I was going to post this in the "point of pain" thread, but it gets a little offtopic, and should maybe be in its own post.
I have a lot of complaints about my LDS. The "point of pain" to me is less about money, and more about the way the shop does business, and treats its customers.
I first became acquainted with my LDS when I was headed to Hawaii for spring break 3 years ago. At that time, I decided that I wanted to take up diving, and signed up for an Open Water course. At this time, the owner of the shop was extremely helpful to me, as was the instructor that I was partnered up with.
Due to my busy University schedule, I had essentially a 1 on 1 open water course, at least for the pool sessions. This was awesome. I finished my pool work in a couple weeks, and headed to Valdez over President's Day weekend to get certified.
That dive trip was one of the most fun trips I have taken. Most everyone from the shop went, and we had a great time. We did our dives over 2 days, and by the end of the weekend, I was certified.
But that's about where the fun stopped.
When I went back to the shop to pick up my C-Card, I started looking at gear. At this time, the shop was at a different location, and most of the prices weren't displayed. Our local LDS tends to carry the higher end equipment... DUI dry suits (nothing else), and Aqualung/Scubapro/Apeks regs. They pushed buying a drysuit almost from the moment I stepped into the shop to pick up my card.
That still didn't bother me that much. This is Alaska. Diving dry is a necessity. If I were to continue diving here, I'd need a drysuit.
When I went to Maui for break, I had a few minutes to look over gear at Lahaina Divers before our charter went out one morning. I saw the Apeks ATX200/ATX50 combo on display, for a price that was near $200 cheaper then my LDS. I started thinking that maybe my LDS had horrible prices, and when I came home, I started looking around on the internet.
That's when I ran into the entire Leisurepro/Diveinn/Gray Market hurdle. For a while, I was put off buying gear because of the insane price difference. I spoke with one of the shop employees about it (who was one of my friends), and they told me not to mention it to the owner, unless I wanted an earfull. I have a big mouth, and things eventually slipped... and I heard about it. I heard how internet dive gear would probably kill me. And how most of it is cheesy knockoffs. And that he wouldn't service it. That I'd be screwing him out of business. Etc. You've heard it all here in other posts... I had it firsthand from an angry owner.
I didn't dive for a while after that, but after a boring summer, decided to take Advanced Open Water over Thanksgiving break.
Knowing that I would be doing Navigation and Night diving, I purchased a SK-7 Compass, and a UK Light Cannon. I also purchased an Uwatec Bottom Timer from a local outdoor store. Foolishly opening my mouth again, I let slip that I could have bought the light cannon for $139 online (paid 200 for it at the LDS), and that I paid $75 less for the bottom timer at the other store. Lots of scowls.
When I came home, I dumped some batteries in the Light Cannon, and it wouldn't turn on. Zip, zilch, nada. Didn't do a damn thing. I went back to the shop the next day, and told them what the problem was. They promised that they'd take care of it.
About 3 weeks passed, and I went back to my LDS in the evening to meet the group that was headed down to Valdez for Thanksgiving. At this time I was told 2 things which made me very, very angry.
1) Unlike the Open Water class I had previously taken, and directly contrary to what I had been told about the AOW Valdez trip, I would have to pay about $100 to rent gear for the 3 day Valdez weekend. They wouldn't budge on this. It was either pay for rental gear, or don't go.
2) The faulty Light Cannon that I had bought 3 weeks prior was still in the shop, waiting for the co-owner to check it out. While I was waiting for my passenger to show (we were carpooling to Valdez), he looked at it, pronounced it dead, and told me he'd send it back to UK. I asked if I could get a rental light for the trip (free of charge of course), and was told that someone would have one for me to borrow down in Valdez.
So... that crap aside, I drove to Valdez, my Explorer loaded with dive gear for the 9 hour drive from hell. (It's a 6 hour drive... some of the nastiest roads I'd driven on that weekend though)
The next morning, I showed up for the AOW class I was supposed to take. I think there were two other AOW students. Maybe not... I might have been the only one. There were plenty of Open water students though. I was told that my first task would be to go set a dive flag with one of the Divemaster candidates. Cool... I can do that. We set the flag, and came back in.
The rest of the day was spent waiting for my instructor to finish with her OW students, and then attempt to do my AOW dives in between. Navigation was easy... done and over with real quick.
