Helen, Jack and James headed for the National Dive Centre in Chepstow, Helen undertaking her PPB and the boys undertaking dry suit speciality (first time diving in the UK). It turned out to be a definite day to record in detail in the log book, two really superb dives. The divers were assisted by Captain Andrew Mackie TDM (who was put in charge of organising the day at Chepstow, dive planning, dive supervision and dive leading, and myself. The water was actually warmer than the air temperature (water 11 degrees, air 7 degrees).  The visibility was ‘incredible’ regardless of depth. We did one dive maxing out at 17 metres and one at 12 metres, on both dives we enjoyed fantastic visibility, exploring land rovers, planes, armoured cars and trucks, a bus, and negotiated lots of swim throughs to test those buoyancy skills and sightings of some very large fish. Everyone had a great day with some really excellent diving, well done to all the divers and Captain Mackie on a great job, not forgetting Sue on shore support (She was actually colder than the divers!).  For Andrew as part of his Dive Master training, invaluable experience of dealing with a day’s diving in a site he did not know, but he knows it very well now! It was a pleasure to dive with you guys, well done and congratulations on your specialty diver ratings.

Chepstow is about one and half hours from Bracknell and really easy to drive to. The NDAC are currently investing in their facilities and do a mean burger and cheesey chips. It is a great diving experience with lots of underwater attractions in close proximity to each other making navigation a dream. Safe diving experiences for novice divers and when the visibility is good, it takes a lot to beat it for inland water diving. I can recommend this site if you are thinking of a club dive, watch for this one coming up in the future on the Dive Crew website.