Biggest thing killing dive shops?

[Landau]

Just a personal observation on why I chose dive shop I stuck with. Of all the dive shops in metro Vancouver they were the only ones that had their course schedule online. All the others said “call for details” or “get certified with us” with no details or just a price. Well one had a course schedule in which the last course started 18 months ago.

Turned out they were a great shop and I have spent far too much money there.

The others need to get their marketing into this century.

 

[Killercavecow]

I love Coca-Cola and Java Monster Kona Blend. I enjoy stopping at the local McDonald's for a $1.06 large coke and chatting with the employees. I spend $2.96 on the Java Monster at my favorite convenient store. I could order a 15 pack online for $39.98 with free shipping for $2.66 a can, but I'd miss the social interaction. I never get a hassle and no one ever gives me a hard time that Pepsi is better than Coke or that Starbuck's or Dunkin is better than Monster.

35+ years in diving, SSI Platinum Pro 5000 Award, more certs than most will ever achieve, including some no one may ever have again, and I brace myself when I walk into a dive shop. I've walked through doors where owners were literally screaming at customers. No matter how low key I play it, I'm often given a hard time over everything from tank decals to T-shirts. I've been thrown out of shops for diving doubles and refused a spot on a boat for using a digital depth gauge and bottom timer rather than a dive computer.

Don't know which I'd rather do. Would I rather walk into a new dive shop for a fill, or be awakened at 2 o'clock in the morning to have a discussion with my girlfriend about whether or not I still love her and think she is as pretty as when we first met?

This is so spot on! Great reply.

I am brand new to diving. Less than a year and 50 dives in. I know nothing of what I should. But! I can read, I can educate myself, I can read these boards for opinions and I can analyze.

Now I'm in Saipan, so it's somewhat different, but I tried to find gear at the LDS. If I would of bought a reg set, there was no way other than to drop over a grand on a Scubapro set. No BPW, just BCD, no options, but crazy costs. When I did try to communicate my questions or comparisons, there was no dialog.

While I in no way feel like I'm a better educated diver, I am a better educated consumer of some aspects of dive gear. These boards, reviews, online contacts, Reddit, ect ect, has better educated me in gear and options that some shops have educated themselves.

This is what makes it difficult for me to want to support my LDS for just continuing to offer what they know.

 

[TMHeimer]

We have identical issues in NJ. Water is dark and cold. And it takes serious commitment. Up at 4:30am to get to the boats by 7am to be brought back at 3pm. Of all the divers we certify, less than 1% ever make a Jersey dive. Some join us on a warm water trip but most seldom dive again after that planned first trip.

A LDS closed near us; Zero extra traffic for us. He catered for cold water divers; we focus on wam water Caribbean wusses like me. $500 gets me to the Caribbean in about 4 hours. No drysuit required and I can see more than 4 feet in fromt of me.

I honestly get bored of explaining the whole schpiel about how long it takes to become a diver. And how much it costs. It’s not trivial nor should it be. But it’s a serious commitment nonetheless with a high barrier to entry.

There is also a serious lack of decent shore dives, at least the North half of the shore. Manasquan River R.R. bridge, MaClearie Park, Manasquan inlet (tide affected, and restrictions in summer except at night I believe), and Allenhurst Jetty (Not bad if calmish surf, but not much to see). I'd be nice to find something at least as "good" closer to NYC--such as Sandy Hook, or even further South at Barnegat Bay or even closer to Wildwood. Another roadblock for me is fighting traffic on the GSP in summer. Sometimes just not worth the bother, as I can get equally crummy shore dives in CT with at least a BIT of less traffic.

 

[JamesBon92007]

I wonder why I don't see California marketed more heavily as a dive destination for tourist divers from elsewhere in the U.S. Instead of thinking of it as place people dive locally, or leave from to dive elsewhere, what's keeping it from becoming more of a place people from elsewhere travel to for a dive trip?

