Favorite Northern CA dive shop

[TishaDee]

I believe that Stan's Skin and Scuba on Bascom Ave in San Jose and Pacific Coast Scuba off of Lantz Drive in Morgan Hill are the two best shops in the Bay Area hands down. They only sell the most trusted of brands and possess the philosophy that if they wouldn't dive with it personally, they won't sell it...period! Above and beyond that they are the most knowledgable and friendly folks you will likely ever encounter in diving, with an absolute understanding of what customer service truly is. Last but not least their instruction is bar none, holding their instructors and students to the highest of standards.

Here is some basic info on each to help you decide which one is best for you:

Stans:
1) NAUI shop
2) Sells products for Spear Fishing and Skin Diving
3) Scuba Pro, Oceanic, Omer and Pinnacle dealer (My personal favorites)
4) Heated Pool on site for testing gear before buying and class pool dives
5) Frequent trips to Monterey, mostly shore dives with the occassional dive charter booking
6) Services almost all gear in house and stands behind everything they do and sell!

Pacific Coast Scuba:
1) PADI shop
2) Aqua Lung, Mares, Oceanic, Pinnacle and Dive Rite dealer.
3) Weekly trips to Monterey and monthly trips to Pt Lobos, almost all dives are boat dives!
4) In house custom blends of Nitrox, Argon and Helium fills (no pre mix here!)
5) In house Hydro testing (pretty much every other shop outsources this!)
6) Every item priced is automatically set at the Manufacturers lowest allowed price (aka MAP), so you will get some of the very best deals here!
7) Services almost all gear in house and stands behind every thing they do and sell.

But if tech diving is your thing, then I would highly recommend Any Water Sports off of Saratoga Avenue in San Jose as they offer TDI courses which will take beyond any other agencies limits (330 feet)!

 

[AndrewJD]

TishaDee,

Thanks for your thoughts. I am curious though, why you consider no pre-mix a good thing and if I read you correctly, having pre-mix a bad thing. I think of 32% when I read your comment and personally, I consider not having pre-banked 32% as a negative for a dive shop.

Jonathan

4) In house custom blends of Nitrox, Argon and Helium fills (no pre mix here!)

 

[bbianchi]

I'd have to agree with Jonathan on the banked 32%. That seems almost essential in this area.

Granted the fact that they do blends is great. It however doesnt work too well w/out banking if you want 32% and plan on picking it up on your way down to Monterey. Unless you drive like a maniac I dont think its going to finish mixing .

 

[TaoH]

You don't have to be a tech diver to go to Any Water Sports. They cater to recreational divers just as well as they do the tech divers.

 

[Hepcat62]

Against my better judgment, I respond to the Wallin's thread...

This is Tiffany from Wallin’s and I would like to set the record straight on some of the things said on this board regarding our store.

Since Tiffany decided to come in here and identify herself (frying pan -> fire? :11, I can go ahead and say that Tiffany sold my girlfriend and I (effectively) all of the gear we've decided to invest in since our OW cert, and it was honestly one of the least "pushy" sales-pushes I've ever seen. If anything, it should be called "anti-pushy". She spent a fair amount of "sales" time trying to convince me to spend less money than I had originally planned to spend based on what we actually needed for the type of diving we're doing. I've had similar experiences with the rest of the Wallin's staff (the ones I've interacted with, at any rate). To me, this is the best kind of sales - give the customer the info they don't have and let them make a choice - and it's the reason that I'll keep going to Wallin's for the things I need.

I'm definitely an extremely new diver, so I don't pretend to have the same type of gear/fill issues that some of you have, nor the same level of reference to draw from. Given that, I'll refrain from commenting on non-air fills, and I certainly don't mean to imply that my experiences translate directly to your experiences. Still though, by any measure I can think of and based on my current set of experiences, I've had nothing but extremely positive experiences at Wallin's (and like I said earlier in the thread, I've gotten my best air fills there FWIW).

 

[MattC007]

there was a very nice dive shop where I used to live called Pinnacles, and the ppl who ran the place were very friendly. Website

 

[Coelacanth]

Pinnacles is my local place, only about ten minutes away. Not very big, but like Matt said, very nice people. Only other place I've been to so far is Aquarius in Monterey, which seemed like a great place too.

 

[steved_at_work]

Wallins Dive Center (Wallin's Dive Center -- Bay Area dive center in San Francisco area (San Carlos): SSI Scuba Certification) in San Carlos. Great people, equipment, and service. Heated pool, and lots of SSI classes offered continuously. If you have 4+ people they can make arrangements for just about any class on the SSI schedule. They have a dive club which nets you get free air fills and 10% off rental gear. My 2¢

 

[TishaDee]

TishaDee,

Thanks for your thoughts. I am curious though, why you consider no pre-mix a good thing and if I read you correctly, having pre-mix a bad thing. I think of 32% when I read your comment and personally, I consider not having pre-banked 32% as a negative for a dive shop.

