JANUARY 2018 mouthpiece50th anniversary edition As the club marks its 50th year Geoff Baker gives us a history of Bracknell 434 ALSO IN THIS ISSUE Buff up on history with Jeff Reed’s dive timeline Enter the world of instructing with Nic Hallett Join Garry Beattie on a 21 year dive journey Welcome to this special message from our 50th anniversary edition Many thanks to everyone JANUARY 2018 involved for their co-operation, mouthpiece50th anniversary edition As the club marks its 50th year ideas and inspiration. Geoff Baker gives us FROM THE ARCHIVES a history of Bracknell 434 Diving Officer Cover image: Lobster on Aeolian Sky Courtesy of Jonna Fry ALSO IN THIS ISSUE Buff up on history with Jeff Reed’s dive timeline Enter the world of instructing with Nic Hallett Three Amigos Brrrr, it’s cold – MASTER OF DISGUISE, God, Winner: 2018 UK club photo competition Join Garry Beattie on a 21 year dive journey has anyone seen HE PLANS TO FLEE... he’s not me arrive? REALLY BY CUSTARD & SON THIS SWEATSHIRT intending to SHOULD WORK FINE dive in that SAYS HE. semi-dry In this issue is he? Our 50th year, BUT TOO LATE DAN – YOUR PLAN IS SUSSED... what a milestone! SO DIVE IN WRAYSBURY History of diving 4 – YOU MUST! Thanks to Ruth and her merry helpers, we have CHAIRMAN CRAIG HAS ARRIVED ON SITE... a celebratory edition of mouthpiece, which will Interview: Geoff’s WITH LITTLE PITY, hopefully resurrect some old memories for some history of Bracknell 434 7 FOR YOUR PLIGHT and give an insight to bygone days to others? For SO COME ON DAN, my part I can only give a recent (ten years) view on Leading the way KIT UP FAST... 9 AND JUST IGNORE what has occurred, making me quite a juvenile in DAN ARRIVES FULL OF GLEE... FOR THAT ICY BLAST! A WARM UP DIVE IN WRAYSBURY club terms. Malta again, again, again 10 When I joined, Frances Jewson was DO, followed for a short spell by Craig Give him one What... Who nailed hehehe like this? OK, OK boys... Smile! of your menacing my foot down? Edwards, then Nick Jewson and finally Matt Fry before my appointment. I know looks, Craig! only joking! In conversation quite a few of the current members have also previously held the post. On behalf with the Jewsons 12 of the club I would like to thank all that have undertaken this role in encouraging our divers to progress while staying safe. Training matters 14 In my first few years there were boats organised every other weekend during the season, sometimes two or three on the same event. Although the number of diving members has remained fairly consistent the number of boat trips has The depths of instructing 16 steadily declined. This seems mostly down to cost and time restrictions. It is becoming harder to fill all bookings, although this year seems to have had a 21 years little renaissance which is very encouraging. SUSPECTING A of diving adventures 17 POSSIBLE BREAKOUT – Although a high proportion of dives are conducted out of Weymouth, CRAIG BRINGS IN THE we have visited many destinations in the last ten years. From my logbook: RE-INFORCEMENTS Zosia cake 20 Salcombe, Swanage, Plymouth, Littlehampton, Brighton, Eastbourne, Isle of AND SO IT WAS, THEY ENTERED SO OUR Huh, fat Wight, Southsea, Lymington, Exmouth, Dartmouth, Poole, Torquay, Lundy, chance of going THE WATER... Fancy TALE IS AT a pint? ITS END... OK Dan, ANYWHERE now that DAN WAS NOT A DIVE ABORTER! Pembroke, Sound of Mull, Scapa Flow, Shetlands and much more...as well as RIB ride 21 you wait there Pete’s cemented me to the spot! WITH DAN far too many lakes. Many many more places to go. Through the club I have also while I test “IT’S NOT COLD,” YOU’LL HEAR GETTING A the water THEM CLAIM... WARM UP ventured to overseas destinations including: Malta, Egypt, Caribbean Islands, “BUT DRY SUIT DIVING SHOULD FROM HIS sometimes with diving as the primary incentive, but many times as a social Diving with Dennis 22 BE YOUR NEXT AIM!” FRIEND! holiday including friends and family. These are just the trips I’ve been on, the A PRE- Brrr... list of club destinations is significantly longer. they lied! SEASON DIVE IS Guides give it a try 24 GREAT TO We have a healthy programme set for 2018. Quite a few celebratory events have CHECK OUT been planned both in-water and on terra firma. Should anyone wish to organise YOUR KIT... or assist in any of our dives or events, please make your interest known to me or My family and other stuff 25 BUT IF DIVING any other committee member. Glug, SEMI-DRY, glug, glug... WE HOPE Wishing you all a safe and enjoyable 2018 and many more years to come. YOU ARE Advanced diveaholic 26 FIT! Andy Hodgson 3 Louis Boutan Hampton’s first UK dive school in 1952, BABY FACE (1893) invents the the British Sub-Aqua Club is established History of diving first underwater