Descend Downunder
Wanted: Divers - Reward: $50.00
$50 Reward for you...
WOW newsletter 180!!! – that’s approx. 18 years worth of Descend club newsletters, (a few double issues) and we’re still going strong.
We’d like to thank all our loyal customers for a fabulous 15 years and as a reward to you a $50.00 reward voucher. To redeem your voucher all you have to do is refer one (just one) friend to do our open water course and on completion of their course we’ll send you a $50.00 voucher to spend with us on any product you like. Send us 2, 3, or 4 friends and you get $100, $150 or $200 – ($50/person you send to us). How easy is that? – you’ll be buying yourself a nice Xmas prezzie this year!!
Also as an added incentive to do our course now we’re offering $60.00 off our open water course for the first 50 bookings until Xmas only. Normally $550 Now $490, but you’d better be quick. This offer is only valid till Xmas. So if you’ve got a friend, partner, son, daughter, or work college that’s heard all your diving stories and has always wanted to discover the amazing underwater world for themselves, do it now and save $$$$$
That’s $50 for you as a reward and another $60 off our course, a total saving of $110 – Limited to the first 50 only. All we need is a $100 deposit before Xmas on an open water course to take advantage of this great offer. So start spreading the word, and you’ll have those new fins you‘ve always wanted. P.S. Gift vouchers also available
Whats coming up?
Stress/Rescue Course – starts 6th Dec.
Descend Xmas Party – Saturday 11th Dec.
Med Diver Course – Starts 14th January
Club Weekend – Lake Jindabyne – Dive the sunken township at Jindabyne
Gear Service Reminder
With the holiday season fast approaching its time to make Xmas plans and if yours involves a trip to the coast and a dive or two – book your gear in now. Our service technicians are almost booked out from now until Xmas (yep, Des, Andrew and Leigh) and if you leave it any longer I'm afraid we may not be able to fit you in. So check those cylinders, regulators and B.C’s and get them into us now, otherwise you may have to leave it till after Xmas. (It’s a bugger to be busy)!
Why Continue Training? – By Scott Walters  | | Soft coral delight |  |
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I often get asked, why keep training? I’m already a diver, I don’t need any more skills. But is this really true?
Its certainly the case that after your basic course you are qualified to dive, and have been shown the skills required to dive, and have been shown the skills to be competent. And for many, it is true - you never need to do any more than that. For easy shallow diving, it’s all you need. Keep in mind however, that skills need to be practiced to be useable (a beginner practices till he gets it right, a master practices till he cant get it wrong). The best divers practice their basic skills often. The legendary Stan Bugg will often practice out of air with me on a dive, just to practice.
In fact, it reminds me of an article I read recently. You know who spends the most on golf lessons? Layers? Doctors? NO – Golf Professionals!!!
And know what they train on? Trick shots? NO – The basics!
They know that solid basics make a great performance.
It should be the same for you. Basic skills (setting up gear, buddy checks, mask clears, reg retrievals, air monitoring, well planned no deco-dives etc), will make you a comfortable, competent diver, so you can see a lot of valuable dive training can be done by you! However, if you plan on doing more diving than just basic stuff, some advanced training in needed.
Diver Stress and rescue can help you help others (and yourself) if something goes wrong. (Possibly one of the most valuable courses you will EVER do)!!
Deep Diving and Wreck Diving improve your skills and knowledge for those situations (and many boat operators wont let you dive deep without this qualification)
Med Diver takes you to a new level with advanced physiology, physics and diving maladies to aid diving professionals. etc, etc.
Dive training is not only fun and opens up new worlds of diving to you, it also makes you safer, better and more flexible divers who can see and experience more (as long as you don’t forget to practice the skills you learn).
Consider the following courses that are coming up soon at your great local dive shop;
Stress Rescue Course
- Too often diving accidents occur because of divers being stressed.
- The Stress and Rescue course will teach you how to prevent, recognize & then deal with stress. This training will help you and your buddy avoid the need to be rescued or becoming the victim of a diving accident.
- This is the perfect course for the newly certified diver. It will teach you new in-water skills and self help skills that you need to become good divers.
- Includes both in-water and dry resuscitation techniques, rescue techniques, accident management and concentrates on the recognition of stress and diver related sickness.
- It is a pre-requisite course required as a SSI Master Diver, Dive Control Specialist and Instructor Training.
- The course is all run locally in a combination of our theory room, a heated pool, and "The Pit"
Theory Dates – 6th & 8th December
Practical – pool – Saturday 11th December
Practical – ‘The pit" – Sunday 12th December
Cost: $360.00
Med Diver Course
- This course is a must for Dive Cons and Instructors and is a requirement for re-certification for both.
