Jay\’s Ramblings

The Diving Network announces the release of the Diving Directory – a brand new internet resource for divers and dive businesses. The Diving Directory uses the latest technology to enable divers to plan trips and holidays through an innovative modification to the popular Google Map technology. Using the map system as an interface, divers can search the world for dive centres and holiday operators through the click of a button. New destinations are being added to the database on an ongoing basis and further attractions, such as wreck and decompression chamber databases, are due for imminent release. Further information such as trip reports and diving articles are drawn from associated websites like Travel Dive, Shadow Diving and Yorkshire Divers. Members of Yorkshire Divers dive forums are also able to rate destinations they have visited in order to build a truly independent ratings system based on experience.

“I came up with the concept as a result of being disappointed with dive holidays I had arranged in the past” said Alan Edwards, managing director of Diving Network Ltd. “Destinations are always immaculate in brochures but it is not until you arrive that you get to see the true picture. By that time it is too late if things are not what they were portrayed to be.”

By building in the ratings system, the Diving Directory will build a solid and reliable gauge of quality that clients can trust. The dive centres and holiday operators are being rated by fellow divers – people who have been there and experienced first hand what local conditions are like. We hope this will help drive standards within the diving industry even higher. Dive operators who join the Diving Directory are given a host of online resources to help them advertise their services to their prospective clients. Each is given a free website complete with online tools to quickly and efficiently get their site up and running. Specialist search engine optimisation (SEO) software ensures that their web pages are quickly picked up and this should result in improved search engine placement. Images of the local dive attractions can be added and the option of adding short video clips is planned for a future release.

“As internet technology becomes more a part of day to day life, clients are planning and purchasing more goods and services via the internet and holidays are no exception.” said Jason Bolt, marketing director. “I think the days of people planning holidays from glossy brochures are numbered. By bringing together key internet resources and linking them all via one site we are enabling clients and businesses to come together in new and exciting ways. Businesses who fail to adapt to the new opportunities offered by the internet risk being left behind by their competitors.”

The Diving Directory is online at http://www.diving-network.com.

Companies who want more information on how they can be listed can contact ddsales@diving-network.com.

Just a quick note to let you know about another dive centre in West Yorkshire. Pro Scuba is run by Steve Bateman (Smudge), an old YD member. Smudge has run outdoor pursuits training for a few years now and was a member of my old dive club (Seadog in Huddersfied). He also offers dive tuition and, in typical Smudge fashion, has a different angle on his business pursuits! Quoted from Steve’s website:

“We also provide people to act as safety cover for TV and film production. This includes media rescue divers and underwater photography support divers. We cover first aid and provide medical facilities, advise and training.

Recent TV production involvement includes Hollyoaks, Coronation Street, Emmerdale, Eastenders, Murder in Suburbia, Fat Friends, Blue Murder, Where The Heart Is, Cutting it, Grange Hill, Heartbeat, The Bill, No Angles and many more.”

Good luck Smudge - will pop in for a coffee soon!!

Jay
Yorkshire Divers

As evening fell the Girona, already badly damaged by the worst storms on record, limped into a shallow bay off the Giant’s Causeway to shelter overnight. By morning she, and all but 5 of the 1300 souls on board, had perished. Originally designed to carry 550 crew, the Girona was making her way back to Spain with the remanants of the crews from two other wrecked ships, the Sancta Maria Encoronada and the Duquesa Santa Ana. For the next four centuries, the story of the Girona and her lost crew fell into local legend.

1965 and a Belgian diver and archaelologist, Robert Stenuit, was researching the possible site of the Girona’s wreck site. While other attempts at locating the wreck had failed, Stenuit relied on thoroughly researching his subject matter and talking to local residents about tales of Spanish shipwrecks. Amazingly, even after such a long time, the legend of the Girona was still alive in local stories and place names. One place name, in particular, attracted Stenuit’s attention - Port na Spaniagh - was a local name for a cove near the Giant’s Causeway on the North Irish coastline. In June 1967, Stenuit and his team located what was left of the Girona in 6 metres of water, in Port Na Spaniagh.

For the next two years, Stenuit and his team brough up over 12,000 artifacts from single links from gold chains, to a ring given to the master of the Girona by his fiance, engraved in Spanish with “I have nothing more to give you.”

The collection was acquired by the Ulster Museum and is still on display in Belfast - a tribute to the determination of one man and his refusal to give up his search.

It was indirectly thanks to Robert Stenuit that I started diving. During the two seasons they dived the wreck site, Stenuit and his team stayed at my grandmother’s B&B in Portballintrae. This was two years before I was born but I grew up on tales of the divers and what they had accomplished. My grandfather’s house was adorned with signed prohotgraphs of Stenuit examining some of the treasure on his RIB (the same photograph that appeared in National Geographic 1969). Every Christmas, for years, a Christmas card from Stenuit took pride of place on my Grandparent’s fireplace.

I have got in touch with Robert and we have talked on the telephone but this was a couple of years ago. He spends much of his time at sea, on new quests although now he stays on the boat rather than dive the sites. He still has fond memories of his time at my grandparents’ B&B and asked how “Wee John” was - John is my uncle and has just turned 42.

I intend to meet Robert and complete a more indepth interview with him - but most of all I wish to shake the hand of the man who meant so much to my grandparents and who, albeit indirectly, first made me dream of the underwater kingdom.

Sources:

• Ulster Museum
• National Geographic - June 1969