Get your passport, book a flight and get out of the UK! That's our best advice for getting a coastal dive this weekend. We've got huge winds over the next couple of days across South Wales, and once that calms down, the swell takes over, quite possibly reaching over 10ft at times. Even if you could get into and out of the water successfully with all that water movement, visibility is going to be affected and will likely impact the enjoyment of your dive.
If you can't fly off to an exotic destination at a moments notice, your best bet for a dive this weekend is to head to one of the inland sites in or near South Wales, such Chepstow or Vobster Quay. They'll be far less effected by all of the environmental conditions, so your main concern will be water temperature. Good quality thermal protection will be a must; dry suits, hoods, gloves, etc and you'll also need to think about how to stay and get warm whilst you are on the surface.
We're back in the swimming pool in Hebron Hall, Cardiff on Saturday with two PADI courses. We've got the PADI Open Water course running, which is the start of the students journey into Scuba Diving and we're also running the PADI Rescue Diver course for a number of students from Cardiff University.
The PADI Rescue Diver course teaches the students some basic first aid, rescue techniques (both self rescue and rescue of others) and a better understanding of the technical aspects of diving. After the 2 month break from courses whilst we were off diving with the Sharks in South Africa all of the instructors and Divemasters are excited to get back into it!