Phoenix Watersports Ltd

14/01/2025

We have amazing news to share!

We have both our Operations Manager and Marketing Executive starting with us, and they are both the perfect people to spearhead these amazing projects we have coming in 2025!!!

We will introduce them once they are all settled in and some exciting news has been shared 👀

We have also offered a number of roles to dive professionals who will be starting with us in a few months on varying contracts.

We are however, still recruiting for a number of roles to continue the huge growth in projects in 2025!

So, if you love the outdoors and love watersports, want to have an office with a backdrop like this photo everyday, and want to be involved in something mega exciting. Lets chat!

- Assistant Manager (April start) full time, salary, permanent - ideally either a diver or instructor in another outdoor activity
- Dive Instructors, Assistant Instructors, Divemasters - hourly rate for PAYE or day rate for self employed- full and part time
- Divers for diving support internships (minimum of open water certified and must be dry suit certified)
- Admin Assistant - Full time / permanent (minimum of open water diver certified)

Interested in a chat? drop us a line or send your CV to [email protected]

#2025

10/01/2025

Pro courses are flying already this year!

Make 2025 the year you change your life and make the water your office

No matter whether you have never dived before or already on your way - we can help you build a pathway to become a pro

Get in touch 🤿

Another Instructor Training Course booked for 2025 outside of our home ITC's in North Wales ✅

2025 looking fantastic for pro's at SSI with demand through the roof for pro's world wide!

With the SSI family growing week on week, whether you are looking to go pro nearer to home or to head abroad - this year is the year to do it!

Both myself and Clare Clowes Instructor Trainer still have some availability for off site for the following in 2025:

- Divemasters
- Assistant Instructor and Instructor Training Courses
- Instructor Specialty Courses (Co teach and Seminars)
- Basic Freediver Instructor
- Mermaid Instructor

Singular bookings to be completed at our dive centre, Vivian Quarry (information pack available) or if looking for groups / dive centres - we can organise coming to you or again - information pack if you would like to use our facilities

Get in touch!

[email protected]

Phoenix Watersports Ltd

08/01/2025

Recruiting Skippers for 2025!

This is for hard boat and RHIB operations covering loads of exciting activities around North Wales!

- Scuba, freediving, snorkeling and mermaid trips
- Excursions
- Sight seeing
- Night trips
- Specialised trips
- Expert ran trips

Freelance and PAYE available

Interested in a chat? Send your CV to [email protected] to organise a call and find out more

08/01/2025

Is 2025 the year you will get back into diving?

Now is the perfect time to jump back in and get ready for it

Our SSI Scuba Skills Update will get your confidence right up with both your basic skills, buoyancy and dry suit skills (dry suit can be booked alongside this course if you don't already have it)

During your session you will complete a number of skills in our confined training area, followed by 2 open water dives to pull everything together properly and build your skills back up to pre break of diving!

Why do this session in a pool when you can do it whilst actually diving and get another 2 dives logged whilst you are at it 😎

Included
- Equipment hire
- Entry to the quarry
- Air fills
- Online pre-learning / digital kit
- Certification

Jump on and book your session now on the below link 👇
https://booking.bookinghound.com/fe/book?og=33bdd84b-d7d1-4bab-94e2-99b8e756d527&mode=a&uniqueId=106

📸 David Phillips Underwater Photography /

#2025

07/01/2025

Blasting Techniques - We love learning how everything worked in the slate quarries! Todays post is based around the blasting techniques used!

Did you know it was gun powder that was used to blast the slate away from the quarry walls?

Getting the holes into the quarry walls was somewhat of a task in itself, before phenumatic drills were around a 2m long steel rod was repeatedly thrust into the holes until it was large enough to get the right amount of gun powder in there

You can still see the scars from the steel rod all around the quarries, Vivian included and under the water as well. To see the size of some of these scars, knowing they were done by hand is unbelievable and the strength it would of taken to repeat this every day!

Dynamite was also used but this was more to blast away rubble to get to the slate, as the dynamite itself would shatter the slate deeming it unusable.

An a alarm would sound throughout the day which would signal to the quarrymen to head to the blast shelters where they would have a smoke and a chat waiting for the explosions to go off and wait there until the explosions had finished.

Under the water at Vivian lies one of the blast shelters which is still in near perfect condition!

