What's gonna be new in 2009?

Well, we have a lot of new stuff that'll be happening in 2009, let's take a look:

New "While You Wait" Nitrox blending/filling: We'll definitely be the only dive shop in the area and depending on what our patent attorneys find out maybe the only dive shop in the world to have a system that will automatically blend partial filled nitrox tanks to any mix a customer wants while you wait!

More Specialties and Advanced Classes: One of the biggest suggestions we've heard this year is "you need to offer more classes like Search & Recovery and Equipment Service/Maintenance." When we launch the new education section of the website you'll see 24 new specialties being offered along with many more openwater, advanced and rescue classes!

Dive Club: We've wanted to put together a different kind of dive club that's more about "the diving" and less about "the club". In 2009 we'll roll our Sunday and Thursday night dives into a social networking group so you can network and go diving with other divers while still feeling the support of our worldclass dive staff. Of course, it'll be free...we like free. :-)

Divemaster-Led Dives: For a small fee you can enjoy the safety and comfort of a Divemaster leading you and your buddy through the underwater wonderland right in our backyard! Your dive master will help you get in and out of the water, navigate and, of course, show you all the neat little creatures you've never noticed before!

Underwater Scooter Tours: Experience the ease of boat diving and the simplicity of shore diving with an Underwater Diver Propulsion Vehicle-- or scooter. Cruise along for an hour as our Divemaster navigates you through several miles of pristine diving!

Have a suggestion? Let us know, we're always looking for new, fun ways to get people involved in diving!

Point Lobos!

Our post turkey-day trip to Point Lobos was a lot of fun and we were lucky enough to have nice conditions (35+' of visibility) before the weather hit.

Check out the photos in our photos sections...underwater photos will be posted soon.

The NEXT Point Lobos trip is planned for Saturday Jan 3rd!

Free Stickerson Election Day!

Our first ever Free Sticker on Election day was a success and we hope to see lots of the little red and white "diver down" stickers replacing Obama and McCain bumper stickers this year!

Channel Islands Sea Bass Video

On the San Diego Wreck Diving Trip we were fortunate enough to see a Sixgill shark so what could out do that?

A 100+ pound Black Sea Bass hunting Halibut!

Believe me, a fish the size of smart car darting around is a very humbling experience (imagine swimming around the Monterey Bay Aquarium's Blue Water tank when they're feeding the Tuna!). Jeremy, Julian and Paul were lucky enough to catch this rarely seen behavior on video!



You know what...this Black Sea Bass is still a juvinile!

See all our videos (in higher quality) on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/AquaticDiscovery

Channel Islands Trip Recap (better late then never...right?)

Okay, so we've been getting a little behind on our blogging; nonetheless Channel Islands was great! The crew, of course, was excellent and the food was hearty but what set it apart from last year was we did some really unique dive sites.

Photos are now up for your perusal on the photo section of aquaticdiscovery.com

Video will be up shortly (hold on to your hats!).

PADI blogged about our blog!

In today's blog post on PADI's blog Aquatic Discovery's San Diego trip was a topic of discussion. Although the PADI community might have questions about whether we really saw a six-gill shark the divers on the trip all know what they saw!

...I wonder what the divers on this week's Channel Islands trip will see!

decorate our door!

The old boring door to the "back of shop" has been upgraded to a new fun door!

...so come by and decorate our door!

San Diego Wreck Trip: Photos are up!

Well the first day was pretty exciting with the sixgill shark sighting and all. The next two days we spent poking around the Yukon and Ruby-E which was beautiful. The Yukon is now totally covered club-tipped anemones and several very health group of Metridiums. We were treated to a great show by a harbor seal chasing fish in, out and through the wrecks...

Check out all photos at: http://www.aquaticdiscovery.com/photos/7.31.08/

San Diego Wreck Trip: Day 1

Sixgill Shark!

Our first day was quite eventful! We dove the wreck of the Lazy Days and were treated to an encounter with an 8' Sixgill slowly cruising the along the reef. We followed him for a few minutes before letting him be and heading back to the wreck. Uber-cool!

