 Remember this pile of wood from our Dive Against Debris dive at Rutland Water?  Well in keeping with our reuse policy one small piece has now become the mount for our magnehelic gauge.
What is a magnehelic? Well, it is used for testing the initial inhalation and exhalation effort of any regulator's second stage as part of a regulator being serviced here at Dive Rutland. Want to find out more then why not join our Equipment Speciality sometime and see it being used.  Our first Dive Against Debris nicely timed with Project AWARE week 2019! held at Sykes Lane, Rutland Water. Now we say first but every dive is a Dive Against Debris as in we always collect any rubbish we find.. this was just our first formal one. Project AWARE is a not for profit organisation who are about taking action to create both local and global change for the ocean and the communities who depend on it. But why Rutland Water its not an ocean? Well at some point all waterways connect and the water runs into the Ocean. It is local and its great to do something for the community and when we are out and about collecting rubbish (yes Bridget rubbish not trash!) we always get asked what are we doing so, so its a chance to talk about rubbish, recycling and maybe using less of it... yesterday we reminisced about glass tomato ketchup bottles for those of us old enough to remember them... Our area: Two 40m squares... one behind the beach area that is currently closed and the other to the right in what we know as our National Watersports Area Question: What would we find? We seriously hoped nothing but freshwater grasses and fish  We had a beach comb first whilst the first two sets of divers kitted up and in less than 10mins we had a little pile of plastic and our non divers  Then had a walk the length of our water front and wow some of the stuff found raised some questions as to why it was there in the first place.  So whilst the divers were busy underwater Trevor setup a little kitchen and started to cook bacon butties... wow... thanks Trevor much appreciated. At times he did look like the Swedish Chef of the muppets, don't you agree?.  What did we find? Quite a bit of freshwater grass with at least one of our divers coming out looking like the Monster of the Deep  A set of keys, a Carbon fibre paddle and a metal pole / rod so all in all not bad... shame about the topside If we could remind everyone as the Anglian Water signs clearly say, please take your rubbish home with you or put in any of the bins provided. Thanks to everyone who came along today to support our efforts, it was great fun and the weather was kind to us to.
Lets keep our tiny county tidy whilst taking that one small step to reduce our usage of single use plastics. So, what one small challenge are you going to set yourself.
 Do you all remember the Project AWARE Homework project undertaken by one of our Junior Divers - Thomas Frieland?.. no then refresh your memories by having a look at our blog on the subject here Rubbish is bad for us and the Environment As you are probably aware Dive Rutland are a 100% AWARE dive centre AND its Project AWARE week 14th - 22nd September so we are donning our fins to make a stand against debris and in conjunction with Anglian Water we are going to grab a mesh bags to remove any debris we can find in the water. Every piece of trash we remove will be documented and the results submitted to Project AWARE. What are you going to do?In affiliation with Anglian Water we are running a Dive Against Debris event at Rutland , so come and join us on Sunday 15th and take part in our inaugural Dive Against Debris. You need to book with Tracey to receive location and timings for this event. This is not restricted to diving, we are inviting our past and current Seal Team members to join us and will include a land-based project as well as in water and although we are not diving an ocean I wonder how many of the top 10 items of rubbish we will find and collate.  Have you noticed we have added to our training offering the Project AWARE Dive Against Debris Speciality. If you wish to find out more then have a look at our website The Dive Against Debris Speciality is available as part of this event to Club Members for £60.00 and counts as one of your specialities towards your Master Scuba Diver Certification In the end we will conserve only what we love; we will love only what we understand; and we will understand only what we are taught. ~ Baba Dioum, 1968
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