Credit to Phillips Underwater Photography / for this photo of the Blast House underwater at Vivian from the weekend!

06/01/2025

We had quite a few messages and comments after our last dive in the Menai Strait asking what the little bright coloured things were we put up photos of so we thought we would do a post!

These little guys are called Nudibranch, aka the sea slug (but a little bit brighter than the land slugs!)

There are over 100 different species of Nudibranch in the UK of all different colours and most of the time they can be from a couple of milimetres to a couple of cm in size but the largest in the uk recorded was 20cm. They can be really hard to spot due to their size but once your eyes adjust to one you can usually find quite a few of them around!

Their eggs look like ribbons in a spiral and are much bigger than the nudis themselves!

Thy feed on sponges, anemones, seaweed and even other nudibranch.

We love these little guys and will often go in the water nudi hunting to see which ones we can find out of all the different species.

Want to know more? We offer an online course which you can do in your own time at home called the SSI Nudibranch Ecology course which you can book on the link below (please note it doesn't matter what date you pick as its set up to complete from home anytime you want)

Once you have completed you will receive certification on your app to show completion of the course!

https://booking.bookinghound.com/fe/book?og=33bdd84b-d7d1-4bab-94e2-99b8e756d527&mode=a&uniqueId=191

06/01/2025

WOOOHOOO

Some excellent news! - We are now a registered fishery!

What does this mean?

It means we will be introducing a number of fish into the quarry pool to compliment the currently elusive guys that live in there so will be plenty of fish for our watersports users to see whilst they are in there 😎

We will also have very specific fish food for those coming in the groups with the divers that can be purchased on site for the fish when they arrive. You may not bring your own food to feed the fish on site.

*Please note - no fishing is and will not be allowed in the quarry pool, and we are a registered commercial fishery for the sole reason of introducing more fish*

05/01/2025

Became an open water diver abroad or during the summer in a wet suit but want to properly get into diving so you are not just stuck to diving on holiday or in the summer?

There is a reason we LOVE diving through the winter in the UK, its stunning and has loads to offer, also means you get to dive all year round on your door step!

We have built an 'Intro to Cold Water Diving' which is over a weekend at the beautiful Vivian Quarry in Llanberis, our own private training facility

05/01/2025

As promised!

Here’s a side by side photo from back in the day and one taken yesterday.

Had to take yesterdays from a slightly different angle to you can see the incline a bit better

Can see a few changes from across the years like the extension on the railway building, extension on the fire queen

Really cool to see the photos side by side though!

What differences can you see? Comment below 👇

04/01/2025

First dives of the year with this bunch 😎

Vivian stunning and beautifully clear in the water 😍😍😍

Thanks for joining us guys, starting as we mean to go on with LOADS OF DIVES

#2025

03/01/2025

Welcome to January!

Is one of your New Year Resolutions to...
😎 Meet new people?
😎 Have amazing experiences to remember?
😎 Learn something new?
😎 DO MORE WITH LIFE!

We have some brilliant ideas for experiences you will never forget!

How about our adventure day at Vivian Quarry?

You can purchase this as a voucher to be used until 31st March 2025

Includes:
👉 A day at Vivian Quarry with our instructors
👉Online learning to learn the basics about scuba diving to be completed from home
👉A session in our training area to try out scuba diving for the first time and learn some scuba skills
👉An underwater tour of the beautiful Vivian Quarry
👉Certification fees for 'SSI Basic Diver'
👉All equipment hire, air fills and entry to the quarry

Minimum of 12+ years old
Complete a medical declaration

£125pp for limited time only!

Book now on https://booking.bookinghound.com/fe/book?og=33bdd84b-d7d1-4bab-94e2-99b8e756d527&mode=a&uniqueId=153

03/01/2025

New year! New job!

Dreaming of spending your time in a role where you can dive and get paid (yes - almost unheard of in the UK!)

You can spend your time in the stunning UNESCO Heritage site with some amazing facilities coming on site VERY SOON which will be unlike anything you have seen before with an amazing team of divers and on land staff running various activities from the site.

We have a number of mega exciting positions for our amazing projects in 2025 and this is for all the divers out there!

We have positions available for:
- Support divers
- Divemasters
- Assistant Instructors
- Instructors

We are an SSI Dive Centre with 2 in-house Instructor Trainers, so being SSI for Assistant Instructors and above is required.

You can be from any commercial agency suitable for other positions.

