A day at Buckland Lake with DiveMania Scuba

Learn to dive in Upminster with Divemania Scuba

A customers view of May’s training weekend at Buckland Lake.

An uncharacteristically bright May sunshine accompanied DiveMania Scuba's recent May training weekend at Buckland Lake in Kent and with ten students undertaking courses we were planning for a busy and hot timetable of diving.

As we jostled for favourable positions to unpack kit, change and shade to avoid melting Jaffa cakes, the air was filled with excited conversations about the dives to come, and the regret of unpacked sun cream lotion.

On the outskirts of the scenic village of Cliffe, Buckland Lake is one of the South East's premier inland dive sites and managed by Janine and Tony Mansford.

Buckland Lake was formally a chalk, rather than a gravel or clay quarry so water clarity and quality can be better than many inland sites and is full of a healthy cocktail of sunken discoveries, from an old Pump House to a Flat bed Lorry Trailer. With the water temperature that weekend being a very pleasant 16-17 degrees, indications were that it going to be a good weekend, and so it turned out.

Not only were these conditions favourable to those working through their open water programs, and experiencing the joys of diving for the first time outside of a swimming pool, Wes, Freya, Keiran and Angela, but also for those of us undertaking advanced who were fortunate enough to clear view of a number of interesting points of reference, particularly as we undertook our wreck dives and experience which served as an exciting introduction to the joys of wreck diving.

When we all returned for the second day many faces bore witness the previous days sunshine and there was a notable increase in the application of sun block. There was also a mass invasion onto our seating section, most notably by five divers who had brought enough kit for a two week diving holiday.

Spirits remained high, tans further developed, more dives were made.

By the end of the day there was an excited sense of achievement as the trip saw DiveMania Scuba certify Freya, Keiran and Angela as Open Water Divers, whilst Karen, Craig and Kylie achieved their Advanced Open Water ratings. Congratulations also to Wes who achieved his PADI Scuba Diver rating who would subsequently go on complete his Open Water at the next training weekend at Stoney Cove.

Paul and Tim completed their Dry Suit Specialty, and not least myself and Kylie were also very pleased to have achieved their Peak Performance Buoyancy speciality.

All in all a great weekend. and the lessons learnt - always make sure you tighten your weight belt before jumping in, always make sure Karl is about if you need one recovered, always pack sun block and get your beach towel down early if you want to avoid your Jaffa Cakes melting!

Thanks to all of the staff at DiveMania Scuba for a fun weekend.