5 members of Lowestoft Sub Aqua Club travelled to Gildenburgh for some Sports Diver training. It was a lovely sunny day with a light wind and the site wasn’t too busy.

• Dive 1
• Divers: Luke, Dom, Kat
• Max Depth: 9.8 metres
• Dive Time: 13 minutes
• Water temperature: 14 degrees C
• Viz: metres
• Dive details: Dom doing the rescue simulations on the surface at first, with Kathrin as the casualty and Luke overseeing. The lesson progressed to a controlled buoyant lift with another tow at the end. During that tow Kathrins’ mask was accidently dropped but was soon found it sitting on top of the bus at 9m.

• Dive 2
• Divers: Mark, Julie
• Max Depth: 16.1 metres
• Dive Time: 12 minutes
• Water temperature: 10 degrees C
• Viz: 2 metres
• Dive details: Whilst Luke and Dom were doing SO1 training with Kathrin as casualty, Julie and Mark did an exploratory dive by themselves for no more than a planned 15 minutes. We located a line and headed right towards the Skyvan. This seemed to go on for too long (we likely took the rope to the coach in error? No compass was used). Julie was using her Drysuit for only the 2^nd time and had buoyancy issues because she was still learning how to control the air in the suit. She noted the time elapsed was nearing the time planned, and again struggled with buoyancy. Bouyancy issues were discussed with Luke, who suggested that Julie was overweighted for her drysuit.

Dive 3
Divers: Dom, Kat
Max Depth: 14.2 metres
Dive Time: 27 minutes
Water temperature: 10 degrees C
Viz: 2 metres
Dive details: Followed a rope expecting to find the sky van but it turned out to be the wrong rope as they arrived at the bunker. Followed another rope that didn’t seem to go anywhere so turned around and returned to the 6 metre platform and watched the perch and crayfish for a while before ascending.

Dive 4
Divers: Luke, Mark, Julie
Max Depth: 6.7 metres
Dive Time: 11 minutes
Water temperature: 14 degrees C
Viz: 2 metres
Dive details: This ‘dive’ consisted of several mini dives in order to perform various SO4 components, including compass use and DSMB deployment. (Dom and Kathrin had gone off to do a planned exploration dive by themselves). From the 6m platform, Mark led (using compass) to the bus. Julie did the return journey (using compass) but was slightly out as she forgot to move away from the bus (metal) and this affected her compass. Luke demonstrated DSMB deployment, then Mark and Julie did the same on the 6m platform. Mark struggled to use his finger reel. Julie struggled as her reel was too big for her hands. Several perch were watching. Afterwards, Julie and Luke repeated compass work to the bus on the surface and then did drysuit buoyancy practice once back at the platform. Julie removed 4kg weights on the platform and this helped a bit.

Dive 5
Divers: Mark, Julie
Max Depth: 6 metres
Dive Time: 20 minutes
Water temperature: 14 degrees C
Viz: 2 metres
Dive details: Luke was having sinus issues deeper than 4metres, so he watched the training from the 3m platform. Julie and Mark descended to the 6m platform to repeat DSMB deployment. Mark deployed his DSMB mid water with good neutral buoyancy. He fared better this time, using a different reel, and got more air into the DSMB before releasing it to the surface. Julie was still having buoyancy issues, so she deployed her DSMB from the platform. Again she fared better and got more air into her DSMB before releasing it. Several fish (perch) were avidly watching proceedings.