Hi - we're the Queen's University of Belfast Sub-Aqua Club, and we offer scuba diving and snorkelling opportunities for students and non-students, graduates and staff members of Queen's University.
We're a branch of the British Sub-Aqua Club, the UK governing body for scuba diving and snorkelling. We are primarily a 'training' branch, so we focus heavily on training new members who have never been diving.
We have several qualified instructors within the club who undertake practical and theory training; we also keep in close contact with our graduates, and many of them come and help us on training nights or during weekends away. We train in the Queen's Physical Education Centre (Queen's Sport) at Botanic Park every Thursday evening from 7.30 - 9.30 pm during term time, with dives in the sea taking place on weekends when tides and weather conditions permit.
We train all our new members to qualify with BSAC's Ocean Diver qualification, which allows you to dive to a depth of 20 metres with another similarly qualified diver. We also undertake further training, the next level being BSAC's Sports Diver qualification, which allows you to dive to a depth of 35 metres and launch in-water decompression stops.
The total number of trainees we can accept each year is limited by the equipment we hold - we typically take 12 trainees, which we split into groups of six for theory lessons and into pairs for practical (in-water) training.
BSAC recognises 'equivalent' qualifications from other diver training agencies, most notably PADI. If you qualify with PADI, you can join and go diving with us following a brief introduction to BSAC diving practices (ensuring you know any BSAC-specific signals and much more).