Is it a Real Dive Shop or a Bad Hallucination?

Sometimes truth is far stranger than fiction. You will know this story is true, because there is no way in hell I could have ever made it up.

This is an opinion piece, the views expressed are solely those of the author and are not necessarily indicative of the views of this publication or its principles.

"Test your rocket knowledge: Can you find the problem with this manifold?"

It is like a bad dream . . .

Just when I think I have seen it all and it may just be safe to walk into my corner dive shop again, it hits me square between the eyes.  "It", being the complete and in some cases dangerous lack of knowledge possessed by many dive store employees.  I mean these guys are responsible for servicing dive gear (not mine but some poor trusting souls), filling cylinders and in some cases training new divers.  Take the day before yesterday – I am in a phone conference with the SEAduction staff when I pull into a local dive store in the New Port Richey area of Florida.  An employee who identified himself only as “Pops” was minding the store.  So I sent my technical student in to get two sets of twins filled.  Imagine my surprise when the student returned to advise me that “Pops” would only fill my twins if we took the bands off.  Immediately I said no way and began to seriously question the sanity of what was obviously an idiot posing as a tech student.  So I go inside to discover yes “Pops” was in fact requiring the bands to be removed before he will fill the cylinders.

Now for those of you uneducated in the nuances of twins – the bands actually keep the manifold connecting the tanks together from bending, breaking, spewing fragmented chrome plated brass about the room, etc.  The manifold by itself is not strong enough to hold the tanks when they are moved about.  YES these were the parts that our esteemed rocket scientist of dive store fame wanted to remove BEFORE he would fill the tanks to higher more shrapnel producing pressure!  Note if you will please – both sets of twins were in current hydro and VIP – not that Dr Tank Valve would have known that since he never got close enough to the tanks to see – but they were.

As I stood there, dumbfounded – for those that know me a rare condition indeed - all I could think of was – well never mind it is not suitable for printing but I did apologize to the student for my unfounded characterization of his mental stability.  Then Dr Tank Valve told me that if I would just wait till he finished with his customer, (who I sincerely hope was not in need of any remotely technical service) he could tell me about it.  As much as I would have loved to hear Professor Tank Valves astoundingly enlightening lecture on the physical principles of tank valve construction, thermo dynamics and such – alas Eagle’s Nest was calling and daylight was burning, so we took our business to another shop (which gladly filled our tanks) and on to a great day of diving. Oh, and by the way, I’ll no longer be patronizing that shop … for any purpose.

Knowledge Take Away:

- NEVER remove bands from twin sets just because a “Pops” says so.

- Don’t accept substandard service from an LDS. There are too many other shops out there that would love to have your business and invest the time to educate their employees.

- Shop owners: Your employees represent you every time they interact with their customers. Do you know what they’re saying on your behalf?  Have you adequately trained them to deal with the task divers require?

Safe Diving,