Jonathan

Obviously everything comes down to personal preference but to address the question as to why I think custom mixes are better: It boils down to this, I prefer the versatility and the lower cost. Sure 32% and 36% will meet most peoples needs; however I'm a thorough pre-dive planner who believes in planning your dive and diving your plan. Not to mention that I also have a deep interest in tech diving and find that I often require more personalized mixes. Additionally, I have also found that pre-banked fills are typically more costly and in this day and age, every dollar counts.

Now that all being said, If your LDS doesn't offer pre-banked then they should try to always have 32% and 36% already mixed and ready to go for those last minute pick ups. I can't speak for all the shops that do custom fills, but I do know that Pacific Coast Scuba in Morgan Hill does typically have enough 32% and 36% ready to go.

However, I do recognize that the downsides to custom mixes are obviously that they typically do require prior planning and that they tend to be slightly off on the requested mix (usually by less then 1%) which I always account for when I do my pre-dive planning. Personally speaking, the versatility of custom mixes far outweighs the fact that I need to call in advance.

Hope that clarifies my position.

 

[rainman_02]

First, I'm a certified gas blender and I've got several hundred trimix and nitrox fills under my belt.

Obviously everything comes down to personal preference but to address the question as to why I think custom mixes are better: It boils down to this, I prefer the versatility and the lower cost. Sure 32% and 36% will meet most peoples needs; however I'm a thorough pre-dive planner who believes in planning your dive and diving your plan. Not to mention that I also have a deep interest in tech diving and find that I often require more personalized mixes. Additionally, I have also found that pre-banked fills are typically more costly and in this day and age, every dollar counts.

Something is wrong with the price structure at a dive shop that charges more per cuft of pre-mix than custom mix.

1) Custom mixes take longer to blend.
2) Custom mixes are most often partial pressure blends.

In the case of 1) the old adage time = money is key. If I can fill your tank with [35% of rated fill pressure] He and top to rated pressure with 32%, I can give you a mix of 21/35 in short order. Just like I can mix 18/45 and any of the other "standard gasses" in about the same amount of time. If you want 30/30 or 25/17 or some other custom mix, it is going to take me at least 3 times as long to mix your gas (unless you don't mind if I miss the mark by a few %, but then why go custom if you don't care about that).

In the case of 2) partial pressure blending leaves you a certain amount of unusable gas in the supply tank. This is gas you paid for but cannot be used. In the example of nitrox, using a single AL80 and PP'ing 32%, you use roughly 11.2 cuft of O2 (just under 90 psi from the supply bottle). You can fill roughly 28 tanks with a single supply bottle before you have 120 psi of unusable O2. That is 5% of your supply tank. Figure a cost of a [PraxAir "Tech" O2] tank is $18 and you've just lost a dollar per supply tank. The more supply tanks you get, the more you can cascade and drop the waste, but there is still waste...and now you're adding even more time to the mixing.

You see where this is going?

With He, it gets worse. If you figure the cost of a [PraxAir "Tech" He] tank is $220 and you get 291 cuft (2640 psi)...and you want to blend something, say 21/35. You can only mix up 3 sets of double HP100 tanks before you're "out." Out, of course leaving you with roughly 735 psi of He in your tank, or $61.25 of your gas you can't use.

So, why not cascade the He? Great idea...but again, it takes time and investment.


With my partial pressure setup, I'm looking at the costs of 6 O2 bottles and 4 He bottles. Not including the bottle lease fees, I'm looking at just under $1000 in supply tanks to do my mixing.

To properly cascade and get each supply tank down to under 50 psi (this means my per tank waste cost is now $0.34 for O2 and $4.17 for He), I have to spend over two hours per trimix fill and around an hour plus for a nitrox fill.

If the shop is paying min wage to the fill monkey, you're looking at a custom trimix (let's call it 30/30) fill cost of $16 in time, $65 in He (have to account for the unusable gas), $1.55 in O2, and wear and tear on the compressor/bank.

If the shop is continuous blending, well, you can take $20 off the He cost and knock the time cost down.

You can also knock the time cost down by going to less accurate blends. But then what is the point of a custom mix if it is not exactly the mix you asked for?

Now that all being said, If your LDS doesn't offer pre-banked then they should try to always have 32% and 36% already mixed and ready to go for those last minute pick ups. I can't speak for all the shops that do custom fills, but I do know that Pacific Coast Scuba in Morgan Hill does typically have enough 32% and 36% ready to go.

32% is preblend. So is 36%. You can make some pretty versatile gasses from 32%. 25/25, 21/35, 18/45, 15/55, 12/60, 10/70...how deep do you want to go? I cannot think of any dive (of less than 400 feet) that cannot be accomplished with these gasses. The only ones to add in are 35/25, 50%, and 100% for deco.