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I feel another Sea of Cortez trip coming on... -B

I tend to think shops should focus on the basics. Gas fills, gear service, equipment sales and training. The emphasis should be on enabling the customers to acquire all four with as little hassle as possible. I consider these basic expectations: 1) Gas fills. I should be able to walk into...

Firstly, I have been an Alaskan diver for 16 years, I know a lot of the people here and a lot of the history. I dive a lot. All for fun. Scott sold the shop months ago and it’s no secret that he retired as a GUE instructor at the same time. Wantsomescuba is the new owner, Ron. I had previous...

I swam inside the mouth of a humpback whale once, baleen plates on both sides of me, entire body inside, staring at its pharynx. Real life Jonah. Whale of a tale? It passed away and was towed to shore for study, and I was helping my marine biologist buddy collect various samples to determine...

Want their number? If you sign up, I get a couple bucks my bill off each month. ;) I should have changed that to something more generic like "lawn service"...

You're likely thinking of when they pushed out the Payment Card Industry Security Standards, which all of the major credit cards have adopted. If you read the standards, it's clearly a violation of every existing merchant processing agreement to store a customer's credit card information on an...

Exactly. The company that scoops my dog poop provides better customer service than most dive shops: They do what they say they're going to do, when they say they're going to do it. They bill me accurately and communicate any delays or changes in service. They encourage me to report...

Check your messages - I'm out of town but there are a couple people who want to fun dive. -B

Instruction has been effective if the student can plan and safely execute a dive in similar conditions to those in which they were trained, independently of a dive professional. I love this. We may also be at a place in diving where instruction is no longer the desired product, and people...

That's what I did when I suspected a rumor would start. Biannual OCA tests kept in a log , in line moisture and CO monitoring, and about 6x the filtration capacity of either of the local dive shops. Maintenance is roughly twice as often as recommended. People can throw all the shade they...

A few more, all with excellent reputations: Malibu Dive Repair AirTech Scuba Services Gamble Scuba Superior Diving Repair, Inc. The local dive shop does not have a monopoly on gear service. If you take the "life support equipment" argument seriously, they may actually be a terrible choice. -B

I always enjoy a good LDS thread, and this is one of the better ones we've had, for sure! Here's my backstory, which I think is relevant to my thoughts on the matter. In 2006 I moved to a remote island in Alaska. No dive shop for 1000 miles. We bought gear online or in shops while we were...

He's an engineer. That's what he does. ;)

$8.50 was illustrative but yes, it was a crap deal. I had a couple friends working for them at the time and told them as much. You can talk people into all sorts of silliness when you're in the business of selling a dream. ;)

One dive shop I know of was well known a couple years back for "allowing" its employees to purchase gear at full MSRP, then apply their wages towards it. If the BC is $850, and you work for $8.50 per hour, 100 hours of labor gets you that shiny new BC. The shop owner gets discounted labor and...

GUE's Quest is my favorite. No advertising except for a handful of small GUE instructor/dive center ads, and the articles focus on training, ecology, fitness and various exploration / research projects around the world. The full Feb 2013 issue is here as a free sample: Quest Free Sample...

"Replacing Luck... with wild ass guesses" -B

Seems like it. The specific stated purpose was to support dealers, who have apparently been complaining that they're losing service revenue with parts directly available to the consumer. For parts? Interesting... At any rate, I have enough Zeagle parts on hand that I should be able to...

Stock up on Zeagle/Atomic parts - per their sales meeting at DEMA, Huish will be ending parts sales to the consumer in their upcoming revised dealership agreement.

I did specifically say slanted, not bent or canted, and I think I also mentioned that it's so slight that you only notice if you have another setup nearby. :wink: They are otherwise assembled correctly, with strong, properly tightened bands. And no boots. Thanks for the concern. -B