Negativity in Cave Diving Politics

[twaldo]

You obviously have never been to Lloyd's shop. He has over 5000 sq ft of gear. Everything from open water to cave. He has cut down a little on his cave inventory but he still has anything in cave diving that you would need. He has been in Gainesville since the 80's. His hours are Wed, Thur, Fri, from 12:00 to 6:00. Saturday 10:00 to 4:00. If you need anything on any other day just give him a call and he will meet you at his shop. He reserves Monday and Tuesday to teaching. Instructor from OW to Full Cave. There is not another shop within 200 miles of Gainesville that has as much inventory. He respects the cave shops in High Springs and does not conflict his inventory to theirs. I respect that a price war is avoided and the fact that he works with the owners of the other shops is appreciated.
What have you seen at Lloyds that makes you think he is not on top of the industry? When was the last time you went into a dive shop and was offered over 300 suits to make a decision? His Lavacore inventory is to die for. The only thing I know that he does not carry is Shearwater. There are enough shops in the area that do.
I say all this to say this: Be careful what you say about someone's business when in fact is not any of your business.

hhhmmm, yeah, about that.... Just said that it was like a museum... he has a TON of cool stuff that was used back in the day.... DID NOT say that he didn't have new stuff. I think I also said I LOVE GOING THERE. LOVE talking to Lloyd. He is still in the business because he enjoys it not because he is trying to make $$ and that is always a pleasure to be around. That being said though if you want an open water class (or any other) it is going to be on his time schedule. Unlike another shop that is at Manatee pretty much EVERY weekend teaching Open Water students in a way that has been criticized by some on this forum, they are still cranking out students.

And if you are going to vent to someone, I'm not even the one that suggested he wasn't open consistently.

Thanks for playing,

Tim

[cavewoman]

Chris was picking on me for teaching 3rds for open water, but that was how I was taught and NEVER came close to an out of air event. EE seems to not really care about teaching open water, same goes for CC,

I'd like to clear up that CCDS actually does offer open water in fact we have scheduled classes on the board and a new staff member joining who will be teaching regular courses. We try to be welcoming to divers of all level. Our gear is different than most recreational shops because we personally would tend to rig our students in something they can grow with in their diving. We hope our students will go on to want to do cavern and tech training so we rig our open water divers with more of a tech streamlined rig.

[twaldo]

I'd like to clear up that CCDS actually does offer open water in fact we have scheduled classes on the board and a new staff member joining who will be teaching regular courses. We try to be welcoming to divers of all level. Our gear is different than most recreational shops because we personally would tend to rig our students in something they can grow with in their diving. We hope our students will go on to want to do cavern and tech training so we rig our open water divers with more of a tech streamlined rig.

Glad to see you guys are jumping back in on this... I mean all the "cave" shops have associated OW instructors but no on board instructors and that is what has been needed for a while.