- This course covers advanced physics, physiology and diving maladies to aid diving professionals in what can be relatively common ailments.
- The course also covers an intro to recompression chambers and teaches the neurological assessment of an injured diver as this procedure can be enormously helpful in determining the extent of DCI and the effectiveness of treatment.
- Before certification can be given you must have a current First Aid Certification or DAN certification
Course Dates:
Friday 14th January – 7:30 – 10:30
Saturday 15th and Sunday 16th January – 9:00 – 4:00
Cost: $260
Limited Places – Book Now!!
DESCEND XMAS PARTY
Celebrate Xmas with your dive buddies. Come for a drink or join us for dinner. EVERYONE WELCOME – Starting at 5:00 p.m. and kicking on till late. Hope to see you there.
When: Saturday 11th December
Where: Australia Park (beside Albury Pool)
Time: 5:00’ish  | | Encrusted Light | |
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BYO: Everything - drinks, picnic rugs & food
RSVP: Call us 60411 405 prior to Monday 6th December
Truk Lagoon Group Quotes – September 2004
Impression of Truk – tranquility, sun, swaying palms, blue –blue – turquoise Sea, scatty cats, sashimi, relaxation, good company, Fujikawa Maru at night, eeeeeeezzzzzyyyyy diving! – Rachel Reed (BOB)
Aarrrrrrr the Serenity!!! Great diving wrecks & wonderful friends. Best dive - San Fransico - Nippo & Fujikawa Maru night dive – Geoff Reed (Grumpy)
The best diving I have ever done, lovely people, fantastic guides. Beautiful destination & I could of stayed much longer – Glenda Fisher (She does jump out of bed early – on special occasions)
WOW! I had a ball, the diving was fantastic, the company was great, the food fabulous & the chauffeur driven tour of the island… What can I say???? The best holiday I have had – oh and my roommates were fab! – Narelle Meade (The girl who packed everything)
About as good as it gets on diving terms. Every dive had something special to offer, with guides giving the best possible tour of each wreck. The local people are polite, generous and very caring. Throw in 30 deg. water and you couldn’t ask for a better location for a weeks diving, GREAT!!!! – Lloyd Mildren (The smile just never left his face)
I’ve got about 50 more wrecks to check out – so its compulsory to come back. Blue Lagoon Resort – lovely people, beautiful holiday destination. The scenery from the dive boat is breathtaking and below the dive boat awesome – Paula Rich (No time for belly dancing here)
The best trip of the 8 I have had. Accommodation, dive operator, food and the group were the best mix of all trips. Great to be diving with all the Walters as a group – Brian Cornell (Man with gills)
Fantastic Trip! Best wreck diving I’ve ever done. Loved the San Francisco & Nippo. Only downside was the corals and nudibranchs obscuring my view of the ships – Bob Wealthy (Underwater Naturalist)
Loved the peace, warm water and not having to do any housework for a week! – Kaye  | | Porcelain China | |
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I wondered if this trip would be as good as previous trips that I have been lucky enough to have done. It was better than all the previous ones!! I may never get the opportunity to share a trip with Scott and Cass and Kristy again all at once, so I really enjoyed that. In addition the resort and the dive shop have improved enormously – I didn’t expect that. Great group – thank guys! – Des (Only his 12th? Trip to Truk)
I loved it all a lot more than I expected. Diving with the "family" was great, and the last dive on the Gosei with the nice engine room so shallow was an unexpected surprise. But the only "new" wreck, The San Francisco was my highlight. I learned so much from the "fogey" brigade (Des, Brian, Stan, Geoff & Bob), along with a great wreck, awesome visibility, and that special 50m + buzz made it special to me – Scott (Don’t take my picture!!)