I get that it's cold water; so is the Galapagos. I don't expect California to knock Cozumel, Bonaire, Roatan, Belize or the Florida Keys off the top of the local charts, so to speak. But the seasoned diver who's been at least 3, maybe 4+ of those places, might be open to try something different. Yes, it's cold. Therefore, you've got kelp. And sea lions & harbor seals are a nice appeal. Diving in a different ocean is a perk!

If you're cold-tolerant and hit southern Cal. the right time of year, you can get by with a 5-mm wetsuit & gloves, plus hood (my hood & boots were 7-mm). Not so much, go 7-mm all the way. You don't have to be dry suit-capable to enjoy some California diving. It's expensive out there, but skip land-based & go multi-day live-aboard, and it's relatively cheap! More rustic than Caribbean live-aboards, but cheaper.

I doubt it'd be most dive tourists' frequent repeat destination. Not a Buddy Dive Resort (Bonaire), CocoView (Roatan), Rainbow Reef Diver Center (Key Largo), Scuba Club Cozumel, etc... But every few years for a mixed group or new & repeat divers, all seasoned? Why not?

Richard.

I wonder why I don't see California marketed more heavily as a dive destination for tourist divers from elsewhere in the U.S. Instead of thinking of it as place people dive locally, or leave from to dive elsewhere, what's keeping it from becoming more of a place people from elsewhere travel to for a dive trip?

I get that it's cold water; so is the Galapagos. I don't expect California to knock Cozumel, Bonaire, Roatan, Belize or the Florida Keys off the top of the local charts, so to speak. But the seasoned diver who's been at least 3, maybe 4+ of those places, might be open to try something different. Yes, it's cold. Therefore, you've got kelp. And sea lions & harbor seals are a nice appeal. Diving in a different ocean is a perk!

If you're cold-tolerant and hit southern Cal. the right time of year, you can get by with a 5-mm wetsuit & gloves, plus hood (my hood & boots were 7-mm). Not so much, go 7-mm all the way. You don't have to be dry suit-capable to enjoy some California diving. It's expensive out there, but skip land-based & go multi-day live-aboard, and it's relatively cheap! More rustic than Caribbean live-aboards, but cheaper.

I doubt it'd be most dive tourists' frequent repeat destination. Not a Buddy Dive Resort (Bonaire), CocoView (Roatan), Rainbow Reef Diver Center (Key Largo), Scuba Club Cozumel, etc... But every few years for a mixed group or new & repeat divers, all seasoned? Why not?

Richard.

Someone on another thread just said that the expected water temperature at Catalina Island is going to be 13C. That converts to about 55F. I suspect that for your typical tropical destination diver that is frighteningly cold. I used to do it 2-3 times a week. Obviously it's worth it or we wouldn't do it It's funny but the only islands I've been to around here are Catalina and Los Coronados (off of Baja). I'll get on a plane and go to Cozumel or Isla Mujeres or Costa Rica but I've never even been on a Southern California dive boat. I've always gone on a private boat and from what I hear it's a bit different, and actually more of what I would have expected on dive boats in general. Here, from what I've heard, the boat delivers you to your dive destination, you jump off the boat, swim around, and get back on the boat. Probably nobody is going to be following you around, keeping an eye on you, or telling you what "the dive plan" is. You are on your own and expected to know what to do (and not do). We are taught (with a few exceptions) to dive from the beaches. If you are from California and grew up here it's usually no big deal to get through the surf and back and deal with the rip currents and surge. But judging from all the equipment that washes up on the beaches there are many who are not successful. I, and many others, have done it thousands of times. I truly love Southern California diving and always see amazing and interesting stuff on every dive. The environment is a lot different from, say, the Mexican Caribbean. We don't have spotted eagle rays or coral, but we have kelp and lots of other rays and crabs and lobster and abalone and leopard sharks and sheephead and bass and nudibranchs and octopi and giant sea bass and moray eels I could go on and on. Our state fish, the Garibaldi, is one of the few brightly-colored fish that we have here and you can see their bright orange glow beyond the limits of visibility. I guess the bottom line is that the difficulty level here might be more that what most vacation divers want to tackle.

