Monday, December 8, 2008

Parents visiting, new sign... diving!

I haven't written anything since Thanksgiving....sorry. I don't want anyone to think that is because we haven't been diving, but I was a little distracted as I had a visit from my parents.
As you can see in the picture above there is (from the left) Chris, me!, my dad (Wes) and my mom (Gilliann). They had a great time here and it was really nice to see them. A little hard to juggle running a business, diving all the time, and having fun with my folks, but we managed it. My parents don't dive. My mom is just a happy snorkeler, which she did a lot of while here with us, and my dad had a bad experience once. He went on a resort course (Discover Scuba Dive) in Mexico... I think... and he couldn't equalize properly. His group of divers was really big and the instructor didn't take any notice of him, so he kept descending as he didn't know what else to do. In consequence he had a really painful ear.
For me, hearing stories like this really makes me cringe. It is criminal the lack of safety and attention that some diving centers and instructors give their divers. I always try and teach my students to make safety their number one priority when diving. Although there are thousands of fantastic, safety conscious diving centers out there, there are also some that are way below par. So.... if the tanks are out of hydro date, ASK FOR A DIFFERENT ONE. Take a look at the compressor, is it clean? Ask them when they last changed the filter. Look at the boat. Our motto is... if the boat looks like *&#%! then it probably is!!! For Chris and myself, one of the best parts about finally owning our own center is we get to have the equipment, the boat, the compressor and everything else at the extremely high standard that we want. Hey... we are diving with the air and using the tanks a lot more than our customers are, so you can guarantee that we want good, clean air! It is more expensive for us, but worth it!

Anyway... enough rambling about safety, I'm sure you want to hear about the diving! We went to Tintamarre yesterday with a group of four divers. It was fantastic. The waves were a little large on the way out, but Max made everyone feel safe on the boat. Once we were under though, there was no current, great vis and lots to see. At the tug boat we saw.... a big loggerhead turtle, then immediately after there was a nurse shark just cruising by. Then once we got over the reef and headed towards the tugboat we saw a giant southern stingray in the sand, followed by an eagle ray right above it. It was a great dive!
Craig has been teaching like crazy... not like a crazy man... just lots of classes. Well, maybe he is a little crazy sometimes, but in a good way. He's really into spontaneous bouts of singing and dancing at the moment which is always entertaining. Here is a picture of Craig teaching his students below.



We are also really happy to have Kelly here at the moment. Kelly is completing here Divemaster with us, she is from North Carolina and is well on her way to joining the professional world of diving. She is definitely a great addition to the team while she is here, and I appreciate it as it is always nice to have another girl around!

Alright, enough for now. I want to post some before and after shots of the shop, but am waiting until tomorrow as we should be getting some new signs for the shop today. Nice.... new.... sign designed by Julien. He does all our fliers, business cards and now sign. The sign will look like the one below, just a whole lot bigger!

It is ten, and the divers and snorkelers are back in about an hour and a half, so I better get back to work and start crossing things off of my list.... It's a long list!

(Sally wrote this blog, can't you tell).

1 comment:

map said...

new sign looks great!