What do you think of dive clubs?

[drbill]

I've spoken to dive clubs that were extremely active both as social organizations and as divers, and a few that were mainly social. If I lived on the SoCal mainland, I'd certainly be joining one. As it is, most of the divers out here on Catalina are dive pros and island residents are not typically joiners, they're the rugged individualist types (well, except for me).

 

[Boingo]

The first rule of dive club is, you do not talk about dive club.

 

[SEMO Scuba]

I joined the local dive club to meet more dive buddies for local diving. Our club is not large, meets monthly, and is hosted by the local LDS. The LDS usually has an informative presentation at each meeting. The sale of products and services are normally offered, but it is fairly low key. Annual dues are pretty cheap at $25.

I was disturbed with the LDS trying to sell product after a presentation of underwater photos. Not a single picture in the presentation was taken with the low priced camera they tried to sell. I thought it was very misleading.

 

[TMHeimer]

We have a very active dive club here. Dives go every Wed. Unfortunately for me the sites are too far from home to do them regularly, so I am not a member. Dive Club members pay 30-$40/year I think but get free air for all club dives. As with most clubs (from what I read), non members can join the dives anytime.

 

[fire_diver]

That's why LDSs shouldn't be allowed to be officially involved in scuba clubs. It turns the club into an extension of the shop.

 

[scubadobadoo]

Of course clubs provide a social aspect- it's what people do in the 99.999% of their life when they are not underwater.

LOL Yes. The fewer divers on the dive, the more I generally enjoy the dive. I like to get away from groups of people when I am on vacation, not socialize with them.

 

[Adobo]

There is a club in my area that performs:

- community outreach and educational activities
- dive site mapping and survey projects
- fauna surveys

The club sets up boats trips for the group. These trips usually go to areas that are off the beaten path so members get to see sites that other divers don't get to visit.

The members are good about contributing pictures, videos and dive reports to the public areas of the club's website. Also, whatever information we have on dive sites (such as bathymetry info) is posted in the website. I guess all that is to say that the club website aggregates all kinds of dive site information so any diver has good/free resource for diving in my area.

See: BAUE Home Page.

 

[asha]

Between a handful of San Diego dive clubs, there are local shore and boat trips here every day of the week.

I joined one when I moved here and didn't know anybody, and still go out diving with them from time to time.

 

[spectrum]

Some shops actively facilitate local diving and that's great when it happens. The sites may be limited and dummed down for training purposes but it gets people in the water.

Clubs are a great venue for meeting other dives and learning new things. The amount of scheduled club diving varies all over the board from zero to weekly.

Put together these are good resources for making contacts. I find that by far networking to plan dives and build relationships is the road to frequent opportunity.

In our case the amount of gray (or no) hair in the active dive club membership is discouraging. There seems to be an upswing in the new divers but many prefer to avoid sitting around listening to baby boomers tell fish stories!

Pete

 

[TSandM]

Over the last nine months or so, I've been a founding member of another local dive club. We don't have meetings, but we have a standing weekly dive. In addition, we've had boat dives and organized a weekend club trip; last Saturday, we had a dive and BBQ (and it wasn't the first). We've done dive projects and a site survey. We don't have quite the photographers that BAUE has, though . . . And all of our activities are pretty much organized, publicized and recorded on FB.