Go Diving!

If you haven't been diving in the last few weeks you need to be! Conditions have been excellent: Carmel has been beautifully calm and Monterey has been enjoying great vis.

So, duck out of work early, call in sick-- do whatever you have to get in the water!


Our next Sunday dive is 7/27!

Wall-o-Spearguns!

It's been a busy few months around the shop and we've been neglecting the blog. So, lets kicking things off with the newest addition to the shop-- WALL OF SPEARGUNS!

After a 6 months of testing we've decided to bring in a select line of guns and travel spears from A.B. Biller. A.B. Biller offers very high quality hand made guns, great warranty support and wide selection of construction materials from entry-level stainless to competition-grade single-piece teak, all at very attractive prices.

Give you're an underwater hunter come by and check them out!

DONE!

It's been a busy couple of weeks but we're finally moved into our new space and getting back to teaching classes and going diving! Of course, we still have little "back office" things to keep us busy but we're open.

Come by 414 Martin Ave, Santa Clara, CA 95050 and visit for bit!

Moving the air system!

Q: How do you move 2,000 lbs worth of compressors and 8000 lbs worth of cascade bottles?
A: Big ass trailer and lots of chain!

Installing flooring!

Amid a veritable plethora of off-color "wood" jokes we started installing our new flooring.

We've discovered is takes a lot of beer to install a floor!

Step #1 of the moving: DEMOLITION!

With sledge hammers in hand we started going to work on reconfiguring our new space today.

Before:

Paul says, "I bet I can kick a hole in the wall!"



Barbara says, "Nice hole, but what the hand prints from?"



Raj says, "This is taking too long, I'm getting the truck..."


On to step #2!

We're moving!

Many of you have heard rumors the last few months that we're moving, well it's now official: We are moving this month!

The new space is located just 1 stoplight away on Martin Ave @ De la Cruz and will (among other things) double our retail floor space. The whole crew is very excited about the new space but it'll require a lot of work to get it ready.

Don't worry we'll be blogging all the hijinks that goes into moving a scuba shop!

Shasta, the dog, passes on

It's very sad day for the shop because our beloved shop dog and dive buddy of 12 years has passed on. We'll never forget her eagerness to get in the water at Monastery in any weather and her "Please throw my squeaky hedge hog" look around the shop.

Shasta, we love you, we miss you and we'll always remember you...

Splashzone at the Monterey Bay Aquarium

Since the water in Monterey was ugly Sunday we decided to head over and check out the members-only preview of the Monterey Bay Aquarium's newest exhibit: Splash Zone. Aside from cool new animals in the tropical seas part of the exhibit like the cuttlefish and sea dragons, there's a new kelp tank that makes you feel like you're right in the kelp!

The coolest part of the new exhibit has to be the hugely expanded touch pools. We poked a lot of cool Monterey critters without our regular 3mm glove barrier - who new starfish were soft?

Go check it out next time you're in town!

...as seen in the San Jose Mercury News!

We were proud to be included in this weekends
"Into The Deep" article in the San Jose Mercury News.

If you have a chance check it out at http://www.mercurynews.com/

Returning soon...DIVING!

This winter has been tough on our weekly dive trips! It seems every time we look at the forecast we aren't confident enough in the conditions to plan a group trip.

But don't worry, we haven't forgotten about diving and we'll be back to in the water shortly...stay tuned!

Preview then new online store

Since the weathers been wet and cold, and the waters looked ugly we've been spending a lot of time working on the back end of the dive shop.

The project for the last fews has been migrating over to a new online store which we're very excited to say is ready for a public preview.

check it out: http://www.aquaticdiscovery.com/zcart

AquaticDiscovery.com back up!

Don't think computers have a sense of irony?
A few days after we left for Costa Rica our main web/email server went down, no problem, that's what the back-up is for...right? Well, a few days before we got back from Costa Rica our backup went down too with a completely unrelated hardware failure.

So the last few days has been spent rebuilding servers and downloading backed-up data...grrr!