For months I have been telling anyone who would listen that this was to be a once in a lifetime trip ($$$…), however – after 2 or 3 dives I found myself saying "next time I come…" It was simply amazing. Unfortunately I only had enough memory on my camera to take 380 photos. Will make sure I bring a bigger memory card next time! – Cass (New profession - underwater photographer)
What can I say? The diving was absolutely fantastic, we did around 20 dives and did not cover 1% of what Truk has to offer. My favourite wreck was probably the Rio-de-Janeiro Maru and I would definitely like to come back to Truk again. Funniest moment? Deep sea fishing off the second floor balcony using a lump of spam, a caving reel and stray cats – Gordon (aka Elvis/comedian/cat teaser)
Finally after putting it off a number of times and numerous plane flights I was finally in Chuuk and was getting excited (which is very unusual)! With a shake down dive on the "Fujikawa Maru" two hours after we arrived I knew it was going to be good. With 5 extra prepaid dives and the 12 with the package we (Lloyd and myself) were already trying to figure out how to pack as many dives as we could into the remaining days. As it turns out, it was 19 in total into 7 diveable days (allowing for ‘no fly’ to safely pass). Mind you we are still convinced if we got the dive operators to start early on Friday (impossible)! We could have made it 20 dives! With every dive being my favourite dive there is. A couple that stuck in my head and the first was the San-fransico Maru, the weather was crap and vis was down and planning for a 57m dive, I was thinking that we were wasting our time but once in the water I was at home again. I began a rapid descent (so I could clip off my el-cheapo camera at 35m, hoping to get a shot on the way back and as it turns out ended up going to 42m as Nick moved the anchor down). From here the horizontal vis was good 20 – 25m so the memories of tanks, truks and saki bottles were great, The other dive was the engine room in the Rio-De-Janeiro Maru where once entering at 28m and being slightly narked the image of a clock stopped at 8:15 and pressure gauges still showing got me excited again! Buoyancy goes up the poop and trying to photograph – everywhere you turned it was excellent! By now there is 4 of us in the engine room and I was concerned that my excitement may silt up the engine room so I decided to sink down to the bottom for a relaxing look, to be passed by Gordo who was feretting the area and all I could see sticking out of a small opening was his fins. Time was up and I yelled at Gordo the guide Nick (who was very experienced – approx. 9000 dives) flashed his torch at us to move out of the wreck, once out gordo was making rude gestures and cheering to show his excitement. I could just go on and on and on about this and other dives and the only thing that I would like to say is thanks to the Descend team for organising this great trip and thanks again to Nick, Keiran and rocky as I know they enjoyed our company. Nick said – "you Australian’s are so funny" (What would you expect Gordo, Rex, Lloyd, Narelle, Glenda and myself on the same boat – maybe everyone else was avoiding the noise)! They wanted us there more often. Rocky also had a special thank you to the snake lady! P.S. Ill be back – Chris Abbott (could easily be a local Chukese)
Club Weekend - Dive Lake Jindabyne  | | Moray eel | |
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19th & 20th February
A unique weekend at Jindabyne.
Walk to the top of the world
Have a dive on a flooded township
Ride the Mount Crackenback chairlift
Lunch at Eaglenest
I am suggesting we travel Friday night, do two dives on Saturday on the Old Jindabyne townsite and on Kalkite Homestead, then a nice restaurant meal Saturday night. Sunday ride the chairlift to Mount Crackenback and lunch at the Eagles Nest restaurant or do the 12 kilometre return walk to the top of Mount Kosciusko (or both).
Kalkite Homestead is one of the best freshwater dives in Australia and without doubt the most interesting dive in the lake. It takes a twenty five-minute boat ride to reach the site, which usually is about seven metres deep but depends on lake level. Last time I went, two platypus played around the boat, splashing and diving for about twenty minutes. Kalkite Homestead is almost intact. The roofing material is gone however this allows light and access into the individual rooms. The kitchen still has the old cast iron stove and Silent Knight kerosene refrigerator. We found a valve style mantle radio and of course all the divers felt the need to sit on the outside dunney. A big brown trout was lying in the corner of the lounge room and a lounge can still be seen on the front veranda overlooking the front yard and the low rock wall that surrounds it. Swim over the gate, you don’t have to open it, and you are in the orchard. A brillant dive.
If you are interested please let us know as gear will be at a premium and it is the holiday season, however you will need to make your own accommodation bookings with snowline.
Book into the Snowline Caravan Park.
There is a range of accommodation starting at $15 for backpackers to $56 for two persons in a deluxe unit with unsuite. The park has very good facilities including boat hire. www.snowline.com.au Phone 02-64562099
Discover Scuba
Courses are run in three different formats;
2 nights a week for 3 1/2 weeks
One week full time (available January)
Dual weekend course
Home study for theory, plus attend pool and sea weekend
Each course consists of;
- Four nights of theory instruction
- Three nights of pool instruction (extra pool may be required)
- Full weekend of open water diving at Portsea
- Two nights accommodation
- Three shore dives
- Two boat dives
- The use of all high tech equipment (standard sizes)
- Education materials – text and log books
- Certification card and certificate
- 12 months complimentary membership to our club
- The opportunity for further education through to instructor level & commercial diver
- World recognised qualification through Scuba Schools International (SSI)
- A divers medical certificate is a pre-requisite to attend this course and is available at an additional cost. It must be completed PRIOR to starting your course.
BOOK NOW AND SAVE – PRE CHRISTMAS SPECIAL
NORMALLY $550 REDUCED TO $490 – SAVE $60
Select the link below four course dates:
http://www.descend.com.au/training/sports/courses/20035221352.htm
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