In a hurry? Here's the summary
- We welcome women and men over 18 years of age as members, and children of members aged 14+
- Join the club for £50 per annum plus BSAC membership
- We welcome all divers regardless of training agency and recognise existing qualifications
- Further your training (if you like) on Thursday evenings 8pm-10pm from £180 plus course pack fee
Dive with us!
If you are already qualified (certified) with any diver training agency, you can join Marlin Sub-Aqua Club and dive with us without doing any further training.
We welcome women and men and aim to help you achieve your diving goals and have fun!
The club meets every week and you’ll find a warm and sociable welcome at our bar in the Griff and Coton Sports Club. You will have free of charge access to the pool at Pingles Leisure Centre every other week for testing new kit, or simply going for a swim.
We have equipment for members to rent.
Our dive management team arranges diving around the coast of the British Isles and abroad. Diving with the club provides you with a cohort of like-minded people to dive with – no more pairing up with an ‘instabuddy’ on the dive boat!
Technical diving
Marlin Sub-Aqua Club is setup to welcome and support technical divers on open or closed circuit. We promote team diving and are especially keen to integrate GUE divers into the club environment.
We promote safe, adventurous diving, with efficient decompression strategies. The practical result of this is that our open circuit divers (for example) favour a standardised manifolded twinset/primary donate configuration, with helium containing breathing gases (trimix) below 40 metres, and 50% or oxygen during decompression. Uniquely in the midlands our Gas Shed can provide nitrox and trimix to members at affordable prices making this philosophy extremely easy to implement.
We do not allow solo diving within the club.
Project diving
Diving projects allows teams of divers to accomplish tasks together, and give purpose to a sequence of dives. Projects may be exploratory in nature, or may aim to monitor a site (such as a wreck) over time, or to collect marine life data through surveys.
Marlin Sub-Aqua Club flagship project:
Members have also volunteered with the following projects:
I am currently working towards my Dive Leader and Open Water Instructor qualifications. I started diving in 2018 having never considered it before, but the company I work for was offering grants to employees to take up a sport and diver training with Marlin Sub-Aqua Club was an option. I wanted to push myself out of my comfort zone and so I signed up and have never looked back!
I qualified as an Ocean Diver and Sports Diver in 2019 and built up my skills with a single cylinder setup before Covid hit and everyone went on a diving hiatus. Once diving resumed, I switched my configuration to a twinset (double cylinders instead of one) so I could do longer and deeper dives, as well as be more self reliant.
I have dived mostly inland in places such as Stoney Cove and Capernwray but also in several coastal areas around the UK such as the Farne Islands, Portland and Lundy Island. I want to continue to dive at more UK coastal locations and also dive abroad. Diving makes me feel free and alive! Being able to experience a completely different world and the feeling of weightlessness you get whilst diving is pretty much incomparable to any other activity on the planet!
Furthering your training
Our instructors can teach the complete British Sub-Aqua Club Diver Training Programme including Advanced Ocean Diver, Sports Diver, Dive Leader (Dive Master) and Advanced Diver qualifications. If your current qualification is not from BSAC you will be able to cross-over and continue your training at the next level up without repeating a course.
We can support your diving goals through Skills Development Courses (SDCs), including Buoyancy & Trim Workshop, Drysuit Diver, Nitrox Workshop, Wreck Diver, photography etc. We have specialist instructors who can teach courses such as Twin-set Diver, Primary Donate Workshop, Advanced Wreck Diver, Compressor Operator and Mixed Gas Blender that are not routinely offered in diving clubs.
We have written a pair of blog articles, here and here, that provide more information about our thoughts on diver progression.
This is an optional intermediate course between the Ocean Diver and Sports Diver courses, which qualifies divers to thirty metres. It includes nitrox and drysuit qualifications. If you complete this course you can upgrade to Sports Diver later on without repeating the modules you have already done. A typical training schedule is shown below:
| ID | Title | Type | Location |
| AOR | Refresher/orientation (optional) | Open water | Stoney Cove |
| AOT1 | Introduction to deep diving | Classroom | Griff & Coton |
| AOT2 | Equipment and techniques | Classroom | Griff & Coton |
| AOO1 | Use of SMB | Open water | Stoney Cove |
| AOO2 | DSMB deployment | Open water | Stoney Cove |
| AOO3 | Compass navigation | Open water | Stoney Cove |
| AOT4 | Breathing gas systems | Classroom | Griff & Coton |
| AOX25 | Depth progression to 22-25m | Open water | Stoney Cove |
| AOX30 | Depth progression to 27-30m | Open water | Stoney Cove |
This course qualifies divers to thirty-five metres with mandatory decompression stops. It includes nitrox and drysuit qualifications. A typical training schedule is shown below, after which experience dives are required:
| ID | Title | Type | Location |
| ST1 | Sport diving | Classroom | Griff & Coton |
| ST2 | Diver rescue | Classroom | Griff & Coton |
| SP1 | Basic life support (BLS) | Dry practical | Griff & Coton |
| SS1 | Rescue skills | Sheltered water | Pingles |
