Mailing List Archive Mailing List Archive
New Seattle Dive Shop Warning I would advise people in the Seattle area to steer clear of the new dive shop across from Seacrest! No matter how convenient they are. I'm not usually one to trash a dive shop but I felt this story should get out about the new dive shop (I believe it's call Diving Supplies but the place was such a mess that I couldn't tell for sure) across the street from Seacrest in West Seattle. I've tried to confirm the name but can't find them in the phone book or on the net... they only opened last weekend. Today I went to meet a friend at Seacrest and was a bit early. Since my doubles were down to 1400psi I thought I'd check out the new dive shop across the street and top off the tanks (even though we were only going to be diving to about 60 feet). The place is kind of strange. They have a mix of pretty bad scuba gear as well as commercial diving helmets and other oddities. It's a total wreck of a shop (unlike the new FifthD place in Issaquah - very nice job). There is a big fat mean guy who (I think) runs the place and a younger guy who gets yelled at by the big fat mean guy. The big fat mean guy (bfmg) apparently had never filled doubles before (so why is he selling commercial diving helmets?). After lecturing me on Nitrox for a while he did the usual and tried to fill through both posts but couldn't get that to work (even though he was spinning knobs like my tanks were some type of foose ball table). I told him that most places just do it through one post and leave the isolator open. He tried that (on both posts) and couldn't get it to work. He then started getting pretty irate (he yelled some more at his assistant - who was visibily embarrased by his actions at this point). I told him I was late (I had to meet a friend) and that it wasn't a big deal... I could easily do the dive with 1400psi. I was trying to leave gracefully. He'd have nothing of that and continued to mess around with the tanks. It was getting scary (he was talking about taking things apart) so I grabbed the tanks, disconnected them from the tank torture booster machine and told him I was leaving� "do I owe you any money?". He said, "no - I didn't touch your tanks " (i.e. I'm not libel for you if you dive with these unless you let me take it all apart) "you shouldn't dive with these - I shouldn't let you take them". I took them and left. He chased me out of the store saying "You're in a hurry to go diving, you're going to hurt yourself. You're tanks are broken." I drove off. I parked at the fish and chips place near beach two and went over to tell the story to a Silent World guy who was doing some training. I normally bring my tanks to them because they're the closest shop to me and figured my tanks were fine because they'd filled them just the other day. The next thing I know BFMG has followed me over (I'm hard to miss in my bright orange vw bus) and is asking people around the parking lot where I went. I went back over to my van and he started ranting again... saying he was going to call the police and the fire department. !!!Psycho warning!!! He was waving around some manifold like a lunatic saying that his equipment worked on that one and he was convinced my manifold was "broken". I didn't go diving: mostly because I was afraid to leave my van topside. Just to make 100% sure everything was on the level I brought the tanks over to Andrews new FifthD store in Issaquah (which is really nice). He thought it was pretty funny, spent a long time adjusting my gear, giving me pointers (because, so far, I've "learned" everything on the net), topped off my tanks and refused to take any money. Thanks Andrew! I feel horrible that he wouldn't take any money but I'll pay him back by buying a HID and doing some training with him in the future. Anyway - just thought that the Seattle crowd should know about this wacko. I've met some really touched people in this industry but he definitely takes the cake. I'd love to hear any other reports on this shop. -ben __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get email at your own domain with Yahoo! Mail. http://personal.mail.yahoo.com/ -- Send mail for the `techdiver' mailing list to `techdiver@aquanaut.com'. Send subscribe/unsubscribe requests to `techdiver-request@aquanaut.com'.
Navigate by Author:
[Previous]
[Next]
[Author Search Index]
Navigate by Subject:
[Previous]
[Next]
[Subject Search Index]
[Send Reply] [Send Message with New Topic]
[Search Selection] [Mailing List Home] [Home]