiac ride was interesting.

Wreck had no current just surface swell circa 5 metres.

Can penetrate open wreck, between floors, two decks. Very open. Nice dive.

5 passengers and 26 crew lost their lives.

Maximum depth 25 metres 57 minute dive.

After breakfast moved to another island a short distance from the Carnatic.

Siyol Kebir reef

Nice dive, lots of clown fish, blue spotted ray. No current, nice bimble dive.

19 metres max, 61 minute dive.

Had lunch and boat moved to a new site. We are doing afternoon dive and a night dive here @  Sha’ab el Erg pinnacle nice easy dive, sandy bottom so viz not as good as normal in the channel. Saw dolphin on the surface but not seen when underwater. Pinnacles covered in hard and soft coral. Chill out dive.

Maximum depth was 12 metres dive time was 61 minutes.

Night dive was at a new site as we moved called Fanous West.

Easy dive on reef wall, shallow and no current.

Saw lots of sea urchin, free swimming moray, striped eel, crab, baby barracuda.

Maximum depth was 8 metres dive time was 46 minutes.

Moored at Fanous Reef over night apparently moving to a new site for tomorrow last two dives of the trip.

Day Seven.

Reef dive on the east side of Fanous

Blue spotted ray, Nemo usual aquatic life.

Max depth 17 metres 74 minutes.

Breakfast, moving to new dive site for the final dive.

Did final dive round small reef and three pinnacles called Magawish Aruk.

Max depth was 9 metres dive time was 65 minutes.

Usual reef suspects found plus pipe fish and a leopard eel on the hunt.

Once we had sorted ourselves out after lunch, sorted bills on board, alcoholic drinks, kit rental etc. if you pay cash or debit card no surcharge. Relaxed with beers and wines.

Sailed back to Hughada dinner on board at 6pm then went into town to a bar.

Day eight.

Up for breakfast at 8am, pack gear and transfer to the Marriott hotel just outside the harbour. Have 5 rooms booked (complimentary) for changing and showers before being picked up later today for flight home at 6pm.

Overall impressions.

I would definitely book this trip again next year. It is one that you need to do a couple of times as the orientation would actually add to your experience. Had a really great time. Wrecks and Reefs is just that, but for those not interested in the iron work, the wrecks have loads of life and coral growing on them and all around is stunning coral/aquatic life.

Martin’s recommendation

Before the trip: PPB course, the currents can be strong and being able to deal with drift diving is essential as is deploying a DSMB in current and mid water. DSMB is essential, at the very least one between two divers. Many sites are drift dives and on one diver the group split, we surfaced a long way from the original drop off point – a must! Wreck speciality. Whilst the wrecks are open, being aware of potential hazards is very worthwhile.

I think I was the only diver to do all the dives. The process is dive, eat, chill, dive, eat chill, dive eat chill, dive (night) eat, chill then bed, then start all over again.

Guest remarks:

Key dive sites: Thistlegorm, Giannis D, Shark and Yolando Reef, Jack Alley and the The Barge.

The weather is very slowly getting better and the forecast is for warmer temperatures. This is about the time when divers think about getting the kit out of storage and jumping into water.

WAIT. PADI will inform you most diving incidents happen around this time. Some divers literally do just get the equipment out and dive back in. It is not advisable to do this. Firstly your equipment needs to be checked and possibly serviced depending on how it was used and stored. Make sure your regulators are suitable and serviced for cold water. Free flows around this time of year are common place. Make sure you have talked through an remedial action plan with your buddy in case of free flow.

Being out of the water for a few months takes its toll on you too. Think about your fitness levels and about your early return dives. If you have been a winter couch potato you need to think about getting in some physical activity before jumping back into the water. Cardio vascular exercise will help your fitness, breathing and reduce stress levels. Consider some easy shallow dives having checked that all your equipment is fit for purpose. It maybe that a couple of Splash sessions in the pool is good for checking out equipment safely and getting your buoyancy sorted before heading for deeper water. All of these actions will reduce your early stress levels and help to make sure, you are not one of the annual statistics.

Safe diving.

“The multiple failures revealed in this court case must send a message to those in the diver training industry that they have peoples’ lives in their hands. Companies responsible for teaching people to dive must follow the regulations which are there for very good reasons. We do not want more people to die in avoidable circumstances” This statement followed the completion of the prosecution of Subaquaholics and its director / instructor Ian Johnson following the death of Mr Jan Karon whilst on a club dive in October 2008.

The following will not be a thorough analysis of all the events that led to this tragic death but will look at the medical aspects. However this would make an excellent case analysis for all dive school professional team meetings. The failings identified at Subaquaholics are not isolated incidents and are prevalent within the industry with less professional dive organisations.

