Scuba Santa

Hordes of Santa-suit-wearing divers heading towards frigid waters can mean only one thing – the annual return of the Vobster Santas event. This year, Scuba Diver Editor-in-Chief Mark Evans and his son Luke ventured to Somerset to join in the festive fun

Photographs by Jason Brown

Many things failed to materialise in 2020, but

The Vobster Santas event is all about having lots of fun, but also raising money for the RNLI and the Dorset and Somerset Air Ambulance, two extremely worthy causes. Previously, all the assembled Santas – and snowmen, Christmas trees, elves and sundry – would head for Vobster’s inviting waters at the same time, but this year, given the spectre of COVID-19 still looming over us all, the Vobster team made the decision to allow the ‘Santa diving session’ to run over a five-hour period, so that the divers could space out their entries and exits.

If we were going to take part in the event, we needed to look the part, so our first mission was to purchase a couple of Santa outfits. We went for spacious sizing, mindful of the fact we would need to get them on over our drysuits, and figuring that any extra would be held in place by our BCDs.

Our Santa suits were budget affairs, given they were going to be submerged in an inland dive site, but we made a few modifications for prime Father Christmas performance.

First up, I cut around our shoulder dumps, to ensure that we could easily locate and operate the valves. The suit material was very porous, and I daresay we could have got

Another highlight of the Vobster Santa event is the star-studded raffle, which is well supported by the diving industry, and this year the prizes included an Apeks Lifeline guide reel worth £220, a Fourth Element 120-litre duffle bag, an Otter Drysuits changing robe, an Ammonite LED Two torch, a KUBI duffel drybag, XDEEP boltsnaps, a Human Factors training bundle, a Tribal beanie, an Expedition Britannic book, an Action Camera Underwater Video Basics book, a Wild and Temperate Seas book, Vobster Quay memberships, a Nammu Tech lock nut reel, and a Nammu Tech hand mirror.

A charity close to every scuba diver’s heart, RNLI lifeboats protect hundreds of communities around the UK and Ireland through their 24-hour search and rescue service. RNLI crews and lifeguards have saved over 142,700 lives since 1824, but they’re more than just a rescue service. Visit them online: RNLI.org

© Lisa Frew, Divesouth

away with just leaving our exhausts open and not cutting the suits, but I preferred to err on the side of caution. To keep our Santa hats in situ and not shooting off to the surface full of exhaled air, we employed Mum Penney to sew some elastic ‘chin-straps’ on. These modifications made, we were ready to take the plunge at our very-first Vobster Santa event.

We arrived at Vobster Quay bright and early, but the lower car park was already filling up nicely, and people were busy kit-fettling on the various benches strewn around next to the water’s edge. Photographer Jason Brown, a regular at Vobster, advised us to get in the water sharpish to make the most of the epic visibility, so we took his advice, getting our gear ready in double-quick time.

Then it was time to don our Santa suits. Now getting into a fancy dress costume is normally a simple matter, but trying to put on our Santa trousers over our drysuits was comedic! Anyone videoing our efforts could definitely have got some YouTube gold-level footage! I managed to finally get mine on, but Luke stuck his foot straight though the thigh of one leg! Our tactic of buying cheap was maybe not the best option…

Finally both of us were in our trousers, and I managed to do a bush-repair to the trouser leg by nicking a bit of red cord from the waist-tie and then knotting and tying the material. It wasn’t going to win any fashion awards, but it did the trick! Thankfully, the tops were much easier to don, and once we made sure the exhaust valves were poking through the arm hole, we got into our wings, which held our spacious Santa suits in place. The crotch straps were essential to ensure we didn’t end up with our troublesome trousers round our ankles mid-dive!

Once at the entry point, we pulled on our hoods and our masks, and then donned our red-and-white hats, and our

Dorset and Somerset Air Ambulance is a registered charity that provides critical care and evacuation for patients in Dorset and Somerset. Since it flew its first rescue mission in 2000, the charity has been tasked to thousands of incidents and have helped to save many thousands of lives. Visit them online: dsairambulance.org.uk fluffy beards. Getting the reg mouthpiece through the beard was fun, especially when they were a bit wet, and there was much spitting trying to get the odd errant hair out of our mouths! The chin-strap on the hats was a winner – later in the day, there was the sad sight of several Santa hats forlornly floating around Vobster…

Then it was time to dive! We set off for the new helicopter, and as promised, the vis was superb – we saw the heli from about 15 metres away, and after a quick circuit, we made our way past the eerie jesters to look around the impressive crushing works, and then mooched to the airplane fuselage, the glider trailer and lastly, a Mk3 Ford Escort that has seen better days, before we made our way to the exit point.

This was our first time at a Vobster Santas event and it was great fun! There were lots of smiles all-round, and it was nice to be out and about at a dive site and having a laugh, while also raising money for two worthy causes. Site manager Tim Clements doing the rounds with a huge bowl of mince pies also helped keep the spirits up!

Keep an eye out for the 2022 event in December – it is a proper laugh and a great way to round out the year. As for Luke and I, we will be upgrading to slightly morerobust Santa suits for the next event, although we were contemplating how we could make a pantomime-horse-like reindeer costume… What could possibly go wrong? n