About CUUEG

• Introductory leaflet
• Frequently asked questions
• A brief history of the branch

Leaflet

One of the quickest ways to find out all you need to know about CUUEG is to read our introductory leaflet which can be downloaded here (pdf 4.92Mb).

Frequently Asked Questions

Do I Need to be able to swim?
Yes.

How good a swimmer do I have to be?
You need to be able to swim at least 200 m without difficulty.

What is different between being in a BSAC club and diving with my PAD I qualification?
You will be a member of a club. This means you have access to Training, Equipment and Buddies to dive with, as well as to the benefits of BSAC at Regional and National level.

I have heard you have minimum levels for going diving. What are they and why do you have them?
To dive on most club trips you need to have some form of rescue training, This means BSAC Sports Diver, PADI Rescue Diver, SM Club Diver, etc.

I am a PADI instructor. Can I teach?
To teach within a BSAC branch you need to cross your instructor qualification over. If you want to do this, talk to the Diving Officer or Training Officer at the squash or at the pub meet.

How much diving do you do abroad?
If people want to dive abroad, then trips will be organized. We usually try to run an overseas trip every year, provided there is demand for one.

Can I dive with you without becoming a member?
Guests can dive with the club subject to Diving Officers permission and subject to spaces not being taken up by club members; however, if you plan to dive with us regularly you need to become a member.

Where do you train?
We do pool Training at Chesterton Community College. Open-water training is done in a couple of local quarries. For the entry-level courses we run a week-long training trip over Easter.

Can I just dive on my PADI/SAA etc. qualification?
If you have a rescue qualification then yes, you need no more training. However, if you qualified somewhere warm and clear, then you will need to gain experience in diving in the UK on shallower dives before building up to the limit of your qualification.

I am a BSAC Advanced Diver what can you offer me?
What do you want? We are a progressive club, taking on board new techniques. We run trips for more experienced divers. We also have a number of trimix divers and have equipment to support such diving, should it interest you.

I am at ARU can I join your course?
We are partially funded by the University of Cambridge, this means that we have to give priority to members of the University of Cambridge. If there are spaces left on the courses, then we can discuss this.

Who will provide my instruction?
We have a team of BSAC Nationally Qualified Instructors who are helped by trained Assistant Diving Instructors. See the website for details.

Do you do any specialist training courses?
Yes. We can run many of the BSAC Skill Development Courses in-house including First Aid for divers, Oxygen Administration and Practical Rescue Management. We also have qualified Advanced Nitrox Instructors. Any courses that we cannot run entirely in-house can be arranged with help from the Regional Coaching Team.

What sort of social activities do you have?
Apart from the weekly pub meet, we organise numerous other socials throughout the year, including curry nights, barbecues, film nights and bowling trips. We also organise an annual dinner, Christmas dinner, and a garden party.

How much stuff will I have to buy?
You need to own your own Mask, Fins, and Suit. We advise people to get drysuits for use in the UK, and usually place a bulk order with a manufacturer around Christmas time in order to get you the best possibly deal. For those joining the OD/SD course, initially only a mask will be required, as all other equipment for pool training will be supplied by the club.

Is diving expensive?
Yes, unfortunately it is. However, we try and keep the costs as low as possible. None of the instructors are paid for their time, all the trips are run at cost, and equipment hire from the club is kept as low as it possible thanks to the University's subsidy of our maintenance costs.

Do I have to retrain to join you?
You don't need to retrain. However, if you don't have rescue training, then we would encourage you to join our Sports Diver course, as these additional skills are a prerequisite for most club trips.

What sort of diving does the club do?
Everything. If it's there, we'll dive it.
We dive all around the UK. Recent trips have been to:
Swanage
St Abbs
Anglesey
Pembrokeshire
Plymouth
Farne Islands
We have even dived the Cam (!), as well a regular training trips to a couple of local quarries (Guildenburgh Water and Stoney Cove).
We also sometimes dive abroad - our most recent trip was to the Red Sea.
Essentially, we do whatever diving the divers in the club want to do.

Does the club own a boat?
No.

Why not?
Due to the three-year turn-over of most of our member, we have found that it is impossible to maintain sufficient Boat Handlers, Outboard Maintenance specialists and Approved Boat Handling Instructors to instruct in seamanship skills. This is because most of our training time is required for teaching divers.

