DIVE LOCAL™ – A Community Effort
Building a Local Diving Community
Message to Local Divers
By Gene Muchanski, Executive Director,
Dive Industry Association, Inc.

Buy Your Gear – Get Outfitted to Get Started

The best way to build a thriving global diving community is to show people how they can become active scuba divers and enjoy the recreation for as long as they wish. 

Four Steps to Becoming an Active Scuba Diver:

• Learn to Dive
• Buy Your Gear
• Go Diving
• Stay Active

Buy Your Gear:  If you want to go scuba diving, you are going to need scuba diving equipment to do it.  Human beings were not meant to live underwater, but with the proper equipment we can visit the underwater realm for short periods of time.  Scuba diving equipment makes underwater exploration possible.  The primary goal of diving equipment is to keep divers safe.  Being safe in a potentially hazardous environment is what makes our short visits enjoyable.  Some long-time divers might even say enjoyable and productive.  Productive because with the proper diving equipment, divers can perform purposeful tasks underwater for work or pleasure.  Regardless of the reasons we take up scuba diving, the diving equipment we use should never be taken for granted.  Investing in your own diving equipment is an important decision to make and should never be taken lightly.  To put things in proper perspective, I like to think of diving equipment as life support equipment.  Yes, it is still in the sporting goods category, but its primary purpose is to support life underwater.  Maybe this will remind you how important the selection, care, and maintenance of your diving equipment really is.

Diving equipment can be purchased, rented, or borrowed.  I’ve never been a fan of borrowing dive gear from friends or family.  You may not know how old the gear is or when it was last serviced.  You may not know when the gear was used last and if it still is in proper working order.  Diving with unfamiliar gear that you have not been trained on or have any experience using may present problems.  Unless you are the same size as your friend, it may not fit you.  And if you are borrowing gear from a friend, what are they going to use?  A major reason is that the gear you borrow may not be the right kind of gear for the type of diving you will be doing.

Renting diving equipment from a Professional Diving Center is a viable option, but it has its limits.  The rental sources that are the best to rent from have top-of-the line equipment for rental and rotate their rental equipment on a frequent basis.  Their rental equipment should be well maintained, serviced on a regular basis, and documented.  The equipment you rent should be the type of gear that you were trained on or are familiar with.  The price of your rental package should be reasonable, and the rental process should be simple and convenient for your schedule. 

When traveling to a dive destination away from home, renters have two options.  One would be to rent from their local dive center and be able to dive with equipment they are familiar with.  The other option is to rent your gear from the dive destination’s dive operator.  Without knowing much about the specifics of the destination’s rental department, this is a tough call to make.  Another factor that makes renting difficult is that not all pieces of diving equipment are offered for rent.  Specialty items such as dive computers and underwater lights are not always available.  Many dive destinations only offer tanks, regulators, BC’s, and maybe wetsuits for rent.  Renters need to do their research on their dive destination prior to the trip and reserve your gear as early as you can. 

The good news is that dive destinations are working hard to improve their rental services for traveling divers.  It is a good idea to check with your local dive store, group Dive Travel Specialist, or your Dive Travel Wholesaler when renting gear on your dive trips.

Purchasing your own diving equipment makes a lot of sense if you are diving frequently enough to enjoy the benefits.  Equipment owners have the luxury of selecting the right type of equipment that is suited for the type of diving they intend to do.  They have control of the selection, care, and maintenance that is required for life support equipment.  The more they use their gear, the more comfortable they become with it.  They never have to worry about the availably of rental equipment and they save an enormous amount of time, money, and manpower by not having to go through the rental process every time they want to go diving.  Divers who make a financial investment in their own diving equipment have a tendency to use their equipment more often.  If you own your own equipment, you will look for more opportunities to use it.

