So, how do you start to describe a bunch of people that you dived with, and that mostly you trained, without becoming self-indulgent then…..I’ve no idea, I’m just going to say that for the most part, those who decided that diving was more than just a dive “course”, and wanted to live and breathe scuba ended up in Fenton Sub Aqua Club (FSAC) at some time or another. Some of them stayed with us for the whole 10 years, some came and went, but I like to think all of them were the best of the best, friends more than anything else and I confess, I miss them all……
I decided that Deep Blue Diving was hiring a huge pool and often only using a fraction of the area, it was the best pool and best sports facility in Stoke on Trent, which is why I developed a relationship there and set up my diver training there, but without somewhere to go after your PADI Open Water Diver course, where would you practice? Who would you dive with? Who could you “talk diving” with? Let’s be honest, if your partner, husband, wife or “significant other” wasn’t a diver…..you were very quickly going to get fed up talking to yourself about diving…..and diving isn’t really a spectator sport, dragging that “someone special” out to watch you step into the water and then disappear for an hour, even if you do come out dragging a porthole behind you, wasn’t really going to impress! No one looks good in a Dry-Suit, so diving isn’t a visual treat either…..and yes…your bum does look big in this (any) dive suit!
Dive nights, Sunday evenings in the pool, turned into great events, there were rules, we separated off Two lanes for swimmers and those just enjoying being in the water with family and friends, and kept Three lanes for those being trained, doing course work, or just practicing with new or unfamiliar kit.
There were summer BBQ’s outside on the grass, and fun nights where the inflatables were the main attraction and members brought their kids in to splash around and create havoc
I had a great relationship with Stoney Cove and some of the staff there were friends as much as dive colleagues, on a regular basis Simon from the Cove would arrange an evening bringing up some of the latest dive gadgets, new sets of fins, computers, once even a couple of dive propulsion vehicles (DPV’s), which went down a storm at the time. Fluff came up too, bringing his re-breather, and gave a couple of our members a 15 minute play around the pool, not only were these events fun, but they brought follow-on sales from the club when members dived at the cove
There was always a core of about 15 or 20 divers and we dived most weekends, many becoming PADI Dive-Masters (DM’s) and assisting in both the pool training and the open water and speciality courses. I could not have been more proud of them, nor could I be more indebted to them, as being a DM was an unpaid vocation, these fantastic people gave up their time and their own money to get to Stoney Cove and to the Pool to help train up and coming divers, they were the back-bone of Deep Blue Diving as much as they were the heart of Fenton Manor Sub Aqua Club………
There are too many to mention here and that is not a cop-out, I fear I would forget some names, it has been many years since those wonderful days in Fenton Manor and I am sure, as I get older, I’m getting “Old-Timer’s Disease”……..
This is just a small introduction to the characters of FSAC, their adventures literally span the world, both under-water and on land and I am very pleased to have played some small part in that adventure both for and with many of them down the years……
I hope some of the former club members get back in touch and share more of their photos, I was usually training on the club nights so my stock isn’t by any means comprehensive, I know there will be a mass of shots I haven’t seen, it’d be great to share some on here eventually…..
FSAC travelled far and wide too, with regular trips to Southern Ireland, where we took in Valentia and the Skelligs (those of you who are Star-Wars fans will know Skellig Michael….I promise), Scotland, around the isle of Skye, diving the Port Napier and the sound of Mull, Wales, regularly diving Anglesey and further South in the UK at Portland, in Dorset, where we often dived the wrecks in and around the harbour and its approaches, even the Red Sea and it’s wrecks, although we didn’t take the club’s 7m Humber RIB quite that far!
I mentioned the FSAC RIB, I went out on a limb to get her and the expense was worth it, even though I’d have liked to have used her more often, we were out and about at least once every couple of months, and she was fairly widely travelled having done all of the UK , Ireland, Scotland, Wales and England
I had trained as a BSAC Boat Handler and I enjoyed running the RIB, but it did mean I ended up top-side most of the time and, retrospectively, whilst the RIB allowed FSAC more freedom to explore, it certainly restricted me from enjoying the same freedoms, whilst owning and running a RIB might seem like a wonderful thing to do……there are times when twinges of regret can quietly creep in
FSAC dived in some rather unusual places too over the years…..but perhaps more of that later………….