Athlone Sub Aqua Club to mark 50 years in existence

By Matt Gleeson and Wendy Groenendijk

Athlone Sub Aqua Club will soon celebrate the 50th anniversary of its formal affiliation to the National Dive Organisation (now known as Dive Ireland),

The historic first occasion took place at an AGM in the old Prince of Wales Hotel.

In the early years, the club had no premises or boats, members made their own diving suits and even adapted Bass Charrington bottles into ones suitable for diving! The club, whose name is often abbreviated to ASAC, has gone through many phases of development over the last 50 years, but it continues to be driven by those who love the underwater and who value the friendships naturally born in any group sharing a common interest.

The clubhouse is located on Brick Island down by the Jolly Mariner. The building has been developed over the years through local funding, contributions from organisations around Athlone, Sports Capital grants and by the hard work of its members who took the basic shell of a building and put in the floors and internal walls.

The clubhouse now hosts a meeting and training room upstairs and an equipment room for boats and compressors downstairs. In addition, there is a small slipway for launching the boats onto the river.

ASAC is one of the largest - if not the largest club in the country. It is made up of divers who just dive for pleasure as well as adult snorkelers and a large number of junior snorkelers.

Qualifications

As part of affiliation to Dive Ireland the club follow the CMAS standard of training. Many people might be familiar with similar standards such as PADI, especially if they take up diving when they go on holidays. The standards are similar and all work towards diver safety. With CMAS, Athlone Sub Aqua is able to adapt to the club structure and build the skills to lead a group comprising boat and divers safely in Irish waters.

The basic training in the pool gives the diver enough skills to dive with a competent diver which is classed as Diver * (one star); this is equivalent to the L plate in driving. Practical sessions held every Sunday morning in the pool are accompanied by a set of lectures given by the club's own instructors. The Diver* continues at his or her own pace to develop his or her skills until they take a formal examination (done by an instructor from another club). Upon passing the exam, the diver is now qualified as a Diver** (two star); this is equivalent to a full Drivers License. Unlike driving however, divers never dive alone. Every diver dives with a ‘buddy’ so that everyone has backup - should some mishap occur such as equipment malfunction or running out of air.

Following on from Diver** there are many paths to skills development. Leading divers or Diver*** (three star) come after a few years diving experience.

This certification requires a significant amount of training and assessment. It is broken up into three modules; technical knowledge and fitness; deep diving to 40 meters with shot line deployment and the third and final module which assesses the candidate over a full weekend.

This assessment starts on a Friday and finishes on a Sunday during which time the diver’s skills on dive organisation, training ability, safety management, navigation, boat handling and teamwork are kept under close scrutiny and finally graded. This year ASAC is delighted to have had a number of divers complete their first two modules and one diver who has just completed his Module 3 weekend; this diver is now the club's newest Diver*** or Leading Diver.

Going on from Leading Diver, members can decide to upskill to instructor level called Moniteur which again has a number of levels attached to it, building on both technical and teaching skills. ASAC is fortunate to have a number of excellent instructors who give their time to training not only its divers but also the divers of other clubs. Many of the courses are examined at regional or national level. ASAC is part of the Midland region which also includes Longford, Lough Ree Roscommon, Mullingar and Offaly SAC clubs.

Training

Every Wednesday evening, the club hosts a dive in the lake or in the River Shannon and snorkellers go out every Thursday evening. The Wednesday training sessions provide an excellent opportunity to develop and progress dive skills in safe conditions. The water in the lake is quite clear but the light disappears after about eight meters and the bottom is somewhat featureless. For a river, the visibility is remarkably good. The Zebra mussel infestation in the last years are filter feeder which may have improved water quality. However, on the downside, they also tend to cover over anything that is worth looking at.

Most of the real diving is done away at the coast. The club travels nearly all weekends from May to October and often dives areas such as Kilkee, Ballycastle (Mayo) or in Donegal such as St John's Point. With calm seas the diving in these areas can be spectacular with clear waters and incredible underwater life and colour. What looks like a plain grey to blue sea on the surface explodes into a world of wonder and colour with sponges, soft corals and anemones. This is a backdrop to shoals of Mackerel, Pollack and inquisitive Wrasse. For many though, it is not just the pristine wildlife but the scenery that excites where divers can float off an edge with nothing beneath them but 20 or 30 meters of gin-clear water. As a dive location, Ireland is definitely up there with the best!