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

Could you please expound upon exactly what it is about abalone diving that sustains dive shops? In my mind, assuming that the divers already have a thick wetsuit, mask, snorkel, fins, and weight belt, about all that is left is an abalone knife and gauge, and a fishing license.

A lot of it is in rental gear for non gear owners and tourists. For gear buyers it is wetsuits, hoods, booties, masks fins snorkels weightbelts ab irons, float tubes, game bags, otter boxes for licenses. And when half of that stuff gets lost in the surf or dropped in the ocean they go right back and buy more. While they’re in there they pick up a spear gun, and eye the scuba gear. Then later they may decide to get scuba certified and buy more gear and classes. All of it was initiated by abalone diving, if they did not come in to get set up for ab diving they never would have come in. This is exactly how I started and eventually got into scuba.

 

[JamesBon92007]

I learned to dive in Southern California in 1970 and dived quite a bit there until I moved away in 1980. I still dive out of San Diego whenever I visit. But, I'm not going there for a dive vacation, way too many other places to visit where I haven't been. Nobody else in my family would dive with me there, I dive with my wife, son, and daughter whenever I can. If I lived in California, I would certainly take advantage of the great diving, just like I did, back in the day

I'm much more fortunate in that my girlfriend, who's first dives were in such places as Cozumel, Playa del Carmen, and Isla Mujeres has already been to Catalina once and we are planning on going there again in about 10 days. I told here what the water temperature is and she replied that she will bring her hood. She's also been to Puerto Vallarta twice and sometimes you hit a thermocline there too and I'm sure she'd like to go back.

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

The viz. averages lower in California diving vs. some of the more popular Caribbean locations. That could make keeping a group together difficult. I like the idea of providing low cost (or 'free') guides. That might help get people into the scene, including local residents.

I wonder how many California residents get certified in warm water destinations, or go there very shortly, and get accustomed to, say, Roatan or Cozumel, then don't see the point in local diving? Maybe if they were reached earlier?

Richard.

Some California residents initially get certified in warm water then decide to try local CA diving later. Some of them get used to the cold water and end up liking CA diving better. I have personally seen this.
There is no lack of things to see underwater in California. It seems to be the cold water that is the number one deal breaker for people.

 

[foob]

There's a lot of young people (techies) in the Bay area and new money. CA LDS make money by offering cheap OW certification classes (seem to make nothing on class fees after paying agency and instructor), but requiring gear rentals or purchases that make up for it. I think that's how it goes anyway. There's still tons of shops around here. And I've seen enough dating profiles with cute female scuba divers. And with the above average incomes, definitely flying to warmer destinations for diving is very feasible compared to local diving. I couldn't do that while working Indiana for sure. I did the opposite I got certified aboard and am trying to get into local diving now. But most of my coworkers definitely got certified in cold cold California with 7mm wetsuits or more first.

 

[KevinNM]

That's a problem. How many divers have mask, reg., BCD, boots, fins, wetsuit & computer all one brand? Or even two? Maybe somebody's cool with an AquaLung or ScubaPro reg. & BCD, but heard how great the Shearwater Perdix is, or wants Deep 6 Eddy Fins... If the shop can't meet customer expectations, the customer may have to go online to get satisfaction. Which serves as a crash course in how easy & rewarding it is when the product shows up at his door for a cheaper price.

Richard.

shearwater is very expensive 1st purchase for a DS. Local shop looked into it and their commitment was far too much money for them to be able to justify.

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

“ These boards, reviews, online contacts, Reddit, ect ect, has better educated me in gear and options that some shops have educated themselves.”
“This is what makes it difficult for me to want to support my LDS for just continuing to offer what they know.”

This is s very acurate analysis.
I see that many LDS’s have not payed enough attention to the online world of scuba and have chalked it up to being rubbish. As a result scuba has changed and left them very far behind in the gear divers are using, the types of diving they are interested in, and who is their competition. If you’re too ignorant to know who your competition is and what they’re doing, then how are you supposed to know how to change?

“The internet allows consumers to become more educated than the dive shops that are supposed to serve them”. How perfect!