July started off interestingly for us....
We had a long awaited trip to Lundy! This was postponed from last year so we were well and truely ready for this and very excited.
Our excitement ended (briefly) when we got to Clovelly on Saturday morning to load up and board the "dive boat." Turns out that Clovelly has one of the biggest tidal ranges in the world, and guess what? The tide was out! 
So the skipper wanted us to CARRY all our gear (dive bags/boxes, dry suits, cylinders (including 2 twinsets), overnight bags and camping gear) over the wet, slimy cobbles to the waters edge where he had a small inflatable waiting! A bit of a heated discussion followed and we ended up waiting for 2 hours for the tide to come in....
Turns out our dive boat was fairly small, had no overhead shelter and no dive lift. So yes, we had to roll off the side and climb up a ladder at the side...
We finally headed out, heads held up high ;)
We saw a few Dolphins for all of 2 minutes on the way out too!
We finally arrived at the Island and dropped off our camping gear then headed over to catch the slack on The MV Robert wreck. What a fantastic wreck! We all loved it and agreed it was a great dive - there was lots of life on there:
- Anemones
- Deadmans Finegrs
- Nudibranchs
- Flatworms
- Wrasse
- Dogfish
- Crabs
- Starfish
We then headed over to one of the bays to join the Seals. We had a spot of lunch before jumping in and watched them while they checked us out. As we ascended we had 3 curious Seals join us. They swam around us, chewed a couple of fins and watched us as we enjoyed their company. There was even some pretty Jellyfish floating around.
After all the excitement we headed back to the Island and trekked up a very steep hill with our camping gear lol. After that, we set up camp and went to the pub!
After some delicious food and a couple of refreshing drinks some of us went for a walk and others chilled out. It was an enjoyable evening until one of the tents started flooding in a heavy downpour that surprised us - at 11pm!
In the dark and rain people ran from one tent to another to help evict a few people into the awning part of another for the night.
We were woken in the morning by a blizzard of heavy rainfall blowing sideways across the camping field LOL. Needless to say, we waited for a lull in the rain to take the 4 tents down!! After that he walked down the steep hill (easier than climbing up it!) and went down to the dive boat excited for another fun day of diving!
NOPE!
Unfortunately when we got down to the pier the skipper informed us that he was having issues with the boat engines and needed to head back to the mainland, so we wouldn't be diving today :(
We were all well and truely gutted but boarded for a long slog back to the mainland. As his engines were not playing ball, we headed over at 3 knots - which took almost 3 hours, and yes it started raining again, there was no cover on the boat and seating was slightly limited.
However, we spotted some Dolphins again. But nobody could move because we were so soaked through and somewhat not impressed..... HAHA!
(JoJo took shelter in her Dry Robe and Leon & Cam cuddled up...)
After a handful of unexpected surprised we had a great time and the Seal and Wreck diving certainly made up for the not so great Skipper we had (He won't be named, but I will clarify that he's not a regular out of Ilfracombe, he departs from elsewhere - so be cautious if you book a trip from anywhere other than Ilfracombe!). We already enjoy reminiscing and laughing about it!
Check out the Seal & Wreck videos on our YouTube channel
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFn94Mpv9Sl36-uTpvT3Dsg
We have another trip running in May 2022 - click the Seal below to find out more information and to book....
TRAINING!
After our weekend away we got back into the nitty gritty of training.
We started this months PADI Open Water course with 9 students which saw 8 of them qualify on 25th July. A big well done and congratulations to them all for their hard work.
Another big well done and congratulations to our other students:
PADI Delayed Surface Marker Buoy Divers
Henry
Adele
Greg
Tom
Matt
Sam
Julie
Jon
PADI Discover Scuba Divers
Gemma
Callum
Nikodem
Charlie
Alex
Ellie
Mia
Grace
Sophie
Andrew
Trevor
Noah
Scuba Reviews
Romain
Charlie
Mark
Dan
Harrison
A round of applause is also in order for our team member Georgie for completing her PADI Discover Scuba Diving Leader as well. We're looking forward to throwing (not literally, don't worry!) more DSD's at her ;)
Training still continues and is going well for our three PADI Divemaster Trainees aswell, we're looking forward to moving forward with them over the next few months to get more hands on with our students.
We also had a Scout Group and Seal Team evening, which was thoroughly enjoyable with scuba, snorkelling and games!
July also gave us the month of PADI annual LADIES DAY!
Yes, I said it guys, Ladies Day. We've had nothing but stick about our sexist day, but we loved every minute of it! ;p
We dropped down on the Fleur De Lys and drifted off into Swanage Bay, then had a feast for lunch by Old Harry Rocks, followed by a drift along Poole Rocks and ended with a bottle of Prosecco on board.
We also dived The Salsette on Sea Leopard out of Portland with Al, Freda & Minxy! It was another great day with some fantastic deco diving enjoyed by all.
Check out our upcoming courses over the next couple of months
Scuba Reviews - 13th & 20th August
PADI Dry Suit Diver - 3rd & 5th September
PADI Wreck Diver - 5th September
PADI Enriched Air Diver - 6th September
PADI DSMB Diver - 10th September (followed by either 2 evening dives off the boat or a morning at Vobster on 19th September
You can find out more information and book onto these courses via the link below:
https://www.dorsetdiving.co.uk/pages/padi-course-schedule
Keep an eye out on our Facebook page for more upcoming events & courses. PADI AWARE week is coming up in September, so stay tuned for more details.