Last Updated on June 22, 2024 by Steve Weinman
Swedish dive-gear distributor Reel Diving has established a facility for service, training and dealer support in the UK by taking over and rebranding the Divemaster Scuba dive-shop on the Robin Hood Industrial Estate in Nottingham under its own name.
Reel Diving UK becomes a Santi, Suex, Halcyon, Ammonite and Shark authorised service and warranty centre and a training facility for its dealers. The centre will display the full range of products, although these will be sold only through Reel Diving dealers.
Reel Diving UK will offer closed-circuit rebreather, cave, mine and DPV technical training up to instructor level, as it does in Gothenburg.
The facility includes a service workshop for drysuits, regulators, lights, rebreathers, DPVs and cylinders and, as an IDEST-approved testing facility, can offer hydraulic and visual testing, valve servicing and oxygen-cleaning for cylinders.
What is now the Reel Diving building also houses a gas-filling station, classroom, equipment showroom and purpose-built 4m-deep 10m diameter heated pool with a 1.6m training platform extending for 50% of its surface area.
SDL dives into Olympics pool
Hampshire-based Ocean Turtle Diving has linked up with Stratford’s London Aquatics Centre to launch a venture called Scuba Dive London, making use of one of the competition pools used for the 2012 Olympics and Paralympics held in the capital.
The pool features a moveable floor that allows depth to be adjusted according to the training level required from 0 to 5m.
“We are so excited to finally be able to expand our top-notch PADI training into the underserviced London market,” said owner and PADI Course Director Kerrie Eade.
“Over the 20 years Ocean Turtle Diving has been operating, we’ve frequently had customers from London trek down the M3 to our store in Hampshire to dive and train with us, and now we can offer them the same first-class service in their home city,”
As a PADI Career Development Centre, Ocean Turtle Diving offers professional-level diver training and internships, and this will apply equally to the new site.
Last year PADI recognised OTD as the UK’s busiest dive-centre in terms of certifications. “Our new partnership with the London Aquatics Centre is a landmark development for our business and we are eager to now share our wealth of experience and our passion for diving with the people of London, Kent, Essex and beyond,” said Eade.
Farewell to SDS Watersports
In Sheffield, meanwhile, a long-established dive-shop has closed permanently. SDS Watersports’ Scuba Diving Superstore in the Halfway area was established in 1989 by Arthur Balderson and for many years was one of the biggest UK retail outlets, the only one to win the Diver Magazine Retailer of the Year Awards on seven occasions.
A sign posted outside the premises earlier this month stated: “Unfortunately we have ceased trading… thank you for all your support” and was signed off by manager Ian Kirby and his sales team. There is no recognition of the closure on the company’s website, and calls go unanswered.
Also on Divernet: LONDON’S OCEAN LEISURE STORE CLOSES, SIMPLY SCUBA GOES UNDER AGAIN
