Our new pool had hit a small snag while the main roof to the building was repaired. We are happy to announce that it was signed off last Monday and building work is due to start again in the new year! All that remains currently is fitting of the staircase back down to the warehouse level, cladding of the pool room with water resistant plastic, flooring the pool side, Installing the glass bifold doors, adding the changing and showing facilities and fitting the plant room out. Easy! After that, we need to find a whole heap of water and we are good to go! 

The new pool is a an exciting addition to our facility and will mean we can offer training or pool hire anytime, day or night. Club members will have more access to the pool than ever and we will be increasing the number of sessions included in the club membership. We still plan to hold monthly or twice monthly club nights where we all come together to talk nonsense, have a dive then maybe grab a beer at the neighbouring brewery a few units down! A lot of manufacturers have been interested in using the facility as a test centre for drysuits, scooters, CCRs, wings, regs and computers. We have already made deals with Shearwater to be a test centre and have at least one of every product for you to use, and the same applies to Apeks, Santi and Fourth Element.

We will have an all new booking system for pool time, allowing you to book spaces for a quick dip, exclusively book half hours for you and your buddies, or book a coaching session with one of our instructors. The team plan to spend a lot of time with you guys on whatever equipment configuration your prefer perfecting the solid foundations of a good diver. Thank you to Greg who suggested we fit a mirror in the pool where you can see your own trim and skills to get an idea if what it feels like relates to what it looks like! We are thinking to have a live and recorded video feed from in the pool so you can perform skills to and ask for them to be evaluated. 

Some of the other cool things we plan to add include: -

• A full Freediving arm of the business run by a dedicated freediving instructor to offer training and create a community of active free divers. We will support this with open water freediving, freediving trips, equipment, events and club much like the Dive side. 
• The Scuba Rangers Club (which is having a name change within SSI to “Explorers”) will be more formally organised with multiple weekly sessions and lots new levels added. There will be more specialities for Explorers like Night Diving and Wreck Diving and a more educational focus with programs like ecology and Fish Identification. We will also create a higher achievement level similar to an assistant instructor where experienced Explores can help teach each other. 
• Mermaiding is extremely popular around the world now and we want to bring some of that fun and excitement to the dive centre! We will be training as Mermaiding Instructors and offering a range of courses and equipment including photography sessions to complement it. 
• Swim School will be a big part of the new system, watermanship is the key part of our sports and being a more accomplished swimmer is something I think most would like to achieve. We plan to run classes from "Baby and me" all the way to adult swimming and swim coaching. 

Once the pool is complete our next step is to mezzanine the other half of the building creating a brand new huge shop floor. This will act as manufacturers' showroom and Santi Concept store with digital and interactive product exhibits to help you understand the products and a larger stock so you can take it home right away.

As always we are open ideas “sensible ideas”, so please get in touch if you think of something awesome we can add! We hope to have the pool open by the end of February so keep an eye out for updates!