2017 in numbers
After doing a little number crunching I thought that it would be good to share some facts and figures to show just how much and what sort of diving JBOD is doing.
In the last calendar year I did 93 dives with depths ranging between 4.6 and 69.5m and an average of 22.3m. These dives were between 14 and 80 minutes long with an average of 42 minutes.
2017's dives used various kit configurations: 55 dives used a rebreather, 22 a single wing and 16 a BCD.
Similarly the water types varied with a disappointing 66 in still fresh water (quarries and lakes), 25 in the sea and 2 in moving fresh water (i.e. a river). I think we suffered an unusually high number of blown out trips which meant more fresh and less sea dives.
Variety being the spice of life meant that I had 46 different buddies - I'm counting everyone in the group I dived with rather the actual person I was beside where there were multiple divers together. I'm pleased to say that the top 4 buddies were all JBOD members (John, Adrian, Hannah and Alan).
The variety of buddies reflects the way JBOD integrates with other BSAC clubs. Other than JBOD members I dived with people from BSAC Midlands region, the Isle of Man, Lancaster University, BSAC North West Region, Seasearch, Chorley BSAC, Shrewsbury BSAC, Salford University, Richmond BSAC and Stirling University.
Obviously all of the dives were pleasure but 27 were where I was instructing and 66 were bimbling, fish counting and wreck exploring. Much of the instructing was with Lancaster University where JBOD has a bit of a training partnership building but I'm very pleased to say that I was also involved with training JBOD's very first Ocean Diver Alex.
I managed to dive 26 different sites in England, Scotland, Wales and Cyprus of which 15 were new places or new locations at familiar places. They range from a Seasearch dive in Dukes Dock, Liverpool, various wrecks from the club RIB around Anglesey, some deep wrecks out of Eyemouth in the North Sea and the Zenobia in Cyprus.
As a club our demographic has started to changed significantly. A few years ago we were a group of middle aged blokes that went diving but we're slowly changing into a mixed group of divers that go diving. Just this year we've had six ladies join the club making us about a third female and yes, these girls can!
In all of the diving we've done we have had no reported diving accidents. We did have an above water accident where a diver fell over and he's hopefully almost ready to be reintroduced to the water now.
Many thanks in no particular order to all of my buddies Michael Joselin, Steve Cowley, James Fletcher, Barry Kidd, Angela Kirkland, Gavin Statham, Sue Eames, Alan Tweddell, Kevin Williamson, Laura Cannon, Kate Riley, Simon Fryer, Anton Mould, Edwin Chow, Rob Whittaker, Carl Rider, John Power, Quentin Kemp, Alex Lord, Simon Ali, Chris Howells, Iain Scott, Hannah Short, Adrian Bonehill, Lance Stephen Palmer, James Hayward, Terry Simpson, Colin Peters, Hannah Rudd, Claire Christie, Zachary Allen, Mattie Jones, Jim Henshaw, Fiona Richardson, Laura Green, Paul Johnson, Amelia Kemp, Joe Tempest, Lukas, Tom Swallow, Neil, Lynsdey Fell, Mike Smith, Maria Harwood, Arthur Jones and Garry Fell proving that diving is a team game. I'm now looking forward to another successful diving year where hopefully we can get even better statistics. Hopefully I'll see you down there!
