Hollow Advice - Try It Out in the Pool

[H2Andy]

On a side note, we love cats. The males tend to be a bit chewy but if their prepared just right......

dude, you can move in tomorrow!

(honey, our new guests are gonna LOVE your cats!)

 

[Sideband]

heehee, funny you mention...people are always saying I have large hands. Anyway, let's see enmity..enmity, isn't that where Jaws was filmed?

Nope.. You are thinking of the Enmityville horror.

On a side note, we love cats. The males tend to be a bit chewy but if their prepared just right......

A 24 hour marinade helps a lot and try not to frighten them too much during the defurring. Always remember that while there may be more than one way to skin a cat, they are all fun.

If this post doesn't put me on some kind of watch list I don't know what will.

 

[BigboyDan]

Yea, to heck with the job and the salary and the kids that are happy in school and the wife's Thursday Bridge game and the rest of our usual routine....My LDS won't let me try gear in the pool!...Honey, kids...pack up, we're moving West!

Just funnin'. Head down 59, you can get anything you need in Houston.

 

[spectrum]

The LDS has no pool and light inventory so there's not a lot to try. What I've seen so far in retal gear is decent but rental grade. We're looking to buy a notch or 2 better. I will be asking about demo's of what we're intersted in so as not to sell him short.

Meanwhile we found another not too far away that has the pool and they have extended an offer to make an apointment to come down and run through what they offer with me and my wife and let us take items of interest into their pool. We're planning to do this between the pool and checkout dives. I don't plan to buy till we have our cards but I hope this helps minimize the rental period. I do want to try to get what we want into open water before buying but with limited dive sops up here that may be asking a lot. We'll learn more as we investiigate.

Pete

 

[String]

Must admit over here i have never heard of or seen a shop that offers pool trials for kit.

 

[MikeFerrara]

How many times have i already heard people say they tried on BP/W's in store and found them uncomfortable to wear over their street clothing or wetsuit standing there - not horizontally neutral in the water? So many seem to get put off just for that reason alone it seems.

I completely concur on the economic issue and of course the chemical troubles, but it sounds like some people have nice LDS's that work with them, the entire inventory in rental and selling off at the end of the season sounds like a reasonable plan and as always assisting the customer may well make them more likely to spend their money at your store!

With bp/wing type stuff I used to take people to OW, help em get set up and they were usually using one of my personal wings and I have extra back plates.

Maybe some stores can have their whole inventory in rental but I never was able to. We just didn't rent that much gear except for use in classes. You need to bring in a bunch of money renting equipment to be able to turn it over every year. It's nice if a store can do it but many just can't.

 

[easyrider]

Both dive shops in town here will let you try the stuff in the pool

 

[lcrom]

Not only does my LDS (Scuba Connection) allow it they encourage it..

 

[JustAddWater]

Likewise with my LDS

 

[RP Diver]

My LDS does a lot of OW and AOW cert classes, and they also run a lot of group dive trips (as much as 2 a month) all over the world. This means that lot of newly certified divers go on these trips, and many rent the stuff they think they might want to buy on these group trips. As a result the shop offers a lot of possibilities for rentals. This is why they don't have any problem with trying stuff in the on site pool.

They also have a huge blowout sale each spring in May, with equipment reps, dive resort reps, 3 days of free seminars on gear and travel, and great prices on both new and used gear. During the sale they have an endless stream of customers from the locker room to the pool, trying anything and everything, including free Discover Scuba sessions. And they make a lot of sales just because of this policy.

Again... they do it up right for a land-locked operation. :bang: