Guam dive sites with MDA?

[KiiY]

Hi, Todd.

Lucky you! Ishigaki-jima should be pretty accessible from Okinawa. I'd love to go there someday, but it's really expensive to fly there from Tokyo. It's usually cheaper to go to Guam, Hawaii, Thailand, or other places outside of Japan.

We'll be on Guam May 17 to 19, and can only dive on the 18th. Since we don't have any of our own gear (except for mask and snorkel) we'll have to go with one of the dive shop tours and rent all our stuff.

Do you dive with MDA or GTDS, or do you go on your own?

-Kevin

 

[whitepointer]

hey there Kevin, how is everything going? hope all is well. As for my diving here in Guam, we dive ourselves sometimes, the diving on the Naval Base is pretty good, but we also get out and do other dives from the shore off base too. As for my boat dives i do them through MDA. This is simply because when i first got to the island they are who i was referred too and i like them and many of my friends work there. They are good bunch of people.

 

[KiiY]

Hi, Todd.

I've been in touch with MDA and last week I sent an e-mail with a follow-up a few days later, trying to make a reservation... no response, though. Hopefully I'll hear back from them soon.

If they get a lot of business from Japanese tourists, I guess they might be especially busy right now since it's "Golden Week" over here and lots of Japanese people are probably travelling to overseas destinations -- including Guam.

I'll let you know once our plans firm up.

 

[sanjac]

For some reason, a lot of people seem to have a hard time making travel reservations lately with MDA. Not sure why they don't respond as quickly as they used to. However, if you are just wanting to reserve seats on dive boats, try this email address: retail@mdaguam.com. That will get you to the retail sales people and the boat schedules are right there. They can make your reservations for boat dives.

 

[Banyan]

MDA seems to be ridiculously busy recently, at least in their rental shop. The past several weekends, they've run out of 80 cf tanks. This past weekend they had what I heard was six classes happening simultaneously, four full or near full boats, and their normal load of diving operations who don't do their own air that turn up with pickups full of empty tanks for quick turnarounds. A diver I saw who showed up looking to get two nitrox tanks filled was told curtly "Not gonna happen today but you can rent some of ours" and another employee ranted to me (a shore diver) about the arrogance of shore divers who walk into the shop and expect to get their air refilled when there's dozens of tanks waiting for boat divers who are actually paying for their dives. I restrained myself from pointing out that blaming paying (if cheap) customers for the fact that your shop is set up with no reserves so you have to turn over your entire inventory of tanks multiple times a day is hardly the way to win loyalty.

But I thought MDA treated only the shore divers like good for nothing bums, not their boat divers so I assume they'll get back to you if the boat isn't already full. GTDS has changed management and begun catering more for Japanese divers, so MDA seems to be developing a monopoly on English speaking customers so can take or leave customers as it wishes.

 

[KiiY]

The address I've been using for MDA is retail@mdaguam.com.

Both MDA and GTDS are highly recommended by the diving community, so I'm sure we'd enjoy diving with either operation. My wife and I can go with Japanese or English speaking groups, so I guess if MDA doesn't get back to me then I'll get in touch with GTDS.

Too bad that some people don't appreciate customers who bring tanks for shore dives. Not professional at all.

 

[sundance75tx]

one of the compressor is down at Piti, but the shop could have inform customers about it.
I do see some regulars in the shop think they should get the privilege to be served, it's not about the boat people or shore people.
Lately the boat has been filled, so if you want to get on the boat, it's better you make reservation 2 weeks in advance,and pay to hold the seat. All the northern dives filled the week of Ediver comes out. They have 70 OW students every weekend now, I guess that's why they are in the craziness.

 

[Banyan]

it's not about the boat people or shore people.

The MDA employee specifically stated that the shore diver refills were not a priority because shore divers weren't paying for their dives. It's explicitly a boat v shore issue. I don't see how that statement doesn't equal "Boat dive refills are a priority because we make more money off of them."

Now maybe there would be a better way to handle it, so instead of responding to a diver walking in with tanks with a "Get in line, you're not special"-type response, maybe "A compressor is down and everything is taking longer so please bear with us." (I wasn't the diver he was complaining about, but it still doesn't make any sense for him to tell me since he knew I was also shore diving and waiting for air.) An example of how too much stress from too much business causes people to speak the truth, perhaps. And compressor issues still don't explain why every single MDA air cylinder every weekend is either rented, mostly for classes, or earmarked for boat dives so they end up turning away local divers. (I had heard a compressor had gone out last week but I had wrongly assumed it had been fixed.)

I've been a customer of MDA for three years or so and dive with gear I bought from them. MDA has been a good LDS, but they're going to rapidly exhaust their reservoir of goodwill with me if they continue like their recent practice of making me feel like a distraction from their core money makers. If I've ever seen a business that needs to expand their capacity in order to meet demand, it's MDA.

Going back to the OP, I haven't done a boat dive with GTDS, but haven't heard anything negative about their quality and they go to the same places. And all the drama will be invisible to you if you do boat dives with MDA. You'll have good dives no matter who you go with. Happy diving!

 

[ambertiger]

A buddy of mine in Guam emailed me the other day with the news of the tragic death of an MDA diver in Guam. Woman drowns at Blue Hole | guampdn.com | Pacific Daily News
Sounds like Jim Miller and Chris Gulick made a heroic attempt to rescue the missing diver.
My condolences to the family.