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"Le Souffleur" French submarine sunk in 1941 in Beirut
NAUI Development in Beirut, Lebanon
By Frederick Claro CD#18819.
Lebanon is a Mediterranean country par excellence and lies at the crossroads of Europe and Asia, featuring an extraordinary mix of western, oriental cultures and culinary arts. Lebanon and Beirut have again become the peaceful, safe, and magic place it was decades ago.
Diving in Beirut will bring tremendous experience to the divers wishing to discover its wonders. There is an amazing drop off just 200m from the shore in front of the American University of Beirut and there is great wreck diving on sunken cargos. But the pearl of all wrecks in the region is without question ‘Le Souffleur’, a French Vichy government submarine, sunk by the British in 1941. Broken in two pieces by a British torpedo, she is lying at 35m (115 fsw), making her a dream dive site for Nitrox divers. Divers should also dive the famous Shark Point in July and August, where for years migrating patterns brought to this amazing place several species of sharks related to the gray nurse shark, which is found in African and Australian waters.
It was in this atmosphere of wonderful dives, friendship and delicious Lebanese cuisine that the first ever NAUI Instructor Training Course, Crossover and Instructor Trainer Workshop were run in Lebanon, in Beirut under the auspices of the National Institute for Scuba Diving in Lebanon (NISD). The Institute was created by Mr Walid Noshie in 1981, after he became an Instructor with what was at the time the only Lebanese recognized agency.
Walid became a NAUI Instructor in Phuket, Thailand in 1998 with Consult Dive International and thus it was common sense that the development of NAUI in Lebanon and Beirut was just a matter of time. NISD with Consult Dive International ran the first ever NAUI ITC/ICC program in Lebanon in April 2000. Four ITC candidates were successfully trained, as well as one ICC candidate.
Prior to
the courses an Instructor Trainer Workshop was conducted and Mr Walid
Noshie, director of NISD, and Nicolas Yazigi, an experienced NAUI
Instructor who is also a physical education teacher in the French high
school in Beirut, became NAUI Instructor Trainers and were of considerable
help during the courses. The ITC/ICC program was
run in the excellent facilities of the Riviera Hotel with all the
logistical support of NISD, including speedboat transport to open water
training sites. Although some remedial study was necessary for some
candidates to achieve NAUI Instructor status,
all became Instructors and will actively promote and develop NAUI in
Beirut and Lebanon.
Many thanks must be extended to the translators, who
did a tremendous job in helping some candidates for whom the English
language was a real problem. There is no doubt that in the future,
essential materials must be translated in Beirut for Arabic-only speaking
candidates.
NAUI has now a good hold on diver training in Beirut as
the two major diving centers (including NISD) and a small one, operated by
one of our ITC candidates, are actively
promoting NAUI’s “Dive Safety Through Education”. They are ensuring
that Lebanese and foreign divers get the best training possible today in a
place where diving is not only excellent, but also very challenging and
rewarding as long as strict safety procedures are respected. We have no
doubt that our ITC/ICC graduates will enforce safety and raise teaching
standards to give Lebanon
and Beirut the place it deserves on the world diving map.
NAUI ITC candidates in training
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