On 15^th October 2012 the HSE published a press release that Mr Karon was 54 years old and suffered with medical conditions. Although the fatal dive was a club dive he had one dive remaining to complete his PADI Advanced Open Water course with Johnson of Subaquaholics, with whom he was buddied on this dive. Tragically he surfaced unresponsive and resuscitation was unsuccessful. A subsequent inquest found that Mr Karon died from drowning with coronary artery disease a contributing factor. Following this death the HSE investigated the diving practices of Subaquaholics and this prosecution followed. The presiding judge was reported to say that as the offences occurred before a change in the law, a financial penalty – not custody – was the only option open to him. I understand that a considerable fine and costs have caused Subaquaholics to close, but before they did so PADI had expelled both Johnson and Subaquaholics.

PADI standards require all course students to complete the Recreational Scuba Training Council (RSTC) medical statement. This is used as a screening tool to identify students who may need a medical assessment and clearance prior to diving. It requires the student to answer a series of health questions with a “yes” or “no” (not a tick or cross as this can cause confusion!) Any student that answers a “yes” to any question is required to have written clearance from a doctor before any in-water activities.

Mr Karon suffered with hypertension, high cholesterol and was obese. His 10 year old daughter also suffered with asthma and required treatment. Both had apparently declared these on the RSTC medical statement but neither were directed to a doctor for assessment and written clearance prior to being allowed to dive with Subaquaholics. I understand that neither of these documents nor others required by PADI standards were subsequently available for review in court. So it is probably accurate to state that neither were these medical statements read and acted upon as required, nor were they kept securely after the event as required by Law.

From a medical perspective these 2 dive students would probably have appeared reasonably healthy to a lay person. There are many obese divers and perhaps the 10 year old was only doing a pool dive? So I wonder how many instructors would have been happy to proceed on this basis? They would of course be violating PADI standards. The PADI instructor manual clearly states that completing medical statements and action them if necessary with a signed statement from a doctor is mandatory before any in-water activities.

A review of the BSAC annual diving incident reports show that there is an increasing number of UK diving deaths in those over 50 years of age, often from heart attacks. High blood pressure, high cholesterol and obesity are all significant risk factors for heart disease. No doubt as the average age of divers increases these figures will rise.

Asthma is reportedly on the increase so more people are being diagnosed with it. Whilst excellent treatment is available and many lead a completely normal life there are increased risks for scuba diving. These include air trapping in the lungs and increased risk of ruptured lungs, so barotraumas to the lungs needs to be considered. We all “know” that you should never hold your breath when diving, but what we really mean is don’t hold your breath on ascent. The shallowest recorded incident of barotrauma from breath holding occurred in a pool from 1.2m depth. Air trapping in a sub-optimally treated asthmatic could have the same effect. So even a try dive in a swimming pool could be an issue.

These are examples of why using the RSTC medical screening form and any “yes” responses taken seriously is mandatory before any in-water activity. Failure to do so will expose you to prosecution and expulsion from your Training Agency.

The RSTC medical statement does not clarify what sort of doctor can certify a student as fit to dive – any medical doctor can do this. There is little or no medical training in underwater medicine in UK medical schools, and the same is probably true for the rest of the world. Recognising this, a large proportion of UK GPs will not complete diving medicals.

The HSE will only recognise doctors who have been trained in underwater medicine to perform commercial diving medicals in the UK, whilst all GPs are allowed to perform many other occupational medicals eg HGV or Taxi medicals. The British Sub Aqua Club (BSAC) uses a similar self declaration medical form, but any club member who admits a problem must contact a “medical referee” on the UKSDMC website ie a doctor who has been trained in underwater medicine.

So whilst it is not a PADI standard, nor legal requirement, dive school instructors would be advised to consider what sort of doctor is signing off these medical statements. These medical statements will not, of course, guarantee that the student will stay alive, but they will help produce a paper trail that you have “as far as reasonably practicable” ensured that the student is medically fit to dive.

Some other issues to consider:

• What sort of diving is the student doing? The RSTC statement seems to suggest that you are either fit to dive or not. This is far from the truth. Some less fit students may be for shallow, warm and good visibility diving, but not for tech diving. Was this considered by the doctor signing the form? Should you accept the same medical certificate (normally valid for 1 year) for both the PADI OW course and the Tech course commenced 11 months later?
• The student who completes the RSTC form with all “no” answers yet is seen taking a pill or inhaler prior to diving. Unpublished surveys suggest that in excess of 50% of students make inaccurate declarations! I am not aware, yet, of any legal case where an instructor has been taken to court with an allegation that they were “aware” that the form had been inaccurately completed but still allowed the student to dive, perhaps with a bad outcome – but as society gets more litigious I suspect that it is only a matter of time
• The student who arrives on the day of the course and has a “yes” answer but has not got a doctors certificate. Some students may even ask the instructor’s advice on how to answer. There is clearly a pressure on the form being answered with all “no” answers otherwise the student will not be doing any in-water activities, but is the instructor medically qualified to advise the student? If something goes wrong afterwards how will the instructor justify in court why they gave advice to put a “no” answer? The accusation that money was more important than the student’s life will be an unpleasant one.
• If the student is recovered from the water unconscious what information will you be able to give the emergency medical services (EMS)? An assumption that they must be entirely “fit and healthy” or they wouldn’t be diving is far from the truth these days. What will your surface cover (who will probably be the one liaising with the EMS) know about your students? This surface cover is a legal entity in the Diving at Work Regulations 1997 and should know about any medical issues that the students have so that the EMS can be briefed accurately and appropriately. How often do you include your surface cover in the dive team briefing and adequately brief them? (This will be the subject of a further newsletter.) Do you ask your students to complete a form which includes a medical information section to pass on to the EMS if needed? Interestingly PADI do have a “Emergency Treatment Consent Form” for minors