in London. Jeff Reed camera creating Sea Hunt airs on television in 1957, the first underwater starring Lloyd Bridges as Mike Hunt, QUIZ photographs. Later, an underwater Hans Hasse (1940) adventurer. The Around 4500 BCE coastal cultures such Astronomer Edmund produced the series inspires These divers will all be 50 during as those found in Greece, Mesopotamia, Halley develops a first underwater thousands our anniversary year. Can you put China, and probably many other parts of diving bell (1690) Louis Boutan photography documentary film. of people a name to their baby faces? the world, engage in diving as a form of in which the to take up Answers on back page. food-gathering, commerce, or warfare. atmosphere in the bell Sea Hunt 1907 – present scuba diving. is replenished by Halley’s diving bell Physiologist J.S. Haldane (1907) composes An equally The first references to underwater activity sending weighted a set of diving tables that establish a influential series, date from Egyptian Antiquity at the Thebes barrels of air down stage method of decompression, thereby ‘Undersea World temples. Divers are involved in military from the surface. providing a preventative solution for divers of Jacques operations sabotaging enemy ships during John Lethbridge Alexander’s glass bell suffering the bends. Cousteau’, is 1 the Trojan Wars. and Andrew Becker Jacques Cousteau & Emile Gagnan John Lethbridge first broadcast The writings of Homer and Aristotle light. Salvage diving operations around (1715) both develop in 1966 and runs for ten years. It is quickly mention Greek sponge fishermen who the major shipping ports of the eastern one-man completely enclosed diving suits. followed by ‘The Cousteau Odyssey’ that airs plummet to depths of almost 30 metres by Mediterranean are so well organized that William H. James (1825) designs a self- in 1977 for five years. holding a heavy rock. To try to compensate a scale of payment for salvage work is contained underwater breathing apparatus. 1965 witnesses the introduction of ABLJ for the increasing pressure on their ears, established by law. Divers continue to John and Charles (Adjustable Buoyancy Life Jacket). Important they pour oil into their ear canals and take a this day to make significant contributions Deane adapt a fire- advances relating to scuba safety that began mouthful before descent. to warfare. fighting apparatus in the 1960s become widely implemented Scyllias, a sculptor, and his daughter, After discovering pearl oyster beds for use in diving, Haldane in his laboratory in the 1970s, including: adoption of 2 Cyana, were Greek breath holding divers in the Caribbean area of the Atlantic and call it the Japanese Ohgushi develops a system certification cards to indicate a minimum who worked to recover treasure for the Ocean, Spanish “Deane’s Patent (1918) that can operate as a scuba with level of training and as a requirement for Persian king, Xerxes. Herodotus described explorers routinely Diving Dress.” an air supply cylinder carried on the cylinder refills, adoption of submersible how divers worked at bringing back cargoes enslave native divers back. Frenchman ‘Yves Le Prieur’ (1926) pressure gauges, adoption of the buoyancy from sunken ships. and make them Leather diving suits develops this further so that the diver compensator and single hose regulators as retrieve pearls from carries a compressed essential pieces of diving equipment. the ocean floor. 1876 – 1940 air bottle on his The technical age arrives in 1987 with Caribbean pearl divers The first diving school is established by chest and releases introduction of devil gases ‘nitrox’ and the Royal Navy in 1843. Seaman Henry A. 3 air into his face mask ‘trimix’. 1997 witnesses the introduction 1600 – 1715 Fleuss (1876) invents a compact, lightweight by opening a tap. of the first commercially manufactured Around 1620 Dutchman Cornelius Van scuba that uses pure compressed oxygen Jacques Cousteau Closed Circuit Rebreather in the sports Drebbel engineers the first watertight boat and a system to ‘reuse’ the air that the diver and Emile Gagnan diving global market. carrying 12 rowers that operated in the exhales by removing Yves LePrieur Cyana and Scyllias (1943) incorporate Tne twenty first century witnesses a river Thames to a depth of 20m. the carbon dioxide an automatic demand valve to release air rapid expansion into the Asian market Aristotle, in ‘Problemata’, tells the tale of and recirculating it as the diver inhales. Guy Gilpatric invents (2 million divers qualified per annum) but Alexander the Great at the siege of Tyre, back to the rubber goggles. sadly diving attracts limited investment in 4 ordering the destruction of any submarine diver over and Following a visit by research areas.