The recreational diving industry has been divided on the subject of divers who decide to purchase their own equipment as opposed to divers who choose to rent.  There are good arguments on both sides of this debate.  To me, the major factor in making a decision about the purchasing of equipment is the reason a person decided to take scuba lessons to begin with.  If a student enrolls in a scuba diving course just to experience something new, they have only made a decision to “check it out.”  When I taught scuba in a university setting, I taught and certified hundreds of students who just wanted to give it a try.  Of course, those who really enjoyed their course and wanted to go diving more often, had the option to take it to the next level.  Becoming an active diver is really a series of decisions that result in the desire to have your own equipment. 

As responsible Dive Industry Professionals we need to help our students choose the best options for them.  Not for us.  Granted, many dive instructors are motivated to teach as many people as possible, but to what end?  Are we doing it for the student, the industry, or for our own purposes?  Let’s leave it up to the student to tell us why they are taking diving lessons.  If it is to try something different for a one-time experience, an introductory to scuba class may be just the right thing for them.  Introductory Classes have little or no equipment purchases to make.  If a student enrolls in an openwater certification course, the initial investment in equipment may be minimal.  Most courses require the purchase of a mask, fins, snorkel, and booties.   If they are taking lessons to become an active scuba diver, then we can put them on the right path to make that happen too.  Identifying and understanding the needs of our students makes our job as Scuba Instructors and Diving Equipment Advisors much more professional.

Part of the Learning Process:  Learning about diving equipment should be a large part of the certification process.  We have to teach scuba students about the equipment in a classroom setting initially, and then teach them how to use the equipment in the water.  One of the main reasons we limit the sale of life support equipment to certified divers or students engaged in a scuba course under the supervision of a certified scuba diving instructor is because using diving equipment by an untrained individual can be potentially dangerous.  During a scuba diving course, students learn about the different pieces of equipment that make up a diving set, or kit.  They learn about the inner workings of the equipment and how it is used to keep the diver safe.  It is important to learn about any limitations a piece of equipment may have.  Does it have a time or depth limitation when in use?  Does it need to be recharged or filled periodically?  Learning about its normal or scheduled maintenance requirements is important for a student to know.  Educating a diving student about the function of diving equipment is important also.  I believe that the more a diver knows about what a piece of equipment can and cannot do will help them decide what type of equipment is best for them.

Learning How to Use Diving Equipment: Diving is an equipment intensive recreation.  A big part of a scuba course is learning how to use the equipment.  Most of the skills we perform in a scuba diving course are first conducted in confined water.  This type of environment is good for initial equipment training with mask, fins, snorkel, air delivery systems, and buoyancy systems.  In deeper water, students can get additional firsthand experience with wet and dry sits, weight belts, dive computers and underwater lights.  The more experience that a student diver can get with equipment while being supervised in confined water, the more comfortable they will be diving with that gear in the open water environment.  As a university scuba instructor, I have seen the positive results from repetitive skills training, using scuba equipment in an Olympic size swimming pool, during a semester-long scuba course.  Frequent practice in confined water builds confidence.

Raising the Bar for Professional Dive Equipment Advisors:  Regardless of how this was handled in the past, this is the 21^st Century.  Dive Industry Professionals need to learn and stay current with their professional training agency standards and procedures.  As Scuba Instructors they need to be proficient at teaching diving theory and diving skills.  Diving equipment falls into both categories.  Training Agencies need to ensure that their Scuba Instructors are knowledgeable about the diving equipment that is currently on the market and commonly used by divers.  They must also verify that their instructors know how to teach a student to properly use the equipment they train with. For most of the 35 Training Agencies we deal with in the United States, a simple review of their Policies & Procedures will probably show they are all in compliance.  A review of their Instructor Training Course curriculum might be the first step in a comprehensive audit.  We will leave it up to the training experts at the agencies to figure out what their instructors need to know about equipment.

