Monty opens new shop!

Monty Halls must be one of the most popular figures amongst the UK diving community, and with good reason – he’s an absolutely all-round top chap.

When he’s not entertaining us with diving tales in our favourite magazines, he’s on BBC 2 leading us on extraordinary adventures around the planet’s coastlines and the underwater world.

And now, Monty’s just opened a brand new shop in Dartmouth – which he describes as a dream come true for him – called Monty Halls’ Great Escapes.

As well as the shop, which sells lots of cool stuff like wildlife books, DVDs and decorative items and artworks, Monty also runs a huge number of courses and on most days you can find Monty and his faithful hound Reuben manning the decks.

The courses themselves feature training from some of the country’s most renowned natural history filmmakers and photographers, and include beginners’ and intermediate Underwater Photography (2 day courses each) as well as a 3-day Advanced Underwater Photography course for would-be professionals.

There’s also a course on Presenting Wildlife and Adventure Television Programmes (2 days) run by Monty, as well as Underwater Videography (2 days) run by a full-time natural history filmmaker and a Wildlife and Adventure Television Production (2 days) which covers the basic aspects of television and film production.

We love the Foraging and Surfing course (1 Day), which Monty describes as ‘a flagrant attempt to disguise a really good day out as a training course’ and includes a day on the RIB looking for basking sharks and a spearfishing and scallop hunting session, followed by a two-hour surf and a BBQ.

And finally, Monty will be running regular 90-minute boat trips from his RIB to take you on wildlife spotting trips up the River Dart and out along the coast.

You can even book a day’s diving with Monty from the RIB, and a BBQ in the evening – bring your own dive kit, but air fills are available. 

For more information, visit Monty Halls’ Great Escapes on Facebook.

A truly tropical Dive Fest

If you’ve always fancied checking out BSAC’s annual Dive Fest but aren’t too keen on the the chilly Cornish waters, perhaps the Caribbean might be more of your cuppa?

The Caribbean’s longest running dive festival takes place every July and this year, fans of the underwater world will be flocking to the beautiful island nation of Dominica to celebrate the best of tropical diving.

Dominica boasts one of the most fascinating diving experiences in the Caribbean, from eye-poppingly steep 6,000 ft drop-off walls and thriving reefs of vibrantly coloured coral to ‘Champagne’ snorkelling and the chance to see species rarely seen around other Caribbean islands.

Now in its 18th year, Dive Fest aims to bring scuba diving to a wider audience and raise awareness of the unique marine life in Dominica.

This year’s festival takes place from 8th to 17th July and will feature highlights like underwater workshops, whale watching, photography classes, an underwater treasure hunt, spectacular dive sites and the first ever mermaid photo competition!

The festival wraps up on 17th July with the hotly contested Kubuli Carib canoe race, followed by the Soufriere Kubuli Beach Party.

Dive Fest is organised by the Dominica Watersports Association (DWA) and a detailed schedule of this year’s events can be found here.

Double the diving at DiveFest!

Divers can take advantage of the extra bank holiday on Friday 29th April to do even more diving at this year’s eagerly-anticipated Dive Fest, from 29th April to 2nd May 2011.

Tickets are on sale now for Dive Fest, the country’s biggest dive festival, which takes place every year at Pentewan Sands Holiday Park in Cornwall.

In honour of the Royal Wedding, this year’s event kicks off with a Top Hats and Tiaras party in the main marquee, as well as a very royal ‘afternoon tea’.

There’ll be diving throughout the weekend organised by on-site dive centre Sal Diving which includes hardboat diving, or you can join the countless other BSAC branches attending with their own RIBs, which Sal Diving can help to launch and recover. Air fills will be on hand throughout the event too.

Meanwhile in the exhibitor marquee there’ll be demo’s of top diving kit manufacturers and tour operators, and Suunto will be sponsoring ‘Suunto Saturday’, which includes special entertainment, a curry served in the main marquee and a bonfire on the beach.

There’s lots for non-divers too including great live bands, beach parties and the chance to try out some circus skills!

Visit www.divefest.co.uk for more information.

Dive art by Jill Heinerth

We recently came across some stunning images taken by the Canadian underwater explorer and filmmaker Jill Heinerth.

As well as winning awards for her documentary series’ on the world’s greatest water systems, Jill has also dived deeper into caves than any other woman in history.

From incredibly deep cave dives into beautiful underwater labyrinths to ancient wreck dives and iceberg caves, Jill’s pictures are truly remarkable.

See Jill’s Dive Art here or click here to see the galleries of amazing cave dives.

Get set for The Big Scuba Show

Tickets are now on sale for The Big Scuba Show at the Olympia, London, which runs from 19-20 February 2011.

If you fancy discovering amazing new dive destinations, checking out the latest scuba gear, getting discounts on equipment or winning some dream liveaboard trips to Indonesia or the Red Sea, then now’s the time to snap up your tickets!

Show highlights include a special series of BSAC training lectures for Dive Leaders and Advanced Divers, plus talks from some fantastic names from the sport, including the great Monty Halls, extreme technical diver Andy Torbet, underwater photographers Charles Hood and Michael Aw and the BBC’s Secret Seas team.

For more information visit www.thebigscubashow.co.uk

Sardine Run competition launches

Without a doubt, this has to be every diver’s dream competition prize!

If you’re at this month’s Dive Show at the NEC, drop in on specialist tour operators African Space at Stand 516 between 30-31 October and purchase a raffle ticket to enter this once-in-a-lifetime competition!

African Space are offering one lucky diver two fully-paid tickets to visit South Africa’s east coast and witness up-close the spectacular Sardine Run in 2011.

This awe-inspiring feat of nature occurs each year between May and June when millions of South African sardines spawn and move northwards en-masse along the country’s east cost.

It is estimated that these shoals can reach an incredible 7km long and 1.5km wide, attracting a vast mass of predators such as whales, sharks, dolphins and seals who converge on the shoals in a feeding frenzy.

Organisers have been diving and surveying the Sardine Run site for several years now, and in that time they’ve witnessed:

• Thousands of dolphins
• Hundreds of bronze whaler sharks
• Great white sharks
• Humpback whales
• Fur seals
• Sand tiger sharks
• Sardine ‘bait balls’ reaching up to 20 metres in diameter.

The African Space Sardine Run Expedition takes place in June 2011 in the small fishing village of Port St John’s on the aptly named Wild Coast, where organisers will search a spectacular stretch of the ocean between the Port and Waterfall Bluff (also featured on the BBC’s Blue Planet series) to bring divers into contact with ‘the greatest shoal on earth’.

BSAC and PADI divers qualified to Sports Diver / Advanced Open Water level and above can enter the competition at the Dive Show by visiting African Space at Stand 516 between 30^th and 31^st October, and purchasing a ticket to enter the raffle.

All proceeds from the raffle will go towards African Space Trust’s £50,000 fundraising effort to construct a medical centre in the village of Itete in the Kilombero Valley.

For more information, visit www.africanspace.co.uk or purchase your tickets for the Dive Show at www.diveshows.co.uk