All the above are on a mix of full time, part time, temporary and permanent (and voluntary for those that wish to gain experience)

You must have experience-
- In a dry suit (instructors must be dry suit instructors)
- In cooler climates such as the UK
- HSE Medical
- Recent experience

On top of this, we are also recruiting for a full time, permanent Dive Manager to manage the dive teams to work alongside the Operations Manager to ensure smooth running of the site.

Requirements for this role on top of the above
- Experience as a manager or supervisor (not necessarily in diving)

All roles starting March 25!

31/12/2024

Happy new year to all our customers, students, friends, members and followers!

We hope you have had an amazing year, and we wish you all the best for 2025!

Our 2024 has been a brilliant one for us with our final numbers coming in for the year!

- 100's of courses completed from beginner to professional (almost 250 and does not include intro or try sessions)
- Every single person we introduced to scuba for the very first time - none of it was completed in a pool and all in either at the beach or Vivian Quarry so an extra special introduction to being in the water
- 2024 was the year we introduced freediving and mermaiding
- Countless guided sessions in the quarry and sea
- 12 dedicated litter picks organised and completed separate to litter picking when at the beach anyway
- Age brackets trying scuba (in the sea) - 8 - 67 years old

We have a load more things planned in 2025 and massively looking forward to announcing more as we move forward with the projects - but we promise you its going to be epic!

Signing out after receiving some excellent news just now and ending the year on an even bigger high than we woke up with 😘 but more on that also later!

Happy new year all and see you in 2025 for some bubble blowing!

#2025

30/12/2024

New year resolutions

1. Fill the year full of adventure
2. Make memories
3. Meet more people
4. Learn something new
5. Spend more time outdoors

Let us help you with all of these!

For a limited time we have a deal on our SSI Open Water Diver course!
With 10% off the course cost and FREE Dry Suit Certification there is no better time to become a diver

We have students from the age of 10 all the way through to adults so it really is an activity for everyone!

Our courses are ran over 3 full days at Vivian Quarry with everything on site you need for your course and the price is all inclusive of what you will need to complete your course.

Start the new year with adventure with the promo code OW10 and head over to this link to book

The link will take you to book for day 1 of the course - once this is confirmed we will book in the following 2 days with you at a time / date to suit

https://booking.bookinghound.com/fe/book?og=33bdd84b-d7d1-4bab-94e2-99b8e756d527&mode=a&uniqueId=15

30/12/2024

Wow!!!

How cool is this old photo of the front of Vivian from the archives

Here you can see the incline that is currently getting some work on it, the the Llanberis Lake Railway and the Fire Queen building.

There is no date on the photo so not sure when it’s from

Hit a like on this post if you want us to do a past and present photo side by side to see the difference today and how it has changed since it was a working quarry 😎

29/12/2024

There are a number of new followers from the last few weeks so its time to reintroduce ourselves!

We are based at Vivian Quarry, Llanberis which is our main home but we also head out and spend a lot of time in the sea as well.

Vivian Quarry, is part of the stunning UNESCO heritage site in which we are at the bottom of the mountain where you find Dinorwic on Parc Paddarn.

Its our private training location open for the watersports courses and activities and our club members to enjoy and the only way to describe it is like walking through to doors to Narnia! With the slate buildings through the door and hidden away you wouldn't even know it was there from the road along with the rich history found under the surface of the water.

Here we teach scuba, freediving, snorkelling and mermaid from beginner through to professional level

Around showcasing the stunning history that Vivian and the heritage site has to offer we also promote the marine life you can find from the shores of Ynys Mon / Anglesey and North Wales.

So whether you are just here to see the pretty pictures, learn more about marine life of the Welsh slate heritage or looking to jump in the water and get up close - welcome to the page 🤿😎

29/12/2024

👏👏 Nice shots David Phillips Underwater Photography

27/12/2024

Mega fun day today for our last dive of the year!

We had to make it something a bit special as Dave hit dive 100 today and he’s snorkelled plenty of times in the Menai but never dived!

Conditions were perfect for picking up on the small things today and on Dave’s dive 100 we got nudibranchs!!!

Clare, Dave Leanne, Owen, Paul and Vinny - it was a fantastic day as expected 😎 Thank you!

Land 📸 Leanne Clowes - Instructor Trainer

Underwater 📸 David Phillips Underwater Photography