What equipment does the club own and how do I use it?
We have twelve full sets of SCUBA kit. In addition to this we have stage cylinders and regulators for more advanced diving, and safety equipment including emergency oxygen kits, oxygen analysers, and resuscitation manikins (for rescue/first aid training). You need to be a member of the Club to borrow club kit. You also need to have permission from the Diving Officer before diving using club kit.

I'm not sure I want to dive in the UK what can you offer me?
We are primarily a UK diving club. If you have not tried diving in the UK, then you should give it a go. It is very different to diving in the tropics; however, it is also brilliant diving.

Is it a club full of macho blokes?
No. None of us are particularly macho. Nor are we all blokes. We have a range of people in the club from a range of backgrounds.

Are there any female instructors?
Yes. Six of our nineteen instructors and assistant instructors are female.

Will the club help me become an instructor?
We encourage it. Although we cannot run instructor training in house, if you want to become an Instructor we can help you along the way. We have a lot of instructing experience in the club all of which can be useful.

I trained in the UK, can I dive on holiday?
Yes. UK training, and more importantly experience diving in UK waters, is recognized world wide. BSAC Qualifications will be recognized and accepted anywhere.

What's it like diving in the UK?
You remember those wonderful pictures of the on TV, of clear blue seas and divers in wet suits swimming though colourful coral forests surrounded by multi-coloured fish? Yes? Well, it's nothing like that. It's colder, darker and the visibility is usually much lower (although it can at times surprise you). Why do we do it then? It can be very rewarding, UK waters around the UK are rich with marine life and are some of the best in the world for wreck diving - the feeling of descending a shot line down onto the deck of a wreck, turning on your torch and startling a lobster out of its hole is hard to describe. You glide along the deck towards the wheel house shining your torch into passing portholes, stopping to look at some piece of wreckage. It's a very different sort of diving that you'll get abroad in warmer climes. You just have to try it ...

The reduced visibility also means that we dive in a different manner here in the UK compared with warmer climates. In warm seas diving is mainly in escorted groups led by experienced divers, whereas in the UK we normally dive as an independent two person team (known as a buddy pair), each diver being fully trained in navigation, rescue etc. That is why the UK based training agencies take longer to train a basic diver: there is more to learn.

I trained on holiday. Can I dive in the UK?
Maybe! Due to the differences in UK conditions when compared to holiday destinations you are probably not prepared for what you will encounter. If you have gained a recognised diving qualification abroad you can go diving in the UK; However, you will have to become familiar with UK conditions and do some shallow familiarisation dives and possibly a bit of training first.

How much time do I have to invest?
We require 2 evenings a week during the Michaelmas and Lent terms if you register on the OD or SD courses.

If you are already qualified, we have our pub meet on Thursdays from 9.00pm in the Panton Arms.

A Brief History of the Branch

With the rapid turnover of membership typical of a university branch, little connection had been maintained with our history, and the farthest back any current members could remember dated only to the late 1990’s, when legend has it that some unfortunate member accidentally left all of the clubs records on a platform at King’s Cross! Our recent history has simply concentrated on training students year by year, and organising recreational dive trips, in complete ignorance of our colourful and intrepid past.

All that changed earlier this year, with a ‘tip-off’ that October 2007 was to represent the 50th Anniversary of the club, accompanied by some persistent rumours that CUUEG members had achieved some significant pioneering feats in their early expeditions: heliox, Duke of Edinburgh’s prizes, and the raising of the Mary Rose, were all mentioned, along with the fact that Britain’s most successful astronaut, Michael Foale, cut his ‘hostile environment’ teeth in CUUEG. Fortunately, we were able to access archives in the Cambridge University Library, which gave us names of past members, possible leads on how to contact them via College alumni records, and a taste of the expeditions that our forefathers ran, via a collection of Expedition Reports and Scientific Publications. After six months of trawling, we were in a position to host our 50th Anniversary Ball events, which took place in October. We also came away with a much fuller impression of our club’s history.

CUUEG was founded in October 1957 by Dr Nic Flemming (currently a Trustee of the BSAC Jubilee Trust) along with Bill Hemmings and David Fagan with the aim to ‘practice diving both as an enjoyable sport, and as a way of doing research or exploring the wildest boundaries of the seas and lakes’. CUUEG was the first university branch of the BSAC, and is the only group to have won the BSAC Duke of Edinburgh’s Prize for underwater achievement three times (including the first ever award in 1965).