Equipment

The club has a limited number of sets of dive equipment which allow divers to train in the pool during the winter. However, all members are expected to have their own equipment by the end of the first season. All members are expected to buy their own fins, mask and snorkel as early as possible. Dive equipment is niche and as such it is quite expensive. Luckily there is a thriving second hand market due to people constantly upgrading their kit. One of the unexpected advantages of diving is that friends and partners will have no problem in finding something that you will really need when Christmas or birthdays come around!

Divers commonly dive on air using 12 or 15 litre bottles compressed to 230 Bar. This is a massive pressure given that car tyres are usually just a few bar. The reason for the high compression is to provide sufficient air to the diver for the duration of the dive (typically for 30 minutes at 20 metres).

The diver’s regulator (mouthpiece) reduces this pressure initially to about 9 Bar and at depth, this magical bit of apparatus allows the diver to breathe effortlessly. However, the downside is that the air is still breathed at pressure and to ensure no diver suffers from decompression sickness or ‘the bends’, all divers are trained to return safely to the surface.

To make diving safer we are now starting to use as standard a gas called Nitrox. The air we breathe contains about 21% oxygen and with Nitrox, this percentage is increased to approx. 31%. This provides an added safety margin in preventing ‘the bends’ and it also makes diving less demanding physically. ASAC is fortunate to have a compressor to fill the bottles to 232 Bar and have a feeding compressor to that to increase the oxygen percentage.

At sea and for most of the Search and Recovery missions, the club use Rigid Inflatable Boats or RIBs with significant engines to be able to handle 12 fully kitted divers in compromised conditions. The club's RIB, Early Riser, which dates back to the first Gulf War (1990) and all at the club are really excited to shortly be taking delivery of a new well-equipped RIB, Athlone Diver - the cost of which 30% was funded by Sports Capital grant and the remainder which was raised through fundraising. While the club also has a good van for transporting equipment to dive sites, it is now starting to try to procure a four-wheel drive which will allow the club to launch and retrieve safely from slipways that are covered in algae.

Search and Recovery

Athlone Sub Aqua Club provides a voluntary Search and Recovery (S&R) Service, a service made possible through the support provided by the communities of Athlone. Several members have recently completed the Diver Rescue course which provides the crucial skills needed to get an unconscious or injured diver safely to the surface. In October, the club will be carrying out annual Search and Recovery Refresher courses. These courses are vital to ensuring that divers have the necessary skills to search for a casualty.

Search and Recovery is challenging and is very often carried out in the winter months in cold and fast-flowing water. S&R is carried out totally on a voluntary basis and members of ASAC are always amazed by those who turn out to help on a search on cold and dark days. ASAC members all understand that there is some comfort provided to the families of a loved one knowing that the search for their loved one will continue day after day until the casualty has been found.

The searches are not just localised to Athlone and ASAC forms part of a S&R group in the midland region. The group can be called to carry out searches in other locations in the midlands or occasionally in other parts of Ireland.

Searching is a skill to be gained and ASAC trains divers to keep a group of divers - often 12 or more - in a straight line despite using lamps in fast flows of water and underwater hazards.

It also skills tethered divers to be able to enter enclosed spaces and return safely. Sometimes specialised equipment such as full-face masks are used so that the diver can work in polluted waters and be able to communicate with the surface team.

This year for Athlone Sub Aqua Club is a hugely exciting one with the club reaching 50 years of age.

Celebrations will be held in the Sheraton Athlone Hotel on October 15 at 8 pm, where the club will look back fondly over the past 50 years. Some snacks will be provided afterwards.

All past and present members are invited to attend, and it is hoped to see many of those who are supporters of Athlone Sub Aqua Club on the night. The club will not only look back on the last 50 years but also look forward. This winter a new group of members will join and existing divers will continue to develop their skills. Tickets are now on sale. Please contact: secretary@athlonesubaqua.ie

The logo on the Athlone Sub Aqua Club van states “Supported by the people of Athlone”.

The annual fees that everyone pays to the club helps to cover operational costs such as fuel, electricity and insurance. However, without the support from the people of Athlone and the surrounding communities, ASAC would cease to function.

On its 50th birthday the club would like to thank you all for that support over these past 50 years and wish you all well and continue to be safe on and in the water.