Favorite Northern CA dive shop

[urmaddad]

Steele's in Oakland has the best prices in the bay area for equipment and service.

 

[cmburch]

Urmaddad,
It looks like you are advertising for Steele's. Are you the owner?

 

[urmaddad]

I am not the owner, but just a long time customer. All you have to do is compare their prices to the other shops.
urmaddad

 

[Chuck Tribolet]

Urmaddad,
It looks like you are advertising for Steele's. Are you the owner?

Steele's, use a computer? He's well knows as a quite the Ludite. I don't
think they even have a website.

 

[blewgrass]

Chuck,

If that dive shop owner is a die hard luddite, he surely would be selling only hand crafted folk built gear. The luddite factor is that glass case with the antique regulators in those local dive shops. I guess that stuff still works? Does anybody here have a hand crafted wetsuit...not made by a loom?

 

[cmburch]

I will have to check out Steele's next time I am in Oakland.

 

[blewgrass]

Yeah... I was just being silly. I happen to be in an Anthropology class at the moment in which we just covered Luddites, which were originally textile workers who often took to destroying looms and were fighting the industrial revolution. I found the reference funny and fitting in the dive shop settiing, hence the smiley face. The term Luddite in the context of my class evokes a very animated and dramatic visual! I can picture a dive shop owner smashing computers! :smash:

 

[SoCalAngel]

OK, I went to Bamboo Reef and was pretty happy with the customer service on July 4th!

They vis'd my steel tank and gave me Nitrox fills right away. Sadly, when I went to dive today, the fills were 2900 and 3100 on 3500 HP 80 tanks

On the brighter side, they preordered the parts I need to get my 2nd stage fixed properly...

so far, they are in the lead for me in Monterey...

 

[jkimball]

I'm a big fan of Wallin's dive center...I've been meaning to join their Kelptomaniacs dive club Kelptomaniac Dive Club -- Wallin's Dive Center they seem to organize fun trips and joining the club gives free air fills at Wallin's. Never actually taken a class from them though...just bought some gear at this point. The people who work there are very nice. Store selection is a little limited I think though.

 

[Hepcat62]

I'll throw out another big vote for Wallin's. My girlfriend and I did our OW certs there, and had a blast - the instructors were great, and very willing to go above and beyond when possible to help people succeed. We've bought all of our gear there as well, and they've been very generous and accommodating. They seem to be primarily a Scubapro shop, but they carry AquaLung and Halycon in-stock as well. I look like a walking Scubapro endorsement now, but only because that ended up being the most comfortable gear for me when testing - I've never had a hard sell pushed on me.

I don't want to sound like I'm doing a sales pitch for the place or anything, but they've definitely made very loyal customers out of us so far.