| ST3 | Equipment and techniques | Classroom | Griff & Coton |
| ST4 | Deeper diving | Classroom | Griff & Coton |
| ST5 | Breathing gas systems | Classroom | Griff & Coton |
| ST6 | Going diving | Classroom | Griff & Coton |
| SP2 | Assistant dive manager | Dry practical | Griff & Coton |
| SO1 | Diver rescue | Sheltered water | Pingles |
| SO1 | Use of SMB | Open water | Stoney Cove |
| SO2 | Simulated decompression dive | Open water | Stoney Cove |
| SO3 | Compass navigation / DSMB deployment | Open water | Stoney Cove |
| SO4 | Dive leading / basic skills review | Open water | Stoney Cove |
This course qualifies divers to manage groups of divers at sites that are well known to the club or unknown sites if using a professional boat skipper. It includes oxygen administration and practical rescue management qualifications. A typical training schedule is shown below, after which experience dives are required:
| ID | Title | Type | Location |
| DT1 | The role of the Dive Leader | Classroom | Griff & Coton |
| DO1 | DSMB use | Open water | Stoney Cove |
| DO1 | Dive leading demonstration | Open water | Stoney Cove |
| DO3 | Dive leading practice | Open water | Stoney Cove |
| DT2 | Basic life support | Classroom | Griff & Coton |
| DT3 | Oxygen and diving incidents | Classroom | Griff & Coton |
| DT4 | Casualty assessment | Classroom | Griff & Coton |
| DT5 | Oxygen administration equipment | Classroom | Griff & Coton |
| DT6 | Oxygen administration in practice | Classroom | Griff & Coton |
| DT7 | Use of oxygen administration equipment | Classroom | Griff & Coton |
| DT8 | Dive planning | Classroom | Griff & Coton |
| DO4 | Shot recovery by simple lift | Open water | Stoney Cove |
| DT9 | Rescue management – part 1 | Classroom | Griff & Coton |
| DO5 | Rescue management scenarios | Open water | Stoney Cove |
| DT10 | Helicopter operations | Classroom | Griff & Coton |
| DT11 | Rescue management – part 2 | Classroom | Griff & Coton |
| DO6 | Diving and rescue skills review | Open water | Stoney Cove |
| DO7 | Rescue skills review | Open water | Stoney Cove |
| DT12 | Dive management | Classroom | Griff & Coton |
| DP1a | Dive management | Dry practical | Griff & Coton |
| DP1b | Dive management | Dry practical | Boat dive |
This course qualifies divers to manage groups of divers at unknown sites. A typical training schedule is shown below, after which experience dives are required:
| ID | Title | Type | Location |
| AT1 | The role of the Advanced Diver | Classroom | Griff & Coton |
| AT2 | Advanced diving | Classroom | Griff & Coton |
| AT3 | Organising diving from different platforms | Classroom | Griff & Coton |
| AP1 | Expedition planning | Dry practical | Griff & Coton |
| AT4 | Review of diving conditions and on-site first aid | Classroom | Griff & Coton |
| AO1 | Diving and rescue skills review | Open water | Stoney Cove |
| AO2 | Rescue skills and management review | Open water | Stoney Cove |
| AP2 | Dive planning and management | Dry practical | Griff & Coton |
Frequently asked questions
Courses are a mixture of:
- Theory, which takes place in the function room of the Griff and Coton Sports and Social Club, Health End Road, Nuneaton, CV10 7JQ
- Sheltered water training in the swimming pool at Pingles Leisure Centre, Avenue Road, Nuneaton, CV11 4LX
- Open water training takes place at Stoney Cove
During your training the club provides almost all of the scuba equipment you need so there is no need to buy kit yourself. The cost to get you started on the Advanced Ocean Diver or Sports Diver courses after you join the club is:
- Training fee £180 (includes equipment loan and two days open water instruction)
- Course pack fee (£20-£73 depending on course / format)
Once you move to the open water part of the course there are additional costs that are charged per day and are not included in the above fee. We suggest you budget for two days of open water training:
- Your entry into Stoney Cove (per day) £27
- Hire of a wetsuit or drysuit from Stoney Cove (per day) £18-£40 (correct as of March 2023)
Marlin Sub-Aqua Club is currently able to offer training to new members from 18 years of age.
Children aged 14+ are able to undertake training providing that a relative is a diving member of the club.
Diving is a physical activity but you don’t need to be super fit to dive. Women and men of all shapes and sizes enjoy scuba diving! The equipment you start off with is relatively lightweight and teenagers should be able to lift it – in the water you are weightless.
In order to start diver training you need to be able to answer No to the questions on the BSAC Medical Form. If you have answered Yes to any questions that doesn’t mean you cannot dive, but that you will need to get a certificate from a specialist diving doctor.
The most cost effective way of obtaining a fit to dive certificate is to book a telephone consultation with DDRC Healthcare, who are a charity that run the hyperbaric chamber in Plymouth. They may sign you off over the phone, but if you require a face to face consultation the nearest facility is at the Midland Dive Chamber in Rugby.
We encourage you to join the club first and we can assist with answering any questions – if it turns out you aren’t fit to dive your membership fee will be refunded.
We have courses running through-out the year and will provide training in response to people joining the club and needing to advance their qualifications.
Scuba diving is a great way to make new friends! You are assured of a warm welcome whether you are male or female, and join on your own or with a friend or relative.
Contact us with questions or join the club online at bsac.com.