Dive Clubs: Why Aren't There More? Where Did They All Go?

[mathauck0814]

Dive clubs, so far as I've seen, act as a means of keeping poorly trained and economically disadvantaged people in the practice of participating in a sport to which they add risk and frustration. Smaller dive teams and organized groups of qualified divers seem to have a better understanding of what it takes to have a comfortable and safe experience. Dive clubs are the offline version (though some have websites) of a "groupon" dive experience.

 

[Edward3c]

Dive clubs, so far as I've seen, act as a means of keeping poorly trained and economically disadvantaged people in the practice of participating in a sport to which they add risk and frustration. Smaller dive teams and organized groups of qualified divers seem to have a better understanding of what it takes to have a comfortable and safe experience. Dive clubs are the offline version (though some have websites) of a "groupon" dive experience.

If you're ever in the UK come visit and dive with a BSAC, SAA or SSAC club. You'll find they are where the boundaries are being pushed. Commercial operators generally dive the safe locations unless chartered by a club.

 

[Storker]

Dive clubs, so far as I've seen, act as a means of keeping poorly trained and economically disadvantaged people in the practice of participating in a sport to which they add risk and frustration. Smaller dive teams and organized groups of qualified divers seem to have a better understanding of what it takes to have a comfortable and safe experience. Dive clubs are the offline version (though some have websites) of a "groupon" dive experience.

It's obvious that your experiences are totally different from mine.

IME, dive clubs offer a much better learning environment through mentoring than commercial ops do. I've learned more from my club diving with experienced, helpful clubmates than I've ever learned on commercial trips. Now I'm experienced enough to return that service to the community and mentor today's n00bs if needed.

 

[mathauck0814]

That would be a welcome experience, I'd imagine. I've always envisioned a dive club to be something of an influential group that can use its size to leverage opportunities to dive things that otherwise would be off limits. Instead, I've only seen it as a way to wedge ever cheaper prices and ever more overcrowded loads from the local dive operators. I stopped participating when I came to appreciate that all we were doing was squeezing the local industry to do the same dives as everyone else... at a lower price, on a fuller boat, with less qualified divers.

 

[Diving Dubai]

I've had nothing but the best experience with a dive club.

Firstly as an Expat in the Middle East (where most people are expats) it was a place to meet a new circle of friends (the fact it had the cheapest bar in town is an irrelevance)

I learnt more about diving from chatting and being mentored than I could ever learn from courses (unless I only went on courses and spent thousands)

I've been given opportunities, for instance I'm now a certified boat handler (to RYA standards), I learnt all about PP O2 blending etc

We have a tie to an LDS of course, and the manager is a member and pays his fees. We get discounts on Gas fills, and equipment purchases, all the club members use him for equipment repairs and servicing so its a two way street there.

And of course I get to go diving. We own 2 boats, you pay an annual membership fee which includes all your diving off the club boats which is about 50% of the commercial rate. Of course to enable that you need to contribute. The minimum is helping to wash down the boats after a trip.

We charter a boat every month and because we are well known and have proved ourselves as skilled and safe divers, we get to go to sites they won't take most people.

So dive clubs can be great, they generally cut through the agency BS, they don't care who you certify with but will offer you further training.

I came to the club, a novice with 20 dives to my name all guided. 3 and a bit years later I'm almost at 400 and have the skills and training not only to mentor newer divers myself, but to organize and plan multi day trips for up to 20 divers. Everything from chartering the boat, to organizing visa's for the boarder crossing, through to planning the diving based on weather, tides, currents and charts and briefing each site.

If you'd have told me that I would be able to do that 3 years ago I'd have laughed in your face.

The biggest surprise is that my peers tell me they consider me skilled enough to be an instructor, although the biggest surprise to myself it that I'm actually considering it.

So year Dive clubs have a lot to offer but you only get out what you put in

 

[Edward3c]

…

The biggest surprise is that my peers tell me they consider me skilled enough to be an instructor, although the biggest surprise to myself it that I'm actually considering it.

Go for it, there’s nothing like the smile on a student’s face when they’re cracked a skill you’ve taught them.

So year Dove clubs have a lot to offer but you only get out what you put in

So true.

 

[Patoux01]

If you're ever in the UK come visit and dive with a BSAC, SAA or SSAC club. You'll find they are where the boundaries are being pushed. Commercial operators generally dive the safe locations unless chartered by a club.

I dunno about BSAC, but I kind of agree with his feelings after my experience with clubs in my area (FFESSM/CMAS.ch). As a matter of fact, here's my experience with them:
- First one refused me to join them, as "you're PADI trained so you need to take CMAS 1 again". Well **** you too then.
- Second one was so much nicer, their own standards (confirmed by the regional representative of CMAS.ch) state that a Rescue diver is allowed in a CMAS *** cursus. Well guess what, they'd let me join in a... ** diver, as "you understand, being PADI trained you don't know about lakes and cold water, and you're not trained in rescue".

None of those saw me underwater or even talked to me, I had simply sent an email to enquire about the possibility to join.

And, in hindsight, from what I saw from most of those guys, I'm almost happy not to dive with them. Both clubs are convinced they're very good divers, few of them are able to be even remotely in trim or hold buoyancy. So much for good divers.