Drysuit... another story. We tried the drysuit dive once, in about 40 feet of water, descending along an anchor chain. The dive plan called for dropping down to about 15 feet of water, to make the buoyancy changes not so severe. I was having a bit of trouble, and was told by my instructor to continue down a little further. When I had problems a little bit deeper, she told me to go farther down. This continued until we were in 40 feet of water, at the bottom of the chain. About 5 feet from the bottom (me being a good student and monitoring my air supply), I had let her know that I had 1200 PSI left (I had burned through 1300 already struggling to figure out this damn drysuit). While were at the bottom, I burned through another 500, leaving me with 700 left. I signaled this to her as well. Each time, she kept giving me signals to continue doing what I was doing. At 500 PSI, I gave her an up arrow and started heading for the surface. I don't remember what exactly was said when we got up there, but I don't remember it being pleasant. I remember having to tell her that I would call a dive whenever I thought it was necessary. And it was. There was no reason to stay down practicing that skill when I was that low on air. I should have turned at 700 PSI.
When we came back into the warehouse, she didn't want to note our tank pressures on the board. Mine was 430, her's was around 600. Either way, it was very close.
She told me that she wasn't confident in my drysuit skills, and that we couldn't do the deep dive that day. No big deal, didn't hurt my feelings any.
The rest of the day wasn't spent doing any dives related to my AOW class. Seeing that my AOW class was essentially over for the day, I wanted to do some shore dives. That idea was veto'd in favor of playing victim for the Rescue Class she was also teaching. So much for shore diving....
I went to bed cranky that Thanksgiving evening, with some very negative thoughts about my instructor.
The next day, we did the dry suit dive again. I held rock solid buoyancy in about 8 feet of water for well over her required time (longer then Padi required, maybe 2 minutes?). I learned the trick of keeping your air bubble in your lower back, and that was all it took.
We did the deep dive next... and she had problems descending (her ears wouldn't clear) She didn't want to thumb the dive, and kept trying. This took us about 10 minutes. After that, we slowly (vis was about 2 feet) followed the ground contour down to 60 feet, deep enough to meet the requirements.
Did I mention that 60 feet in black, cold, murky water feels INSANELY different then 120' in Hawaii?
Anyway.. this will be a two part post... I'll finish the rest a little later.
I have a lot of complaints about my LDS. The "point of pain" to me is less about money, and more about the way the shop does business, and treats its customers.
I first became acquainted with my LDS when I was headed to Hawaii for spring break 3 years ago. At that time, I decided that I wanted to take up diving, and signed up for an Open Water course. At this time, the owner of the shop was extremely helpful to me, as was the instructor that I was partnered up with.
Due to my busy University schedule, I had essentially a 1 on 1 open water course, at least for the pool sessions. This was awesome. I finished my pool work in a couple weeks, and headed to Valdez over President's Day weekend to get certified.
That dive trip was one of the most fun trips I have taken. Most everyone from the shop went, and we had a great time. We did our dives over 2 days, and by the end of the weekend, I was certified.
But that's about where the fun stopped.
When I went back to the shop to pick up my C-Card, I started looking at gear. At this time, the shop was at a different location, and most of the prices weren't displayed. Our local LDS tends to carry the higher end equipment... DUI dry suits (nothing else), and Aqualung/Scubapro/Apeks regs. They pushed buying a drysuit almost from the moment I stepped into the shop to pick up my card.
That still didn't bother me that much. This is Alaska. Diving dry is a necessity. If I were to continue diving here, I'd need a drysuit.
When I went to Maui for break, I had a few minutes to look over gear at Lahaina Divers before our charter went out one morning. I saw the Apeks ATX200/ATX50 combo on display, for a price that was near $200 cheaper then my LDS. I started thinking that maybe my LDS had horrible prices, and when I came home, I started looking around on the internet.
That's when I ran into the entire Leisurepro/Diveinn/Gray Market hurdle. For a while, I was put off buying gear because of the insane price difference. I spoke with one of the shop employees about it (who was one of my friends), and they told me not to mention it to the owner, unless I wanted an earfull. I have a big mouth, and things eventually slipped... and I heard about it. I heard how internet dive gear would probably kill me. And how most of it is cheesy knockoffs. And that he wouldn't service it. That I'd be screwing him out of business. Etc. You've heard it all here in other posts... I had it firsthand from an angry owner.
