Our trip to the Diver Training College actually began whilst I was browsing around the Sheffield based dive shop SDS. I chanced across a notice left by a local diving club stating they had booked a day at the college but needed a few extra bodies to make up the numbers. A phone call quickly followed and we were in business.

Originally there was going to be five of us attending the course: Jimmy Stone, Paul Bray, Mark Webber, Jon Clark and myself. However, as we assembled at my abode on the Sunday morning the after effects of a night on the tiles meant that a very bleary-eyed Jimmy Stone had to cry off!

The College itself is an impressive place. A farmhouse styled building, it stands on 2 acres of land and is run by a group of commercial divers. We met up with our Sheffield colleagues and were split into two groups. Our team was to do the hard hat dive first.

We went inside to the training pool. This consisted of a huge tank - about three metres across and seven metres deep. A full briefing followed in which our instructor recounted a tale of one bright spark who decided to indulge in acrobatics at the bottom of the pool whilst in full hard hat dress! Needless to say, it ended in tears.

Kitting up is quite an involved process ideally requiring the assistance of two people. The dress consists of a membrane dry suit, a siebe gorman hard hat and collar, lead boots and 50kg of weight (you try diving with that in the North Sea!). Once rigged up it's time to descend into the pool via a ladder. Obviously, the need to clear you ears remains but the helmet makes it a bit difficult to hold your nose. To get around this a nose clip is used which you then dislodge at the bottom by rubbing your face against the inside of the helmet. This can take a few attempts. Wearing the suit underwater is like being inside a huge inflated balloon and your arms tend to flail around above your head as they are the only things not weighted down. The kit does keep you warm though the helmet is quite noisy due to the air being pumped into it. Movement was tricky at first but got easier as the dive progressed.At the bottom there is an air hose which can be used to inflate a lifting bag attached to a tyre. After fifteen minutes I was informed it was time to rise via the comms unit in the helmet. The climb up the ladder got more difficult the further up I went due to there being less water to support the weights. Finally I was up and out and it was someone else's turn to have a go.

After we'd all dived it was time for lunch. The college runs its own club so we retired to their clubhouse which is remarkably similar to ours: pool table, bar, bare stone walls and a dance floor. Mind you though, it does have a few windows and leather on the seats! Talking to the people from Sheffield a few similar topics of conversation cropped up: cliques, boats, secret dives and moans about the BSAC. Perhaps these matters are endemic amongst diving clubs.

The afternoon comprised of a fifty metre dive - in a recompression chamber. Again, a comprehensive lecture was given after which we all had to answer a few basic questions. I wouldn't say our group did badly but we did score less than one! We then split into two smaller groups and after the Sheffield divers had their go the four of us clambered in. "Descending" we had to clear our ears far more than on a normal dive - about twenty times. Also the temperature increased quite a bit. We spent five minutes at fifty metres. A couple of tennis balls in the chamber had been squashed flat and while speaking with squeaky voices, we found it impossible to whistle. We checked for signs of a narc but all confessed to feeling fine. Mind you though, we did laugh at one of Jon's jokes so perhaps we all were more half cut than we thought.

As we rose it began to get noticeably colder in the chamber. At one point it was almost raining. There was a decompression stop at ten metres and another at five. On the surface our voices were back to normal and we could all whistle again. We thanked our instructors for their time and said goodbye to our friends from Sheffield. All in all, a very different kind of dive and a great day out!

Footnote to the above article: An early edition of Men's Health magazine recounted a tale of a diver sitting on the toilet in a recompression chamber. His backside became sealed to the bowl and the pressure ripped out half of his intestines. He was saved by a team of diving paramedics!