WANTED - WILDLIFE DIVERS

[bburville]

A series of wildlife dives off the NE coast will be planned for the next year.

Examples include:

Offshore ** open water dives for marine mammals & pelagic fish. (strong swimmers with experience only)

Seal dives at first light at established and new sites off the Farne Islands

Night dives off the Farnes with the seals

Diving with birds! From May with underwater guilllemots feeding and later in the year gannets

This is a non-profit venture and aimed at establishing trips for like minded divers.
I will guide / brief on all dives but divers will book places directly with the hard boat skipper that I use in Seahouses.

All divers/clubs are responsible for their own safety and dive planning/profiles.

As a rule on these trips max depth is 25m, with no stage decompression and SMBs (continuous) on all offshore deep open water dives**

Dates will be posted on the BSAC site BUT all those clubs/divers interested should let me know (some of you already have I know!) on bburville@hotmail.com

Best wishes,
Ben.

[Fiona]

Sorry Ben I have to ask have you actually had any responses from any of the forums you have posted this on.

[James - Narked@50]

Yep, this appeared on YD earlier this year and I still don't know what you are actualy offering? Divers book boats all the time, without your help, I don't see where you fit in?

Please explain.

Thanks

James

[bburville]

To provide some background for those genuinely interested my hope was that we could establish a group of at least 30 divers who were enthusiastic about underwater marine life and who wanted to try some unusual dives that very few clubs or groups are currently doing.

There is a slight problem. In the "blame" culture that we live in,if I organise any diving I become liable for divers who then decide to e.g. get washed away by currents or dive so deep and for so long they get bent!
Having organised a trip to the Red Sea where 12 divers were excellent and one chap who joined us had such poor bouyancy control that he had to be rescued from 30m heading down, you can understand my concern.

I've spoken to a number of club divers who are keen on marine life but their clubs are more orientated towards wrecks (& fair enough whatever takes your fancy).

What do I add/ bring someone asked?
Well I have considerable experience diving with a number of large marine creatures (e.g Grey seals / Bottlenose dolphins/ Orca etc), a degree in marine biology and insight into the underwater behaviour of a number of species that you can only get from spending literally hours underwater with these creatures.
I also have knowledge of certain sites that are rarely dived.

Another diver asked if there had been much of a response to the numerous postings on the BSAC site.
Surprisingly NOT. Or maybe not so surprising.

2 clubs have expressed a genuine interest and one club had about 5 divers who joined me to dive off Coquet Island, Amble with a very rarely dived small colony of grey seals there.
A couple of very experienced instructors have contacted me and are interested in the unusual offshore dives and the seal dives off the Farnes.
A diver from Norway (!) contacted me about getting close to underwater birds (eg. guilllemots) mainly for photos.

Well my aim was simply to share the joy that I have found diving with various creatures and to explore some unusual dives that offer potential for maine life encounters. I aim to make NO money from this!! I am not a company just a straight forward BSAC member who's been diving for 20yrs.

I always dive with William Shiel out of the Farnes, Bill Ruck out of Moray Firth and various other skippers around the UK at different sites.

All the best and whatever diving you're doing enjoy & be safe!
Ben.

[Adrian Kelland]

Another diver asked if there had been much of a response to the numerous postings on the BSAC site.
Surprisingly NOT. Or maybe not so surprising. Well, given that as we have about 500 registered users around the UK and other parts of the world at the moment, I agree not surprising.

Add in a couple more thousand from the other fora (we are often the same people) plus a few thousand un-registered viewers and you still only have a small sample of divers to call upon on-line.

You have reduced this sample still further by asking for wildlife interests in a particular part of the country.

And it did look a little like commercial spam as you posted across several fora.

I hope you find enough buddies for your plans to bear fruit.

Adrian

[Alan Ewart]

Well my aim was simply to share the joy that I have found diving with various creatures and to explore some unusual dives that offer potential for maine life encounters. I aim to make NO money from this!! I am not a company just a straight forward BSAC member who's been diving for 20yrs.


Ben.


Ben, thanks for taking the trouble to explain. It sounds like a very interesting project albeit a little too far for me to travel:(

I have to agree with Adrian the initial post did sound a little commercial. Now that you've cleared it up I hope you get bags of success inthe venture.

Regards

Alan

[IainC]

Some of my club were going to go diving with Ben last weekend, sadly the blizzards caused a postponement.

Otherwise we'd be able to tell you all about it.

Sorry we didn't get to met up, yet!

Iain.

[Steve Pearson]

Hi Ben

I'm taking over REDS for the North West Region next year as one of my hats, I have a lot of ideas as to what I want to do to make things interesting and fun, and try and encourage a lot of regional involvement.

I may be interested in discussing with you options on some ventures.

PM me and we can discuss it further

Steve

[James - Narked@50]

Thanks for clearing that up Ben.

If you market the trip a bit or get to know the forum members first, you will have far greater success. Here is an example of a trip I am running to the Farns next year specificaly to dive with the seals:

http://www.yorkshire-divers.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=22277

There are over 50 divers on the trip so far, and anyone reading, including yourself, are welcome to join, you just have to abide by the terms of the trip. It's multi agency, non profit making and a service mainly, though not limited to, the members of YD.

There is no reason that trips like this, or alternatives, cannot be arranged through this forum to, it just takes a few people to take the lead.

James

[Linda]

I'd be really interested in one of your Farne dives with the seals. Earlier this year, I dove with Californian sea lions in the Sea of Cortez ....it was brilliant. Although I only started diving 2 years ago, I have qualified to Sports diver level so I don't imagine any problems diving the Farnes. Please let me know if you go ahead and decide to arrange a trip.