PHOTOS BY MARTIN MAPLE

On the 30th of October, Marlin Sub-Aqua Club turned 25!

To celebrate the club’s anniversary, on Saturday, September 28th, 19 members attended a club dive at Stoney Cove. We all arrived throughout the morning. Sometimes, it’s best to get to the Cove early in the morning due to the number of divers and training schools visiting on weekends. Fortunately, this weekend, the Cove was not as busy. The weather on the day turned out to be perfect, considering it had been raining all week.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There was a good mixture of divers, from Advanced Divers to trainee Ocean Divers. We split into our dive teams, ensuring we had a good combination of buddy pairs and kitted up, ready for the first dive.

The visibility was better than expected, even though it had been raining all week. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We also had some club members keen to practice their DSMB deployment skills!

 

We returned from the first dive; several divers using single cylinders needed to get air fills, whilst others were on twinsets, who had enough gas for a second dive. The water temperature was a tepid 11°c.

We then jumped in for the second dive.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We surfaced from the second dive. It was a perfect day to celebrate the club’s anniversary. Several divers headed to the changing rooms, and others headed home to prepare for the evening meal.

The celebrations continued at Bikaneri Restaurant in Hinckley. Bikaneri is an Indian restaurant serving food inspired by the culinary traditions of Rajasthan. We had all pre-ordered our meals, as around 18 people were dining. The food was delicious, and the service was excellent, apart from a slight delay in some people’s food getting to the table.

Our club’s Welfare Officer, Dawn, had spent a lot of time preparing a celebratory cake, T-shirts, and comedy awards for deserving divers!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hugh South, a long-standing member, also presented the club’s chairman with a hand-crafted award celebrating our 25th anniversary.

This concluded the event. It was a fantastic day all around. Thank you to all the members who attended and everyone involved in organising it.