 

[FinnMom]

I'm from the Scandinavian CMAS club scene, specifically Finland. From what I've seen:
Most clubs seem to own a compressor, and at least 1-2 sets of gear for students. Most commonly there is some nominal fee for a member to rent the gear (free during a class) or to fill a tank. Many clubs can do nitrox, trimix, and other mixed gas fills too. "Clubhouse" space is often provided free by the municipality, because municipal governments tend to see leisure time activities as a quality-of-life priority & worth the investment. Many municipalities also have indoor swimming halls and many halls will provide clubs with their own reserved times to use one or two swim lanes, the whole deep end, one of the pools, etc. depending on the need. Many dive clubs sponsor underwater rugby, underwater hockey or such as fun & keep-fit activity during their club's pool time.

Lots of clubs own boats. Most commonly RIBs, but some club boats are are pretty big and can sleep 8-12 persons. Some larger boats even have sauna because Finns really know how to live Our club only has about 70 members, but we have a couple boats (a 10m open boat & a RIB) and a couple compressors (one big + one mobile). Membership costs about $70/yr and boat trips about $12/trip. Like many others clubs, our club offers many levels of dive training where students pay the club for classes and all instructors are working as volunteers. Note that our club paid 100% of the bill for our instructor training and any necessary first aid classes, card renewals, etc.

Clubs also generally offer weekly dives throughout the summer months where some more experienced person plans and takes responsibility for the dive event (picks the place, sets the schedule, can decide pairs, etc). More experienced pairs can (and usually do in fair numbers) join the dive event and manage their own affairs as trained and competent independent divers. Weekly dives are an inportant service for newer divers who need and want support - put your name down for a weekly dive and the leader will find you and experienced buddy, make sure you have the necessary equipment, gets your weighting sorted out, whatever you need. The life of the club depends on creating more compent, experienced independent divers so we put a fair bit of real effort into making it happen, or at least making it possible if the person themself wants to do it.

I think the club system works great here. Obviously things could never be like this in a locale where the club and all its representatives would have to worry vastly more about liability, and at least spend vastly more money of insurance for this purpose.

"It seems to me maybes" => "Where did they (clubs) go" might be due to increased competition for everyones free time (meaning more now than 20 yrs ago), decline in general populations' willingness to do volunteer work and willingness to commit to participation. It seems like in the mobile phone age people have steadily become less willing to plan in advance unless absolutely necessary; this makes planning group activities harder than it was 15/20/25 yrs ago.

 

[Power Scuba]

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"It seems to me maybes" => "Where did they (clubs) go" might be due to increased competition for everyone's free time (meaning more now than 20 yrs ago), decline in general populations' willingness to do volunteer work and willingness to commit to participation. It seems like in the mobile phone age people have steadily become less willing to plan in advance unless absolutely necessary; this makes planning group activities harder than it was 15/20/25 yrs ago.

Quite right, FinnMom. There are many more dive club choices out there simply because the net has made it stupefyingly easy to start an on-line group. However, with a discerning eye, one can soon discover the "real" groups from the posers. Groups that emphasize safety, encourage further training, and work toward the betterment of the members will stand-out.

One additional burden put on today's groups is the ease with which divers of all caliber and temperament can join on-line... and the need to vett said divers to ensure the integrity of the group. Unsafe beginners, unsafe tech-divers-masquerading-as-experenced, and divers who've been out of the sport for years and then choose to get back into it on a whim are all challenges faced by todays groups.

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

I definitely see a decline in clubs.
The core group that used to make up the population of clubs has gotten older and many have quit diving or dive much less. People have other priorities and participation in a club takes time and effort. People also have many ideas on what is a pleasurable diving day and many don't feel that a club dive is very relaxing or enjoyable. In many ways it's like hearding cats to the people in charge. The other thing is many people are skittish about being the one in charge because of the liability factor.
During the hey day of dive clubs they were very active and there were many of them. It was a way for people to socialize and talk about diving and share information back when info was passed person to person. There also seemed to be less worry about litigation, and maybe it's only me but It didn't seem like there were as many pain in the ass divers around either.

People seem to be much more independent and fickle nowdays and don't want to follow the schedule of anything planned. I see the social aspect and the strong bond of the tribe give way to more mentally abstract social trends like social media. People seem to be satisfied with a virtual sense of group belonging even though it's not really the same thing. It will be interesting to see how this virtual reality will play out in years to come and what it will do to people. People seem more isolated and shut down now as opposed to pre internet when they couldn't wait for the next club meeting or club dive because they got to see their friends again and talk about diving and/or dive again.
So, to me I see the human interaction give way to a virtual interaction, and for that reason maybe it is replacing the physical family unit that a dive club used to provide.

Around here there never has been any club that I'm aware of that had anything close to some of the elaborate setups that I hear about in this thread including a club compressor, big boats, clubhouse, instructors, extra gear, etc. all for a very modest annual fee.
It's a great concept and it would be fantastic to have something like that. I'm not sure there would be enough participation in my area to support something like it, but if the dive shops ever went out that would be the only other way to get fills, or it would be a very long drive to get to a shop.