It’s a 24-hour dive, dive, dive for charity
Nearly 70 members of St Albans SAC recently took part in a 24-hour diveathon at the Cottonmill Swimming Pool to raise more than £1,500 for the Scuba Trust.
They whiled away the hours playing underwater hockey, hand tennis and even found time to read glossy magazines as they completed their marathon charity dive.
The event was organised to celebrate BSAC’s 60th anniversary as well as the re-opening of their newly refurbished lido pool which they lease from the local council. The open air pool has had a major £50,000 overhaul thanks to funding through Sport England. Thanks to the grant, the restoration has seen leak repairs and the refurbishment of the formerly unusable poolside changing rooms and showers.
The revamped pool means the club can offer it as a community resource for other local clubs, including a local canoe club.
Lisa Shafe, a diving instructor with St Albans SAC and one of the organisers of the diveathon, said: “The whole event was fantastic, absolutely brilliant, even if we are all shattered!
“Our aim was to have 60 divers in the pool over the 24 hour period and we beat that with 68 divers taking part. The combined dive times of all the divers amounts to 72 hours 20 minutes.
“And we had a target of raising £1,000 toward the work of the Scuba Trust, which helps people with disabilities enjoy diving, and we have easily topped that total through our on-line charity giving site and pledges.”
She added: “As a club we were delighted to welcome the Mayor of St Albans, Annie Brewster, along. She enjoyed some snorkelling with us while we also had several people come along to have a go with try-dives.
“I’m absolutely thrilled that, as a result, we have three new members signed up as club members while a further seven people are considering whether they want to join the club and take up our wonderful sport.”
According to Lisa, the scuba divers came up with all sorts of novel ways to pass the time as they completed the diveathon.
She said: “We started at mid-day on Saturday and went through until 8pm. Unfortunately, we experienced some pretty heavy thunderstorms and came out of the water just after 8pm until they cleared.
“The pool is in a residential area and out of respect for our neighbours we stayed out of the water, to keep any noise to a minimum, until just before dawn going back in at 3am and staying until mid-day on the Sunday.
“Some of our younger club members enjoyed an energetic game of ‘octopush’ which is a form of underwater hockey. Others had a game of underwater hand tennis while I decided to settle down with a good old magazine for a quiet read.
“Glossy magazines will survive being dunked underwater for a couple of hours before they disintegrate so my aquatic read proved no problem.”
She added: “As a club we couldn’t be happier, we have raised a fantastic sum for the Scuba Trust, attracted some new members to the club and also supported Help for Heroes. What a brilliant weekend!”
To find out more about St Albans Sub Aqua Club, visit http://www.sasac.co.uk/