How Fit Do I Need to Be to Scuba Dive?

Scuba diving caters for different age groups and tastes, but before you grab your kit  and start heading for the water, make sure that you are well informed of the health and fitness requirements that scuba diving, especially in open water. In most cases, diving authorities require necessary medical statements to determine whether one is fit enough to dive. PADI professionals (Dive Master and up) have to have an annual HSE Diving Medical. Although one does not really have to be Olympic athlete fit to dive, a proper personal assessment is always the safe and practical step before venturing into scuba diving especially if you are a holiday only diver and/or you are going to be diving where there is current.

Important Health Considerations for Scuba Divers

If you do not regularly ride a bicycle and I asked you next week to ride the bicycle for three times a day for about an hour on each session for six consecutive days, you would be tired and have a few aches and pains I am sure. Yet we do this when holiday diving. No diving for a long spell then without any fitness preparation we gorge dive getting in the water two and three times a day for one week. Boy do we sleep well!!  Diving is all about buoyancy and buoyancy is all about breath control. Good cardio vascular conditioning generally ends up with good buoyancy and good air consumption even in some current.

Prior to your next holiday, prepare in advance, maybe one or two months before, with some regular light cardio vascular work outs. Be it swimming, getting the bicycle out, work out in the gym, using a rowing machine, do something. Remember your kit on land is heavy it can very tiring heaving the equipment on before you jump in. Fining requires a lot of muscular work and uses front and back leg muscles. Working out prior to your holiday will improve your cardio vascular, therefore improve your air consumption, improve your buoyancy, help reduce cramp and make your diving all the more fun.

Not all good divers are vice-free, however, keeping reasonably fit will improve your diving, air consumption and reduce diving stress and making you even more comfortable in the water.    Dive safe.

How do divers get into trouble? They don’t get a round of drinks in!!!

Seriously though, I having done a fair amount of diving in the UK and abroad I have assisted divers who through a small incident had a real in water issue. This is not a diving scare it is all about learning and how to ensure you are not the diver that gets into trouble.

A couple of minor incidents:- 1. Boat moors off a reef. Diver jumps off the boat with the other divers. Divers are grouping on the surface waiting for other divers to get in. Our diver starts sinking and struggling to stay on the surface, the BCD shoulder dump is letting by and he cannot keep his jacket inflated.

2. Another diver despite check breathing his air on the surface (BWRAF) is swimming long at circa 18 metres, he then notices that his pressure gauge is going down to zero when he breathes in. He immediately swims to his buddy for his alternate air source.

Both of these incidents could have been difficult for both divers and bit of a heart thumper. The BCD issue was some sand in the dump valve, easily identified and easily cleared. When the diver was struggling on the surface he just had to put his regulator in and fin back to the back of the boat and hold onto the diver ladder. The sand was then washed out of the dump valve. The air gauge was again easily identified and rectified simply by opening the air valve on his tank fully. The gauge did not react to a partially opened air valve on the surface as it was at 1 ata; down at nearly 3 ata the water pressure made the gauge react going down to zero on a breath. This was not an out of air situation and the diver could still breath.

These incidents were dealt with calmly and quickly and the dive carried on as normal. This is possible due to the level of training and experience of the staff divers. As open water divers we were told STOP, THINK, ACT. If something goes wrong do not panic, stay calm and work out the solution. The practice of skills makes it second nature when it really counts, for example. I was with a holiday group down at 30 metres on a wreck when my jacket started power inflating as the O ring had become dislodged and caught inside the power inflate spring, rapidly filling my jacket. Simple solution, disconnect the low pressure hose, stopped the problem immediately and I finished the dive with a normal ascent and safety stop. When I needed to air in my jacket I just did it orally. The practice of skills will help you when you really need it. I liken it to driving a car, at first you have to remember everything: gears, mirror, indicators, feet, and steer! After time and practice driving becomes second nature and you do things almost without having to think about it first.   Dive safe.