Summary

Anyone in the club can organise a dive, and is encouraged to do so. Organising dives yourself is the best way to make sure you get to go diving, particularly for Ocean and Sports Divers.

This page outlines what you’ll need to do to organise a dive in Dublin Bay, following Covid guidelines. If you’re not sure about anything, ask someone on the committee or one of the more experienced members of the club for help.

To organise a dive, you will need to do the following:

  1. Contact the Diving Officer to:
    1. find out if boats are free (check the calendar first)
    2. let them know where you plan on diving

    If the DO is happy with this, the boat(s) will be booked in your name.

  2. Once you get confirmation from the DO, send an e-mail to club looking for other divers – don’t forget to send the new DUSAC guidelines for risk minimisation for the safe return to diving V2.0 (May 2021).
  3. From reply e-mails, put dive plan together (see below for details on dive plan).
  4. Send your plan to the DO for approval.
  5. E-mail approved plan to club. Give people at least 1-2 days notice to prepare gear, fill bottles etc.
  6. Go diving. Usually meet in club rooms at 5pm on weekdays – bottles MUST be filled beforehand – to load gear into cars and arrive in Dun Laoghaire by 6pm.
  7. Send dive details to DO and Treasurer (depths, times, air in/out, gas mix, treasurer trip report) on return.

Putting the Dive Plan Together

To find a group of people to go diving, send out an e-mail to the club mailing list (dusac@googlegroups.com ) giving details of what you are planning.

You will need the Following People:

  • An Advanced Diver (AD)
  • 2 boat handlers (BH) per boat (this may include the AD)
  • enough Dive Leaders (DL) to buddy trainees or ocean divers (OD)
  • enough people with cars to transport diving gear*

* usually 2-3 cars per boat (6 divers) are needed to transport gear. If there are only 2 cars, not all passengers may fit, but they can make their own way to Dun Laoghaire on DART. If you have only one car, but it has a tow bar, all gear can be put in the trailer and all people can get the DART

Note that:

  • Sports Divers (SD) can dive with other SDs and DLs (but not ODs)
  • Only 6 divers can be accommodated in each boat

While it is tempting to put the plan together on a ‘first-come, first-served’ basis, remember that some people have much more immediate access to e-mail than others. Try to make sure that the plan is fair by including people who have not been able to get on previous dive plans, where appropriate. Anyone found to be showing favouritism will be ‘dealt with’ (best not find out what that means!)

Once you have a plan, send it to the Diving Officer for approval before you reply to everyone on the list.

Tides & Weather

The Dive Marshall (Advanced Diver) should check the tides and weather before the day. Tide times can be checked using a book of tide tables, or for up to 7 days in advance on the UK Hydrographic Office website. Slack water will be roughly 1 to 1 1/2 hours before high or low water. See our tides page for more information.

Our weather forecast page gives lots of ways to find a weather forecast.

Equipment

For shore diving, you will need:

  • An oxygen kit and oxygen cylinder
  • A first aid kit
  • An oxygen analyser for analysing breathing gas
  • A mobile phone for emergencies
  • A slate / notepad for dive logging

If you are diving from the club boats, you will need the following equipment for each boat:

  • The boat keys
  • A jerry can for petrol (2 cans if diving far out to sea – e.g Bolivar, Leinster)
  • An oxygen kit and oxygen cylinder
  • An oxygen analyser for analysing breathing gas
  • Tools (kept in boat, but check)
  • Flares (kept in boat, but check)
  • First aid kit (kept in boat, but check)

Depending on the dive site, you may also need:

  • A shot line, weights and buoy for shotting wrecks etc.
  • Surface Marker Buoys (SMBs) for drift diving

The boats are equipped with in-built VHF radios, sounders and GPSs but you should check that they are working before going out. In the event of any problem with the radio, a mobile phone may be usable if diving relatively near to shore.

Refuelling the boat

You should find the boat filled with petrol when you arrive, and you will have to fill it up again (main tank, plus reserve tank, if you used it) after you have finished diving. If you don’t refill the boat you will be asked to pay for the cost of filling it next time. You will need to get petrol on the way to Dun Laoghaire (We usually go to the Texaco garage north of Booterstown – not the garage by the DMYC). The boats take unleaded petrol and you’ll need one can for Dalkey Sound, the Muglins or the Guide Me, two cans for the Bolivar or the Leinster.

You should collect money for petrol from everyone diving, and also make sure that parking money is refunded to those that paid.

Cancelling a dive

Sometimes it is necessary to cancel a dive at late notice because the weather is worse than had been forecasted. You should contact the Dive Marshall (Advanced Diver) and they will decide if the dive should go ahead or not. If they cancel the dive, you should contact everyone on the dive and ask them to confirm they’ve received the message. Using email is ok if you give people a couple of days’ notice but if it is a weekend or only a few hours before the dive was scheduled to go out, contacting them by mobile is best. Therefore it’s usually a good idea to ask for people’s mobile numbers when you’re sending out the dive plan.

Records

You will need to collect records of depths, times, air in/out and gas mix from everyone, and to send these to the Diving Officer after the dive.

You will also need to fill out a trip report outlining any costs of the dive. You can download a form to fill out digitally here, and email it back to the treasurer at ‘dusac.treasurer@gmail.com’, or you can download a pdf here, which you can print out, and hand in to the treasurer yourself.