this post was submitted on 28 Jul 2025
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Scuba Diving

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Trying to dive more consistently (located in the socal area) and I wanna find people I can dive with.

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[–] teotwaki@lemmy.world 2 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (2 children)

I live in Copenhagen, Denmark. There's half a dozen scuba clubs in the area, and I'm a member of one of them. I got my speedboat license and the club trained me to take one of the boats out. I'm hoping to get the training for the second (larger) boat this year.

This means anytime I feel like going diving, and the weather is forgiving, I have a whole boat of people who want to tag along. I have a core group of people I dive a lot with, but basically anyone in the dive club is a very decent diver. Most of them have hundreds of dives, some of them in the thousands, and some of them at levels I can't even begin to completely fathom. Very hardcore technical stuff, sidemount CCR in Norwegian caves and stuff.

Dive clubs cost money because they're expensive to run. I pay about 15€/$20 per month. With that, we get a full trimix filling station with either partial pressure or continuous blending (doing my tech blender course this afternoon), a fully stocked workshop, 2 boats + trailers, a trailer for gear when we're going on longer trips, 4-10 trips per year abroad (not included in the club fee, obviously), washing and drying room, storage for gear, cylinders, etc. Air fills are free and unlimited, nitrox/helitrox/trimix obviously we have to pay for the gases we use, but the club sells oxygen and helium at-cost. We also have a bar with at-cost drinks.

We have old-timers in the club who have been diving for 40-50 years. Some of them still dive to this day. They are a wealth of information.

If you have the gear and want to dive multiple times a week, year-round, then joining a club is definitely worth it.

[–] tinca_tinca@bonn.social 1 points 4 days ago

@teotwaki @pineapplelover

That's also true for me. I live in Germany. There a lot of clubs around here. As we live inlands, we "only" have a compressor and oxygen and a special license to dive for free in a local quarry. There's also free access to a pool for training. And you can rent gear. If you want to dive you usually drop a message in a WhatsApp group.

So joining a club is probably a good option. Check before, if the club is "alive" and you will be good.

[–] pineapplelover@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

That club of yours sounds dope and worth it even if you dive only once a week.

I'm not at the point in time where I'll dive once a week since I'm busy with other aspects of my life. Thinking a few times a year though when my school is off on break.

[–] jrubal1462@mander.xyz 1 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Mostly, I just talk everybody's ear off until they decide to spare themselves and just get certified. This is how my wife, her good friend, and her good friend's husband all got diving and then, naturally, we've gone diving together.

Also, anytime I've done a course at the dive shop, I usually get a phone number or two to open our group up a little bit.

After I got certified, I went about 10 years before I went diving again, because I live in Northeast Pennsylvania and it's not like I'm tripping over other SCUBA divers wherever I go.

[–] pineapplelover@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Yeah I'm doing an AOW course right now and I opted out of their whatsapp group, when we met, I didn't really vibe with them so I passed up on further ideas to get their information to dive together.

So I was looking up discord groups instead. There are dive clubs around me but they cost money and I'm a cheap bastard.

[–] jrubal1462@mander.xyz 2 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Fair. I'm at the point in my life ( 40 y.o. with 2 kids) where I would gladly pay money to a group that makes it easier to dive more often.

It all depends where you live too. In my socal area, once you're in an area where there dense population then there will be dive shops with clubs or regular events