National Dive Centre, Chepstow:
A Change of Opinion
by Bill Quinn

Inland dive sites have never been the most appealing of places to me. Maybe it is bad memories of diver training, doing drills in a busy quarry, poor visibility, cold in a wet suit and having to carry my gear for miles to the water. However, I do acknowledge their importance. Useful for warm up dives, diver training, trying out new kit etc. Personally, though, I would prefer to be in the sea than pootling round a fresh water quarry.

I've been to the NDC a few times. All of it was for diver training. I do like the place. It certainly has potential to be an excellent site. It just needs time to mature and develop. Somewhere you could get a nice cold beer after you dive would be nice…

Thursday the 14th of April, I was joining other members of my club (Severnside) to do a couple of dives. Whilst I was doing Dive Leader training the main aim for me was to have a nice dive and enjoy the day. Chris was giving Karl a refresher before he went off to Sharm, so I was paired up with Nic. Thankfully Nic knows NDC quiet well or else I would have been swimming round in circles!

We went off the deep end, plan was to 30 metres. NDC does not allow you below this depth without an AAS. We progressed out and down a wall where we hit our maximum depth. I was surprised it was actually quite pleasant. Excellent vis, probably the best I have ever had in the UK (over 15 metres). And it was just a really pleasant wall dive. After a few minutes at maximum depth we started to circle back. We passed a few of the attractions, like the boat. And did a horseshoe back to the pontoon.

We came up along the ridge and over to the ladder where Karl was getting out, Chris was still underneath. After 40 minutes the dive was over. I was incredibly impressed - it was a lovely dive. We got really good visibility, the wall was quite interesting. For the first time I saw sand on the bottom of the quarry. It was the deepest I went in UK waters. The only thing that went against the dive was the cold 7°C, I don't like anything less than 9!

After a lesurely lunch soaking up the sun, Nic and I headed back in. First stop was the gnome garden. A circle of gnomes, some strange ornament and a telephone. No I wasn't narked, this was only at about 16 metres somewhere near the swim-throughs. After saying hello to the gnomes we progressed down to 25 metres. The rest of the dive followed a similar pattern to the first dive. Past a few of the attractions and then back to the pontoons. As we approached the pontoons, then came the biggest surprise. First I saw what looked like coral and then there was a fish - no it was a shoal of fish. For a moment I wasn't in UK waters! Clear vis and a nice little shoal of fish.

Out we got and yet again another nice dive. The cold didn't really matter as everything else was so good. Overall the day was so enjoyable that my opinion of inland sites changed, you can have a good day at them!

Compared to Stoney the NDC is a bit basic. However, NDC has recently been taken over by NDAC. Looking at the plans for future development of the sites, it is what the NDC needs to move it up a gear. Having said that, NDC is a deep site for the trimix crowd, they do have a good shop, a range of gases (air, nitrox, trimix and argon), a functional burger / bacon butty van, training tank. So the basics are there and they are planning to plant some more atractions. So at the moment it is a good site, just needs some more work (money).

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