Divers' delight over free new clubhouse

Property swap meant new clubhouse didn't cost
local divers a penny!

MANY a diving club would celebrate a 50th anniversary with an extra-special dive.
Not Caithness Diving Club. They stayed on dry land and marked their half-century with a new clubhouse which cost them...absolutely nothing!
By a stroke of good property luck, the club did a deal following an approach from a local contractor who constructed a brand new, clubhouse, off Thurso’s Neil Gunn Drive, a straight swap, in exchange for their old, dilapidated HQ, situated near Thurso river.
The members celebrated their good fortune, and that all important anniversary, with a clubhouse-warming party, recently.
With many diving club, nationally, having to content themselves with a basic hut for their headquarters, there was certainly something to toast.
Chairman Dave Steele said: “We still have to pinch ourselves that it’s real. Compared to our old clubhouse, the new one is a palace. Our old headquarters, with its leaky roof and cramp conditions was well past its sell-by date. We were able to have a say in the internal layout of the new one, which made it purpose built. I suppose it lifted us from the bottom of the clubhouse league to the top, nationally, or very near it.”
By agreement with the local contractor concerned, Mr Steele said that the firm’s identity and the cost of the new clubhouse were not being disclosed.
He added: “What I can say is, that, but for the welcome deal, such a new enterprise, would have been way beyond our means and dreams.”
Caithness Diving Club is one of the oldest in the country and has seen major strides in equipment, over the years. Club members have dived abroad, on occasions, but Mr Steele says that they are “spoiled for choice” in the North of Scotland, so far as locations and sub-sea visibility is second to none.