I didn't dive for a while after that, but after a boring summer, decided to take Advanced Open Water over Thanksgiving break.
Knowing that I would be doing Navigation and Night diving, I purchased a SK-7 Compass, and a UK Light Cannon. I also purchased an Uwatec Bottom Timer from a local outdoor store. Foolishly opening my mouth again, I let slip that I could have bought the light cannon for $139 online (paid 200 for it at the LDS), and that I paid $75 less for the bottom timer at the other store. Lots of scowls.
When I came home, I dumped some batteries in the Light Cannon, and it wouldn't turn on. Zip, zilch, nada. Didn't do a damn thing. I went back to the shop the next day, and told them what the problem was. They promised that they'd take care of it.
About 3 weeks passed, and I went back to my LDS in the evening to meet the group that was headed down to Valdez for Thanksgiving. At this time I was told 2 things which made me very, very angry.
1) Unlike the Open Water class I had previously taken, and directly contrary to what I had been told about the AOW Valdez trip, I would have to pay about $100 to rent gear for the 3 day Valdez weekend. They wouldn't budge on this. It was either pay for rental gear, or don't go.
2) The faulty Light Cannon that I had bought 3 weeks prior was still in the shop, waiting for the co-owner to check it out. While I was waiting for my passenger to show (we were carpooling to Valdez), he looked at it, pronounced it dead, and told me he'd send it back to UK. I asked if I could get a rental light for the trip (free of charge of course), and was told that someone would have one for me to borrow down in Valdez.
So... that crap aside, I drove to Valdez, my Explorer loaded with dive gear for the 9 hour drive from hell. (It's a 6 hour drive... some of the nastiest roads I'd driven on that weekend though)
The next morning, I showed up for the AOW class I was supposed to take. I think there were two other AOW students. Maybe not... I might have been the only one. There were plenty of Open water students though. I was told that my first task would be to go set a dive flag with one of the Divemaster candidates. Cool... I can do that. We set the flag, and came back in.
The rest of the day was spent waiting for my instructor to finish with her OW students, and then attempt to do my AOW dives in between. Navigation was easy... done and over with real quick.
Drysuit... another story. We tried the drysuit dive once, in about 40 feet of water, descending along an anchor chain. The dive plan called for dropping down to about 15 feet of water, to make the buoyancy changes not so severe. I was having a bit of trouble, and was told by my instructor to continue down a little further. When I had problems a little bit deeper, she told me to go farther down. This continued until we were in 40 feet of water, at the bottom of the chain. About 5 feet from the bottom (me being a good student and monitoring my air supply), I had let her know that I had 1200 PSI left (I had burned through 1300 already struggling to figure out this damn drysuit). While were at the bottom, I burned through another 500, leaving me with 700 left. I signaled this to her as well. Each time, she kept giving me signals to continue doing what I was doing. At 500 PSI, I gave her an up arrow and started heading for the surface. I don't remember what exactly was said when we got up there, but I don't remember it being pleasant. I remember having to tell her that I would call a dive whenever I thought it was necessary. And it was. There was no reason to stay down practicing that skill when I was that low on air. I should have turned at 700 PSI.
When we came back into the warehouse, she didn't want to note our tank pressures on the board. Mine was 430, her's was around 600. Either way, it was very close.
She told me that she wasn't confident in my drysuit skills, and that we couldn't do the deep dive that day. No big deal, didn't hurt my feelings any.
The rest of the day wasn't spent doing any dives related to my AOW class. Seeing that my AOW class was essentially over for the day, I wanted to do some shore dives. That idea was veto'd in favor of playing victim for the Rescue Class she was also teaching. So much for shore diving....
I went to bed cranky that Thanksgiving evening, with some very negative thoughts about my instructor.
The next day, we did the dry suit dive again. I held rock solid buoyancy in about 8 feet of water for well over her required time (longer then Padi required, maybe 2 minutes?). I learned the trick of keeping your air bubble in your lower back, and that was all it took.
We did the deep dive next... and she had problems descending (her ears wouldn't clear) She didn't want to thumb the dive, and kept trying. This took us about 10 minutes. After that, we slowly (vis was about 2 feet) followed the ground contour down to 60 feet, deep enough to meet the requirements.
Did I mention that 60 feet in black, cold, murky water feels INSANELY different then 120' in Hawaii?
Anyway.. this will be a two part post... I'll finish the rest a little later.
