Julian, you're famous!

Can you believe it?!?!

Our own Julian is currently the top-rated photo on Whites Dive Unit website!

Check it our and vote for him at: whitesdiving.com

If that's not enough you can rent this red devil for Divemaster Guided Tours!

ooops...server crash

For those of you who haven't noticed the weirdness with Aquaticdiscovey.com, the online store and email then great! For everyone else, ooops...we're sorry!

Our primary server went down last week amidst an odd, head-scratching set of circumstances. But, to add insult to injury, our backup server melted down the next day AND our T1 connection went down the day after that.

Keep your fingers crossed that we got about 5 years worth of IT problems out of the way in 72hrs!

So, if you sent an email and haven't received a response please send it again... Thanks!

What's a scuba valet?

Congratulations to Julian and Todd for becoming PADI Divemasters over the summer!

One of their first acts as PADI professionals was to create the new Divemaster Guided and Valeted dives. Divers can enjoy the ease and comfort of having a Divemaster lead small groups on two fun shore dives. Divemasters will select a dive site based on your desires, conditions and level of experience. You'll enjoy two guided dives where your Divemaster will point out many of the creatures you might otherwise have missed like octopus, rays, nudibranchs and so much more. To top off the experience your Divemaster will even valet your equipment up and down the beach and help you get your fins on. Diving so easy and fun you'll forget it's shore diving!

For more info see our Divemaster Guided Dives page

What happend to "Nitrox-while-you-wait" ?!?!

Well, we made a small mistake when calculating flowrates which resulted in the wrong supporting systems to be speced and built. While we wait for hardware to be built we just have our regular 1-2day turn around on nitrox.

Damn you math, you used to be cool!

Jeremy becomes a PADI Scuba Instructor!

This past weekend was the PADI IE (Instructor Exam) which is the last step to becoming instructor. Our own Jeremy Schrader passed with flying colors...way to go!

Jeremy started diving through the Santa Clara University Scuba Club's Open Water Class in 2000. While he didn't dive very much during his undergrad years because of his rigorous SCU crew team rowing schedule (plus all those pesky mechanical engineering classes!) he was president of the SCU Scuba Club his senior year and became a PADI Divemaster in 2002.

In the last 7 years he's logged 100's of dives all over the world, assisted with 100's of student divers, helped rebuild boats, been instrumental in everything from breathing-air systems to marine engines and been an anchor around the shop. All this and he still found the time to hold down a 60+hr a week engineering job and stay happily married...wow!

Now, as an instructor, he has another job but it's the best one on earth: he gets to take new divers into the water for the first time, sharing his vast knowledge and experience while showing them all the cool stuff that makes scuba diving awesome!

Do you want to become an instructor too? It's just five easy steps:
1) Dive a lot
2) Become a PADI Divemaster
3) Dive a lot more with divers and student divers
4) Take the Instructor Development Course
5) Pass the PADI Instructor Exam

Nitrox-while-you-wait!

On April 3rd we'll officially release our new Nitrox automated blending system (one of our patent pending inventions).

Here's why it's awesome:

1. We can now blend ANY percentage from 21-40% in about 20mins.
2. We don't have to empty your tank before filling it.
   
3. O2 clean tanks are not required (if your tanks are already O2 clean, they won't be contaminated)
4. It's computer-controlled for unattended operation and precise blending.
5. With the rising price of oxygen we can still keep our nitrox fill prices low: $7 for any blend!
   

What's this mean to you?
Let's say you have a tank with 800psi of 31.8% nitrox and you want it filled at 36%. No problem, come back in 20mins and you're tank will be full @ 36%.

addicted.to.shirt.woot.com?

Haven't heard of Shirt.Woot.Com?
Basically it's a novelty t-shirt company that sells a different shirt every day (just one per day).

What makes Shirt.Woot fun is "the derby": Woot puts up a weekly theme and users submit original designs and other users vote on them. The top 3 designs are made into shirt that are offered Friday, Saturday and Sunday of that week.

This Weeks Derby is: THE SEA

So, if you haven't been to Woot and want to look stylish like our crew members then get on the Woot!

Shirt.Woot.Com

New Weekend Hours!

To avoid a mutiny, we've changed the weekend hours to noon-6pm (one hour later on both ends).

Why was there going to be a mutiny? Because the crewmember working in the shop on any given weekend day can't come diving and be back in time to open the store!

We're buddies in and out of the water!

Some people (notably one instructor from another shop) have expressed disbelief that our crew members, instructors and divemasters have great chemistry in AND out of the shop.

So... here are photos from last week's crew BBQ at Julian's house (complete with a healthy dose of Julian's Danish spiced wine, youtube, and "that's what she said"-jokes!).

As a side note, if Julian ever invites you to a bbq, go! Homemade mango salsa, hummus, delicious steak..... It's good enough to turn a vegetarian into a carnivore.

Spring Break 2009 trip?

Don't worry, we haven't forgotten about spring break 2009!

Here's the deal: We usual book discount group airfare and then pass that savings on to our customers. We've been going back and forth with several airlines (Continental, Taca, etc) and none will sign a contact...seriously, wtf?

Also, we should all start using our airline miles before some-thing-bad-happens and we loose them all!

SO, we're trying something new this year: We've picked a destination that American, Continental, Delta and others fly to and we're going to let everyone book their own air travel (using their mileage or from your favorite website). We'll be organizing the rooms, meals and diving.

The trip will cost between $700-$1200 depending on the airfare you pick, total (air-meals-room-diving for a week).

Full trip detail will be available on monday (1/19)...check your email or aquaticdiscovery.com

Happy New Year!