I just attended TekCamp 2012, an inspiring event organized by Vobster Inland Diving Centre. The idea behind the camp is to give divers of all levels that have an interest in taking their diving further an intense week of workshops and lectures. This was the second time the event was held and already there were attendees that had driven from as far away as Holland. With twelve of the top UK instructors and over 60 attendees eager to learn it was a recipe for success, that the tent had to withstand the occasional sprinkle of rain was not enough to dampen the mood. Many of the people were there because they were thinking of beginning their transition into more technical diving but also for a chance to have experienced instructors help them to step up their game. During the week you had the opportunity to do workshops in sidemount diving, failure drills, ascents, rebreathers, DPVs and everything else that the instructors could think of.
Within diving there is so many different things to try and to learn, maybe this is one of the reasons it is such a great hobby. There is always something new to do and there is something for everyone. First day of TekCamp I found myself swimming alongside Martin Robson with a cylinder under each arm and nothing on my back. Sidemount diving was a new experience for me and I really enjoyed the freedom of movement underwater even when wearing two steel 12l cylinders. With a simple handgrip I could put one cylinder ahead of me and swim through small restrictions if need be… Or just for the fun of it.
During the week I also had a chance to get back on the Sentinel without all the exercises, just swimming along, building confidence and experience. Switching back and forth between open and closed circuit proved to be quite challenging since the buoyancy skills are so different but after about twenty minutes of bouncing all over the place I managed to stay still again.
The whole week was filled of impressions and skills underwater but it didn’t end there. Each day also offered interesting talks from the instructors at lunchtime about differing topics like decompression myths or current cave exploration projects. In the evenings there were longer talks and you couldn’t help but be inspired by listening to John Volanthen tell about his dives in Pozo Azul, Kevin Gurr talking about his dive to Titanic (in a submarine) and Phil Short told the story of his diving career. The whole group was invited to an after hours special guided tour in nearby Wookey Hole with Dr Duncan Price. Wookey Hole is very much the birthplace of cave diving and the first dives made there were made in 1935 wearing hard hats. The exploration there has continued into modern time and Rick Stanton finally made it to the end restriction at 90 meters depth.
Apart from being a diving event and a great opportunity to try and learn new things TekCamp was also very much a social event. Put that many people with common interests at the same place for a week and people will start to make friends. The event in this way helps bringing the dive community together and at the same time enhancing the education level. Hopefully the people attending this year will take their experiences home with them to their local dive communities and next year bring back more divers. I would not be surprised if we see more events like this popping up around the world.
I want to thank Jason Brown for supplying me with additional photos above. If you want to see a lot more pictures from TekCamp head over to his page http://www.bardophotographic.com
Last but not least I would like to thank the staff at Vobster for making this a very successful week, it happened because of their hard work. I think everyone there left inspired and having learnt something new.