THE NUC CLUBHOUSE
Easily the best spot for a sundowner in Johannesburg.
Watch the colour change with the seasons while sipping your drink and talk about diving, life and everything else.
The club is filled with a rich history and lots of traditions. The first clubhouse was built and was a little shack with a portable toilet. Now it is a cosy pub with lots of diving memorabilia, shark teeth on the wall, toilet facilties, dstv, and a fireplace. We have an excellent outdoor facility from where you can watch what is happening on the dam.
Or prized possession, Bert’s Tub, an old lifeboat, has taken us on many sunset cruises around the dam and is unsinkable!
One of the oldest traditions at Normalair is to dive in Emmarentia Dam as close to the winter solstice as possible, cleaning up the dam as an community service and to win one of them any prizes offered for the interesting things found. In the past we have found everything from shopping trolleys, guns, ammunition and false teeth, even computers and a shop dummy.
We host regular talks about scuba diving related topics and have many other events like whisky tastings, quiz nights and the like.
Club History
1962
Marilyn Monroe died. The Beatles released their first record. The American involvement in the Vietnam War was hotting up.The Rolling Stones were only just getting started. Nelson Mandela was arrested in Howick, KZN. The first James Bond movie, Dr. No, was released. J.F. Kennedy announced that before the end of the decade America was going to put a man on the moon.
It was the time of Make Love, not War, and scuba diving was considered a dangerous sport for crazy people called frogmen. Sex was safe and diving was dangerous.
These were the days when dive sites still had to be discovered and much home made equipment was being used. The introduction of the Normalair Diving Set lead to the forming and naming of NUC Underwater Club by some of the pioneers of the diving industry in South Africa on 1 April 1962. Club meetings took place at Shell House, Johannesburg, the present home of the ANC, and members wore ties to the meetings!
The clubhouse at Emmarentia Dam was built in 1963. 1964 saw the first trip to Sinoia Caves, the first underwater hockey tournament and the first diving course held at NUC.
In 1965 the compressor room was added and the first official NUC Newsletter, The Blue Fish was published. Since then the clubhouse has been renovated a number of times, a toilet, fire place, snooker table and a entertainment area outside has been added. The sunset cruises on our boat at the dam has become the stuff of legends.
The club has produced many underwater hockey and spear fishing Springboks, qualified hundred of scuba divers , and members have been on dive trips all around the world.