NDAC - National Diving Activity Centre - permanently closed

[Roz]

Here's my article on NDAC closing. It was a superb facility for technical training and we've been very lucky with the staff that ran it.

I've dived Wast and Dotty. Got very narked at Wast because it is so dark, and you do get four seasons in four minutes there.

The problem with both places is that neither have top side logistics that Chepstow had. Gas, toilets, bacon sandwiches, shelter, consumables, etc.

NDAC: Top UK dive training quarry closes

The National Diving & Activity Centre (NDAC) has issued a 'notice of site closure' today, Friday 18 February 2022.

xray-mag.com

 

[Wibble]

Goodness knows what we're going to do for "enclosed" deep practice.

Yes, of course there's the sea.... when it's open and not blowing a hooligan. Even doing a MOD1 / Helitrox course is going to be really hard as there's nowhere below 35m now (Dotty and Wastwater excepting)

 

[Graeme Fraser]

Here's my article on NDAC closing. It was a superb facility for technical training and we've been very lucky with the staff that ran it.

I've dived Wast and Dotty. Got very narked at Wast because it is so dark, and you do get four seasons in four minutes there.

The problem with both places is that neither have top side logistics that Chepstow had. Gas, toilets, bacon sandwiches, shelter, consumables, etc.

NDAC: Top UK dive training quarry closes

The National Diving & Activity Centre (NDAC) has issued a 'notice of site closure' today, Friday 18 February 2022.

xray-mag.com

I remember Jack Ingle telling me that we had all used the original contents of the quarry on many occasions, including that particular day. After I looked blankly at him, he explained that it was used to build the M4.

Not sure if it's true or not, but I've used that fact in many a student site brief since. Never let the truth get in the way of a good yarn, I say!

 

[shoredivr]

That's the one.

Seems it's not really a viable NDAC replacement :-(

I did a cheeky dive in Loch Ness on the way back from Scapa a couple of years ago. Interesting in a lot of ways: very few entrance points (I found one on the eastern side several miles south of Inverness); quite dark at 2m as the tannins suck the light out of your torches, by 5m it's pitch black; very little to see as there's no light; the water's clear and clean but it's an odd feeling needing to be close to the bottom to see it; that stupid feeling of pending doom as my "captain" was having a fit on my shoulder -- Nessie's going to get you... I literally didn't want to go any deeper than 10m and 30 mins was enough for me.

View attachment 708338

View attachment 708337

Sounds like any of the tannic lakes in the Haliburton/Kawarthas in Ontario. I did a dive on the wreckage of a formerly glorious 1920-1950s hotel that had burned to the ground, and was bulldozed off the edge of the cliff into the lake (as you did back then). Top 25 feet were as you described in Loch Ness, then you hit the themocline and the water temp dropped from mid 60Fs to 42F. The water was completely clear, and completely without light from above, so like a night dive. We picked over the wreckage, old bed frames, gutters, and a single hotel dinner plate, imported from the Old Country.

 

[shoredivr]

According to this article, the plate was manufactured anywhere from 1933 to 1978, so end of the 1950s when the hotel burned is in range

The Grindley Hotel Ware Co Ltd

 

[BlueTrin]

Secret’s out: UK dive-site now ’DEEP Campus’

Rumours swirled about the identity of a mysterious new owner after the popular Gloucestershire inland dive-site NDAC closed early last year. Now the secret is

divernet.com

 

[Wibble]

Love the artists "impressions". So much cheaper to sketch the dream than develop it.

The view of NDAC from the air is depressing. So much has gone from the site; from the "teepees" through to the other buildings and even a lot of the pontoon's been removed.

The site was being used by certain military organisations who liked the ability to train in private. They paid a lot more than smelly, moaning, stupid divers.

NDAC's loss remains a complete disaster for UK technical dive training and practice