National Watersports Festival (NWF)

Written by Club Member: Rachel Hurford
As Rutland Water is a working reservoir, and due to safety and operational reasons  it has not been possible to dive in it since 1999. Dive Rutland have been working hard with Anglian Water and NWF recently; and were very proud to be able to offer dive experiences at Rutland Water earlier this month as part of the National Watersports Festival (NWF).
 
With our stand set up next to PADI on the banks of the beautiful Rutland Water, we had a strong presence at the NWF. John Sinclair is now famous after his interviews with BBC East Midlands and Radio Leicester; and Rutland Radio even took the plunge with us. Your oscar is in the post I believe John!
 
So with lots of support from Tracey, Paul, John, Rachel, Bridget, Gill, Mark, Meryl, Sam, Holly, Richard, Charlie, Fred, Rick, Alan, PADI and myself we managed to not only get over 30 people into the water but also ensure almost every visitor to the NWF over the weekend got a free pair of PADI sunglasses.
 
Water visibility wasn't quite the same as the pool and some sessions were a bit tricky with the strong winds on the Sunday; however with a water temperature of 19 degrees and the sun out most of the weekend we had a fantastic response! Lots of people interested in signing up to our courses, and also in becoming club members. We hope to welcome some of them very soon!
 
Click here to see a short video of Rutland Radio diving with us: https://youtu.be/GD-FtNqCbFc
 
We were also very lucky to be given some Dryrobe’s to trial over the weekend. Awesome bit of kit!! A snuggly waterproof and windproof robe to keep you warm, get changed in and fits over everything. These were great for those getting out of the water and wanted to keep warm. John’s humorous demonstration of how to use them to get changed in will stay with me forever! Better still, Dryrobe very kindly decided to donate the trial robes to us - cold days at Stoney should be much warmer now!
 
A great weekend with lots to see and do as well as Scuba diving; including a beach party on the Saturday night, lots of new contacts/customers/friends made and generally lots of fun had by all. A huge thanks again to all that helped and looking forward to next year, so save the date (8-10 June 2018) and come and join us next year!

---