Aug
30
2010
Saturday 4th September will see the beautiful fishing village of Roundstone transform into a Dive Mecca. Monty Halls, the Irish Whale and Dolphin Group and Scubadive West are putting on a show and everyone is invited. So round up the family, friends, divers, non divers and even the dog, and head to the West. Entry to this festival is €30 per person. All proceeds will go towards the purchase of a pontoon for refloating stranded whales and dolphins. The festival itself will feature photo presentations, talks by adventure expedition leaders, try dives for beginners and a giant hog roast that evening. Click on the invitation below for details on booking your ticket.
Aug
30
2010
Scubadive West forges ahead with the PADI Tec Rec courses. Last weekend saw our second Tec 40 course of the season take place. The students arrived for this 2.5 day course on Friday afternoon. The course culminated in a 40 metre dive, decompressing for ten minutes on a 40% blend. Well done to Michal Dzikowski and Paul Devane, the newest entrants to the PADI Tec ranks. Our next Tec 40 course is on 22/23/24th October; this course is now full. However, spaces remain on our Tec 40 course taking place on 26th, 27th, 28th November.
Anyone already in possession the Tec 40 qualification can enroll on the next course; that is Tec 45. Scubadive West will run Tec 45 on Saturday & Sunday 2/3rd October.
Aug
30
2010
Last week we played host to five students, all undertaking their PADI Openwater Diver course. A windy start to the week failed to put a dampner on this enthusiastic bunch. Fortunately, the weather and diving conditions from Wednesday onwards proved significantly nicer. Our final dive of the course took place at Carrickaddy Reef on Friday; a sumberged reef with steep walls to eighteen metres and an abundance of marine life. Youngest on the course was William King, all of eleven years old. Well done to William, Aisling Donovan, Andrew Donovan, Martina Diskin and Craig Davis.
Big well done also to Greg Dyar who completed the final dive of his Openwater Course on Sunday afternoon. A free swimming, two metre long conger eel made an appearance during the dive, making for some very memorable moments.
On the way back in from Carrickaddy on Friday morning
Aug
30
2010
It was not just us intent on grasping the remaining rays of summer this weekend. On travelling back from a dive on the Julia T Sunday morning, our skipper caught a glimpse of a rarely seen fin in the distance…that of an ocean sunfish or mola mola.
Cillian donned mask and fins for a quick entry into the water to get some footage. click the link below to play.
Sunfish At Scubadive West, Sunday 29th August 2010
A quick search on Wikipedia this morning returned the following:
The ocean sunfish, Mola mola, or common mola, is the heaviest known bony fish in the world. It has an average adult weight of 1,000 kg (2,200 lb). The species is native to tropical and temperate waters around the globe. It resembles a fish head with a tail, and its main body is flattened laterally. Sunfish can be as tall as they are long when their dorsal and ventral fins are extended.
Sunfish live on a diet that consists mainly of jellyfish, but because this diet is nutritionally poor, they consume large amounts in order to develop and maintain their great bulk. Females of the species can produce more eggs than any other known vertebrate.[1] Sunfish fry resemble miniature pufferfish, with large pectoral fins, a tail fin and body spines uncharacteristic of adult sunfish.
Adult sunfish are vulnerable to few natural predators, but sea lions, orcas and sharks will consume them. Among humans, sunfish are considered a delicacy in some parts of the world, including Japan, the Korean peninsula and Taiwan, but sale of their flesh is banned in the European Union.[2] Sunfish are frequently, though accidentally, caught in gillnets, and are also vulnerable to harm or death from encounters with floating trash, such as plastic bags.
Aug
30
2010
Closing date for our 2010 Photo Competition is midnight on Wednesday 8th September. That leaves just one week to upload your snaps to our dedicated competition website:
http://www.competitionssdw.com/
Remember entry is free of charge. This year’s prize fund is in excess of €3,000; with generous sponsorship received from SCUBAPRO, Suunto, Fourth Element, Oonas Divers and Renvyle House Hotel.
Below are some of the entries so far. This competition is strictly amateur and we welcome all photos, however modest one might deem them. There are two underwater categories and one overwater category in this year’s competition.
Aug
23
2010
We will be running our popular National Geographic Specialty this coming weekend 28th & 29th August. Places remain on this exciting course for anyone looking to dive like an underwater scientist. Amongst some of the skills covered will be advanced navigation, mapping techniques and buoyancy control; all crucial for a positive interaction with the underwater world. This Specialty is especially beneficial for recently qualified Openwater and Advanced Openwater divers. Both your skill and your confidence levels will really progress over the weekend. Contact us immediately to secure your place.
Aug
23
2010
Connemara continues its popularity with visiting divers from all corners of the globe. This summer alone has seen us hosting ‘les francais’, ‘die deutschen’, ‘Nederlandse bevolking’, ‘popolo italiano’ and ’svenska folket’..to name but some of our nearer neighbours. Last week was the turn of a group from England. While the sun may not have been ’scorchio’, the diving was great and company marvellous. We even had dolphins in the cove on Thursday. Congratulations to Fergal Scahill, who recently completed his Openwater Course with us. Fergal had a brief encounter on his second openwater training dive with the aforementioned dolphins…a tough act to follow for the future!
Aug
23
2010
The weekend past saw four intrepid, depth seekers attend our Combined Deep & Nitrox Specialty. Each student ‘enrolled with intent’, determined on gaining these two popular specialties in one weekend. PADI’s Deep Diver Specialty qualifies divers to the limits of recreational scubadiving; i.e 40 metres. We like to combine both these specialties into one, providing a really practical example of an effective use for Nitrox; i.e for repetitive dives in a day; and also permitting a reduced package price. So how did the course go? Well, we made the most of nice diving conditions and got our four deep dives on some of our most popular dive sites; Thany Beag, Julia T, Inis Barna & Llechog Prahan. Congratulations to Stephen O’Brien, Aaron Doyle, Jeff Moran and Jo Sheppard.
A natural progression for many divers looking to dive deep are PADI’s Tec Rec courses. Scubadive West is delighted to be running these courses, with Discover Tec and Tec 40 available for newcomers to the discipline of techincal diving. Indeed, our next Tec 40 course takes place this coming weekend, 27th, 28th & 29th August. Places remain so contact us immediately to book.
Aug
16
2010
Visitors to our dive centre during recent weeks have really benefited from excellent diving conditions. This is true for both our boat dive sites and our shore dive. Many newcomers to the sport have taken their first breaths in the company of friendly, Atlantic marine life; residents in our private cove. Below are some photos from the past few days, all taken on our shore dive.
Aug
16
2010
Please click the link below for an invitation to the ‘Roundstone Dive Party’ on 4th & 5th September. All proceeds will go towards the purchase of a stranded whale and dolphin pontoon. Tickets are strictly limited to 200 so book your place now.