My latest Facebook Live chat on the Alphamarine Photography was a look at SCUBA diving in the UK. I talked about why I dive in here, showed some pictures and then discussed some of the factors that may put people off British diving and how things could be improved. There was lots of comments, suggestions and some really good feedback for this talk.
To watch the recorded video click the image below. I’d recommend you watch with the commenting set to Real-Time so you can see the conversations take place between the viewers, myself and each other. I’ll place links below the picture to the websites of boats, dive sites, organisations etc that were mentioned during the talk both by me and in the comments.
Tamas mentioned in the comments diving at Vobster Quay, this is an inland divesite in Somerset. I haven’t dived there myself.
South Coast Divers is a Facebook group for people diving or interested in diving on the South coast of England. You’ll find lots of excellent images posted on their including by our customers and business colleagues.
Other UK diving related Facebook Groups you might find interesting include: British Marine Life Study Society, Capernwray Diving centre official group, Devon Divers, Diving for Divers, Highland Divers, Norfed (Northern Federation of Divers), North East Diving, SUPG (Scottish Underwater Photographers Group), Scottish Diving, Scuba Diving in Europe, Scuba Diving - North West Club, Shore Dives in the UK, South Bay Scuba Scarborough, UK Cephalopod reports , UK Divers Group and North Sea Divers. I didn’t mention these in my talk but most of them let me post my talks to their groups when relevant, so thank you to the admins. The majority of BSAC regions have their own Facebook group as do some clubs, searching for BSAC on Facebook will bring up a good sized list of these.
Other inland sites run for diving I mentioned were Dosthill Quarry, Stoney Cove and Capernwray all of which I’ve dived at over the years with Capers being our most regular freshwater diving venue (we were there last week). These places are stocked with a range of fish and have all manner of vehicles and objects in them to add points of interest for divers. They also have facilities like cafes, toliets and changing rooms which help to make them attractive places to run courses as well as for pleasure diving.
Darren mentioned Richie Kohler, a technical diver and wreck aficionado from the United States. There’s plenty of info about wrecks of British ships on his website although mostly outside of Uk waters.
There are a number of amateur diving organisations run by volunteers with clubs around the UK. The ones I mentioned were the British Sub Aqua Club (BSAC), the Sub Aqua Association (SAA) and the Scottish Sub Aqua Club (ScotSAC) . The professional training organisations I mentioned were RAID and PADI but there are quite a few more that have instructors working in the UK.
St Abbs and Eyemouth Voluntary Marine Reserve is on the East coast of Scotland and was founded in 1984. The area is protected under a code of practice and is renowned as one of the top places to dive in the UK. Marine life is there is prolific and the underwater scenery is impressive.
Currently there are two major UK diving shows each year. The Go Diving Show is run at the Ricoh Arena in Coventry, by the team behind Scuba Diver magazine who we write for about underwater photography. It has run for a couple of years now and has grown each time. We’ve presented talks both years on the photography stage and also been present on the Nautilus Diving stand. Next year it will be on the 19th to the 21st February. The Dive Show is held at the NEC, Birmingham and has been run for many years. We usually attend this as well and base ourselves on the stand of one of the companies we work with but it has been moved from it’s normal date of October to March next year.
Jack Perks specialises in filming UK freshwater life, reptiles and amphibians and has done a number of short films for the BBC One Show.
The Marine Conservation Society is involved in campaigning to protect the seas and marine life around the UK. They hit well above their weight but the more members they have the stronger they will be, so please think about supporting what they do. As well as campaigning they run beach cleanups and various sighting databases that divers can contribute to. Part of this is the underwater survey work done by Seasearch.
There are a number of liveaboard boats that operate in the UK, with Scapa Flow in the Orkneys being a hotspot for these. I mentioned Valkyrie and Valhalla (which we’ll be diving from later this year) during the talk. I’d also be remiss if I didn’t mention M.V Invincible who let me share this talk on their Facebook group.
SITA is the Scuba Industries Trade Association, which we are members of and work to their code of practice. They work to support the UK diving industry and represent it in various groups and bodies such as the BDSG (British Diving Safety Group)
There is UK charity aimed at removing ghost nets from the seas around the British Isle, Ghost Fishing UK.
For finding dive buddies or spaces on trips check out the Facebook groups Norfed Buddies and UK Dive Spaces Offered/Wanted
For those people interested in underwater photography in the UK, the British Society of Underwater Photographers (BSoUP) organisers monthly talks that can be watched online. Many of these are connected with UK diving and the organisation also runs a number of competitions for underwater images taken in British waters including the British and Irish Underwater Photography Championships (BIUPC).
If you know people involved in UK diving and think they would find this video of interest please share it with them. I’d like it to give people in the industry ideas of how broaden UK divings appeal.
I’ll be continuing to do talks on diving and underwater photography every Thursday at 8pm UK time for the foreseeable future. Go to our Facebook page to watch and check out some of the blogs I’ve done on here based around the previous talks. If you found this video useful and would like to support us you can ‘buy me a coffee’.
For more information about what we do as a company check out the rest of this site. Contact us by email at info@alphamarinephoto.com for any enquiries, equipment quotes or to book on workshops.
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