Going Beyond the Basics:  Diving equipment has significantly improved over the 57 years that I have been a certified diver.  My hope is that Training Agencies and Equipment Manufacturers have kept up with their educational programs to kept Instructors knowledgeable about the latest changes and developments.  There are many improvements in dive equipment education that we can make in the industry.  The diving equipment manufacturers have always conducted excellent maintenance and repair training programs for their Authorized Dealers.  As a dive store owner, I always took advantage of repair courses that were offered to me and my staff by the manufacturers.  Whenever a manufacturer allowed me to include any of my instructors in their repair course, I enrolled them.  I figured that the more an instructor knew about equipment, the better.

I seem to remember that Scubapro formed a training organization to teach Dive Industry Professionals about diving equipment.  I believe it was called SEA – Scubapo Educational Association.   I’ll have to check my archives.  Anyway, the diving industry needs an organization like that again.  I believe there is a need for a four-part diving equipment training program, conducted by the diving equipment manufacturers.  The first part would be an introductory course that would teach the basic theory about diving equipment.  The second part would dive into more details about the features and benefits of individual pieces of equipment.  The third part would be a program to certify “Professional Diving Equipment Advisors.”  I believe this part could include sales training on topics that help identify diver equipment needs.  This part would be useful to Dive Industry Professionals who have a desire to become industry influencers.  The fourth part of this program would be about equipment maintenance and repair and lead to a certification as an Equipment Repair Specialist. 

The Roll of the Scuba Instructor:  Every scuba instructor should have a basic understanding of how diving equipment works, to have any credibility in the classroom with their students.  That is a responsibility every Training Agency should take seriously.  How much an instructor needs to know about equipment, at a minimum, should be up to the Training Agencies.  When it comes to the confined and open water training portions of the scuba course, the instructor must know how to operate every piece of equipment used in the class.  There is no way an instructor can teach a student how to use gear they don’t know how to use themselves.  When a scuba instructor is ready to grow professionally into a Professional Equipment Advisor or Industry Influencer, there should be a path to help them advance in their career.

Becoming a Professional Equipment Advisor:  There is a plethora of diving equipment brands, makes, models, and configurations available on the market.  Choosing the right gear for the right purpose may seem like a monumental task for a new diver.  Using a Professional Equipment Advisor can take much of the confusion and guess work out of selecting and purchasing a complete diving outfit.  A Professional Equipment Advisor is a seasoned Diver who is familiar with an array of major brands in our industry.  They don’t necessarily have to be licensed as scuba instructors, but being one adds to their credibility.  It is our belief that diving equipment manufacturers should have a training program to educate Professional Equipment Advisors.  PEA’s would be valuable assets as sales advisors at dive stores, especially if the store’s scuba instructors did not have the time or desire to advise students on their diving equipment selections.   PEA’s would make excellent brand ambassadors for equipment manufacturing companies.  Being certified by a number of equipment manufacturers, PEA’s would gain the credibility they need to be successful bloggers and industry influencers.

Buy Your Gear – In Summary:  So, we see that buying your own diving equipment has many options.  It is not a one decision – fits all type of argument.  We can’t say that everyone needs to buy their own gear and we certainly don’t recommend the old way of instruction where we say that all diving equipment is evil, and we must learn how to escape to the surface in case all of our gear fails!  We train our instructors to teach professional scuba diving courses.  We provide Dive Equipment Specialists with the knowledge and skills training to become knowledgeable and proficient with all types of diving equipment.  We train and support Dive Equipment Advisors, Dive Equipment Repair Technicians, and Industry Influencers.  We have come a long way in our industry.  We follow professional industry standards that introduce people to diving, teach and certify people through an open water scuba course, and provide a path for certified divers to stay active in a great recreation.  That path is:  Learn to Dive – Buy Your Gear – Go Diving – Stay Active.

For more information on becoming a Member of our Global Diving Business Network, contact Gene Muchanski, Executive Director, Dive Industry Association, Inc., 2294 Botanica Circle, West Melbourne, FL.  Phone 321-914-3778. Email: gene@diveindustry.net  web: www.diveindustry.net

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