Sunstar Committee

John Cook, Chairman

I got into diving in 1991 by joining this same club, then called the BT Research Sub Aqua Club. I joined with Frances because we had got bored with just swimming having taken adult improver swimming lessons from the council for a few years on account of being virtual non-swimmers!

Over the intervening years we have done rather a lot of diving all over the world and enjoyed much of it, both in the UK and abroad in California, British Columbia, Florida, Mexico, Caribbean, Ireland, Spain, Italy, Malta, Egypt, Malaysia, Indonesia, Australia and New Zealand. As a result it's hard to say which was my best diving experience, but there have certainly been some memorable ones. [Expanded Version]

Of course there have also been some bad experiences along the way, some of them admittedly very bad indeed. In the end it is the people involved in the sport that will help you enjoy the good times and also help you through the bad times. Overall diving has definitely been a positive experience in my life and I wouldn't want to do without it, which is why I'm still doing it. I intend to keep doing as much diving as possible for as long as I still can.

Pete Young, Secretary

My first dive was an Experience Scuba in Bermuda, in 1990. Amazingly I survived and couldn't wait to get along to Fore St Baths to sign up for the training programme under the eagle eye of Ivor the Diver Durrant. Fast forward to 2008 and I've now logged a paltry 600 or so dives, qualified as an OWI and Trimix Diver and held several positions on the Sunstar committee including DO and Membership Sec.

Best diving experience is a toss-up between our trip to Norway in 2003 and scootering around the Empire Heritage, weaving in and out of the Sherman tanks. Worst diving experience, either minus one foot vis off Eastbourne at 40m, where 100W Halogen lights looked like a candle in a brown ale bottle, or watching Ken Gould eat a raw scallop underwater.

Adrian Barker, Treasurer

I got into diving in 2007 by way of some shore dives on the South Devon coast. Coming across a friendly cuttlefish in the first 5 minutes of my first dive, I was instantly addicted , sucked down about 3000 psi of air and decided to get to the pool and do things the right way.

I've just completed my OD training so I've not got too many dives under my belt to distinguish between the best and worst, but so far the time spent with the aforementioned calm and placid cuttlefish and catching my first lobster on the wreck of the Conway both rate quite highly! Worst experience to date is having to look at Joe in his amazing technicoloured drysuit before 9am and my first coffee of the day...

Raj Mistry, Diving Officer

My first experience of diving was in 1988 in Jamaica. I paid £25 for a PADI dive experience and boy was it an experience! The briefing was brief - you put this over your eyes, you breath out of this and you use this to go up and down. I knew nothing about equalising pressure and I hadn't even heard of buoyancy control. About ten minutes into my dive I had a mask leak which caused water to go up my nose, that in turn made me cough, which caused me to "spit" my DV out of my mouth and all this action was happening at 10m. The dive guide must have had a fit as she brought me back to the surface sharing air (an octopus was not standard issue on a reg in those days). Fortunately for me I didn't panic. I had just gulped a jug full of seawater before indicating I had lost my mask and DV. Once back on the surface I insisted on getting my £25 worth and went back down. On returning to shore I promised that I would learn to dive properly but it was a few years before I joined this club in 1994 which was then known as the BT Research Sub Aqua club.

I qualified as an Open Water Instructor within 3 years of joining the club and Advanced Diver the year after. I have held the posts of Assistant TO, TO and DO in the club as well being involved with instructing and running SDCs.

My passion is UK wreck diving when I can get out. I have also done some blue water diving in Australia, the Caribbean, Red Sea, Mombassa and more recently South Africa (best place to see sharks). I also dabble in under water video and still photography.

David Parkinson, Training Officer

A Caribbean holiday in 2002 which included the possibility of some diving prompted me to take the plunge in late 2001 - since when I haven't looked back. I just wish I'd started years ago! I'm slowly working way around the UK and various sites abroad.

The best dive so far? The Chikuzen off Tortola in the BVI. The worst? A featureless muddy bottom off Dorset.

Dave Lock, Boat Officer

First started in 1968 as a natural progression from competitive swimming and water polo. The early days of the sport were quite exiting as the equipment was unreliable and often home made. In fact the first boat that I part owned we made from hypalon sheets, plywood and lots of glue! Things have moved on since then with the introduction of dry-suits, reliable regulators, RIBs and rebreathers. I've gained lots of experience and moved steadily through the diving and instructing grades and at present I'm National Instructor 208 and First Class Diver Chief Examiner. This means I get to run courses in exotic locations such as Ascension Island but also end up in a school swimming pool in Pimlico!

Best diving experience has to be a dive on HMS Price of Wales in the South China Seas. We swam the length of the wreck, 250 metres, and back during the dive. Total in-water time was 4.5 hours but what a dive, a massive battleship sunk in 1941 as part of Force Z and now lying upside down in 70 metres.

Worst experience has to be my first open water dive off Chesil Beach when I was left alone in the surf with a dodgy regulator and unable to breathe very often. At least in those days you passed to the next grade - if you survived!

Paul Mann, Expeditions Officer

Chris Bond, Equipment Officer

One dark drunken night many years ago (in a galaxy far, far away etc), my wife made me promise that she would be sitting on the beach in Hawaii to celebrate a particularly major birthday of hers. The following morning, though I was completely hungover, she held me to it. Having accepted my fate, I decided that if I was going to Hawaii I may as well fulfil one of my own ambitions and go scuba diving. Rather than becoming a holiday only diver, I decided to learn "the BSAC way". I became an Ocean Diver in the summer of 2003 and have been a burden on the branch trainers ever since. So it's all the wife's fault, honest.

Best dive: Molokini Crater, Maui, Hawaii. The highlight of my first blue-water diving trip and my first pelagic sharks. Amazing. Go there. Do it.

Worst dive: An OD training dive at Gildenburg where I was horribly keen but still full of cold. I surfaced, absolutely exhausted, with a mask full of blood and numb teeth from ruptured, blocked and swollen sinuses. I should never have been in the water. What a pollock (err... it's either a spelling mistake or a type of fish with ruptured, blocked and swollen sinuses?), but you learn.

Toby Hope, Communications Officer

I started diving a couple of years ago. I've always had an (un)healthy fascination with sea-life and spent many happy hours as a child poking about in rockpools on family holidays. Diving was a natural progression from this and something I wish I'd started doing much earlier.

I think Sunstar's a great club and I've had some really cool experiences diving with other members - probably my favourite memories so far are of my first trip to the Red Sea - absolutely breathtaking..

Matt Yates, Minibus Officer

Chris Nixon, Social Secretary

Andy Keeble, New members Rep

Later that year I became a Sea Scout Leader, and over the next three years became an RYA Powerboat Instructor, Emergency First Response instructor and Scout Leader Trainer. Now I am working towards Yachtmaster and Canoe Coaching tickets (possibly also Mountain Leader!)

I have just got into diving again am currently doing Sport Diver training. I have also just started a BSc in Marine and Freshwater Biology at Essex University - at the ripe old age of just over 21!!