Precision Diving

I’d like to share with you something. About 90% of all of my new students come to me saying the same thing. The story goes like this. They took their open water class at local dive store XYZ. After their class, they didn’t feel like they could conduct scuba dives without the supervision of an instructor. When they talked to the kid behind the counter, he told them they needed to take the Advanced Open Water course to fill in the gaps. After taking the AOW course, the student still doesn’t feel any safer. They are on the verge of quitting diving. Then they find me. One thing I do well is to give customers what they want. If I cannot give it to them, I will work with them to help find an instructor or store that will. Read the rest of this entry →

My previous post about owning your own scuba compressor was written for a reason. A little over a month ago, I fired up the compressor to start filling tanks for an Advanced Nitrox & Decompression Procedures class that I was teaching. As it started, it sounded funny. After a couple minutes, the compressor stopped running, but the motor was still on. After I turned it off and removed the compressor shroud, I saw the first stage piston and rod were almost completely out of the bore. The bolt that held the rod to the main bearing had come loose (at 3600 RPM I might add) and pulled the whole assembly out. Read the rest of this entry →

People always tell me how lucky I am when I tell them I have my own compressor to fill my scuba tanks. When I hear this, I roll my eyes. Little do people realize just how much work goes into owning a high pressure air compressor. It’s almost like raising a child. Many times you have to handle it with kid gloves and other times, you need to get more forceful. Just like with children, when it starts to act up, it will cause you quite a bit of frustration. Don’t be surprised if you make a lot of new leaches “friends” when people find out you can fill scuba tanks. Read the rest of this entry →

Discounted classes, on-line training and the lack of performance requirements in training agency standards are diluting the belief that it is the instructor, not the agency/dive store, that makes a class good or bad. As scuba diving education moves into the 21st century, there is a very large danger that scuba training is being viewed as a commodity. Read the rest of this entry →