Club spotlight: Seahorse Dive Club

From the Swindon Advertiser, first published Thursday 25th Nov 2004.

Club name: The Seahorse Dive Club. Number of Members: 42. Meeting place: Meetings are held every Saturday night at the Lyme Kiln Centre in Wootton Bassett.

History: The club has been in operation for 10 years. It was formed in response to a need for SCUBA divers, who had been trained on Professional Association for Diving Instructors courses, by White Horse Diving, to gain further experience diving in the UK and abroad.

Since then the club has attracted members from other dive schools and certifying organisations. Members range in age from 15 to 59 and there are both male and female members

Activities: Apart from pool training and weekend diving in the UK, the Club also organises holidays abroad.

In the last four years alone the club members have visited the Red Sea (Sharm el Sheikh, Dahab, Hurghada, and Marsa Alam), the Caribbean (Antigua, Jamaica, Grenada, Cuba, St Lucia), Vancouver, California, and Florida.

In between these exotic trips we dive in Lyme Bay, and at inland diver training sites in the UK.

If weather permits in summer, we hold barbecues and clay pigeon shoots. In the winter, when diving is more difficult to arrange due to the weather, the club holds skittles evenings, and arranges paint-ball days.

The club occasionally organises presentations by manufacturers of diving equipment, or divers who can spin a good yarn about personal experiences. We visit dive shows in London and Birmingham too.

Best thing about the club: We welcome divers of all backgrounds, experience, and of course, both sexes. We are not politically aligned in any way. We simply want to go diving and enjoy the underwater world.

We want others to appreciate that diving in the UK is good.

The longest serving members are the White Horse instructors, Mark Horton and Mike Scott, both of whom have very wide experience of SCUBA diving activities all over the world.

New members welcome?: Very much so, regardless of training organisation or level of training.

Membership runs from April 1 to the end of March and costs just £80. Late joiners are charged £7 per month of the remaining year. For this the club Members have free use of the pool on Saturdays, reduced charges on training courses, free advice from instructors, reduced prices on diving equipment, and the support of fellow divers throughout the year.

Belonging to a Dive Club is essential to get the full benefit from the training undertaken.

Club contact: Our website is www.seahorsediveclub.co.uk, visit any Saturday evening at Lime Kiln, or phone Mark Horton on (01793) 731843.

Archive Home