Scubafanatic has it pretty well nailed. I am old and remember when this was a Great Country. The blame is on the career politicans who have taken all the best for themselves, and sent the U.S.A. into a downhill spiral. They really believe the laws do not apply to them. Both political parties, its a club, a club, and they are all members. It looks like a One World Government is coming. I will not be here to see the final flush, but many of you younger people will. The blame is also on us for the obvious reasons. as for DEMA I did it for many years, did a lot of seminars, made a lot money in the good years. After the last few distasters I am no longer going.
This is still a great country, it's still the greatest country on earth. True, many freedoms are lost to us, such as the freedom to dump **** in the Florida keys, or the freedom to plant sugar int the everglades. Those decisions impacted somebody adversely, and they bitched and grumbled about our socialist government or whatever.
I, however, see the good that comes from that every day. I've only been diving the keys since 1999, but I think we've seen the worst. I used to scratch my head and wonder why anyone would dive here. This year the reefs were the healthiest I've seen in 10 years. The sea urchins population is healthy, staghorn coral is throughout the Dry Tortugas, black coral is a common occurance, 30-40 lb black groupers are seen often, red groupers are seen most every dive, this place has been turned into a place I am proud to bring customers and show them "my" reef.
DEMA has the ability to transform itself back into an organization that supports the diving industry. I don't believe the DEMA board is evil, I think they (like many dive shops) are stuck doing business the way it's always been done, and are trying to force the industry to fit the mold that existed in the '70s. I am a firm believer in supporting the retailer, but I also think the retailer has to learn to go above and beyond if they want to take business from the internet. When I dive travel, I have a shop I call and go where they are going. Why? I just have to give them a credit card, passport, and get on a plane. I don't have the time to research the destination, buy airfare, be all mad when someone else in the group got their airfare for $500 less than I did, forget to plan a day layover to recover from jet lag, etc. etc. I pay a dive shop to do all that for me.
One of the problems with this industry is that it is treated as a joke by both the shops as well as the agencies. The old saying of "it's not the agency, it's the instructor" wink wink? What a bunch of BS. If the agencies really gave a crap about training instead of profits, we'd see a lot more bad instructors taken out of the gene pool. Unfortunately, it's not about the instructor, it's about the agencies profits. And what about the dive shops sending their barely certified open water students to the Flower Gardens for their first trip, on open water dives 5-12? I'm sorry, the Flower Gardens is not creampuff diving. How many certified divers will never dive again because they were either sick for the weekend, or got their asses handed to them on the ladder. Until this industry puts long-term diver retention ahead of short term profits, we will be stuck in the same paradigm (like that word? Hmmm Paradigm Paradigm) that we have been. The whole black market/gray market internet sales thing is crap too. I sat in an Oceanic dealer conference once where the rep looked each dealer in the eye and told them that Oceanic didn't condone gray market sales. CRAP!!!! Oceanic sells their gear wherever and to whomever buys it. Don't feed us crap, we aren't stupid! I only use Oceanic as an example because it's the only dealer conference I ever went to. I don't mean to single them out, I can buy any brand of gear I want on the internet. If the dealers really wanted to help the retailers, they would have one price structure for internet sales and another for retailers. Make the internet guys fully authorized dealers, and charge them 25% more. This puts the dive shop and the internet retailer n the same footing.
Don't treat this industry as a joke, too many people rely on it for a living.
Frank
We have divers from all over the country come join our events and buy from us worldwide. Its truely amazing what a small local dive shop can do to compete against the big guys. Phil at Dive Sports is the same....we work hard on ALL aspects of diving, not just selling online gear. Although it is a very good addition to the front door
