SEVENTY-ONE per cent of the Earth’s planet is covered by water and to be able to see what lies under the surface, you need to start somewhere.

The Newport Sub-Aqua Club consists of a hardy core group of members who dive into the depths, braving the often chilly Welsh waters, to explore.

But before going out into the open water and the veritable smorgasbord of sea life in the big blue, baby steps, or strokes, are required.

The club offers ‘try-dives’, where people are able to experience scuba diving in the relatively warm shallows of The John Frost School’s swimming pool in Duffryn.

“Most of the time, with try-dives, we are approached by someone who has expressed an interest for the British Sub Aqua Club headquarters,” said Dave Summers, the club’s diving officer.

“We get the person into the pool and from there, it is based on whether they like diving or not. If they are enthusiastic about it, then we will hopefully get them on board to becoming a member.

“Some of our younger and more recently-joined members have progressed out of the pool and into open water, which is normally at the National Diving Centre in Chepstow.

“For an instructor, with the try-dive, it is based on the person’s own experience. If they are complete a novice, we go through the process a lot more gradually.

“The method of teaching is extremely safe and is progressive so that we can go at the pace of the learner to best suit their needs.

“It is important to remember that for the try-dives, the learner is assessing the centre as well.”

Having learnt to scuba dive away from Newport, Mr Summers has almost 40 years of diving experience, and the vast majority of that has been spent as an instructor.

Since arriving in the area in the early 80s, he has become one of the talisman of the city’s diving community.

“I started diving in 1979 in Gibraltar and I became qualified to instruct by 1983, when I came over here. I started teaching at the Stow Hill baths before I took over at training officer and later diving officer,” he said.

“Every British sub-aqua club needs a diving officer as they are in charge of all the matters at the club – who can dive where and with whom, what depths and experience they have.”

The try-dives take the newbie divers through the process in baby steps, or strokes even.

The sessions start with the all-important signals, many of which have been recruited into modern body language parlance, from the OK symbol – a circular thumb and index finger combination with the other three fingers upright – to the flatten shaking of a hand to indicate things are bit iffy.

The instructors helps the try-diver to get used to breathing underwater with the apparatus, which does sound a lot like an impression of Darth Vader, to being confident enough to swim around and eventually switching mouthpieces and emptying a mask filled with water.

“There is always one or two things that novices tends to struggle with. In my experience, it isn’t the breathing but it is the clearing of the mask,” said the driving officer.

“In theory, you don’t need a mask to dive underwater. As long as you have the air supply - that is the far more important issue.”

Mr Summers explains how a novice goes from being fresh into the water, to a seasoned driver with over 35 years’ experience.

“It’s an incremental scale in terms of diving experience and depths– starting at a six metres in the pool to eventually the deepest recommended depth in the UK with an oxygen tank of 50m,” he said.

“I’ve done so many dives that I’ve lost count but I guess I must be around 500 hours or more of diving experience.”

Despite the many hours underwater, the diving officer remains fully enamoured with diving.

“What I find so great about it is the variety of dives that you can do. Underwater photographers need to be diver trained or marine biologists and archaeologists,” he said.

“For me, the greatest thing about diving is the chance to escape into a different world.

“For that time while you are underwater, that is your only concern. It’s a wonderful, calming release in an alien environment.

“Slowly you become naturalised to it, but of course you still have to breathe.

“It is also a rare opportunity to play with and experience sea life, obviously not the sort that could bite your hand off but you can feed conga eels and see the vivid colours of our fish.

“It is only thing to see it on television, but it is the sensory experience of being able to feel something first hand – it’s great.

“I’ve dived in many places around the world but the one place I would like to dive is the Red Sea. There are a lot of great places to dive in the UK. West Wales particularly is a wonderful place to go.”

The club has recently celebrated its 60th anniversary, and although club member numbers are dropping, Mr Summers still believes that there is no substitute for club diving.

“We have about 20 members at the club presently. A lot of people in our experience want to dive so they opt for the quicker option of a shorter course abroad,” he said.

“The club environment is the best place to go as the wealth of experience that its members have. There are things that I can still learn off members through what they know.”

The try-dives take place at the Duffryn pool, but the club also regularly goes to the deeper pool in Monmouth, and the National Driving Centre in Chepstow, which helps members to get used to the open water environment.

“We are allowed to offer try-dives to 12-year-olds but they would need to be quite a substantial 12-year-old due to the heavy equipment,” added Mr Summers.

“With the teaching side of things – we can start that with children aged 14 and up. Any children interested in diving, I always like to invite the parents along so that they can see what happens.

“With the try-dives, we normally charge about £5 as that covers the costs of the air and the pool hire. We like to try and put try-divers together so we can start them off at the same level and build them up gradually.”

For more information about the Newport BSAC, visit newportbsac.com.