Houston's Premier Scuba and Dive Shop Oceanic Ventures Inc.

(713) 523-3483 (dive)
5808 Newcastle Drive
Houston, TX 77401

Dry Suit Diving

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DUI DOG Rally and Demo Days

David Morris Dry Suit Diving
Why would anyone want to put on a dry suit and go diving?  I heard myself say that in my early years of diving and never thought I would ever don one.  Then I met Faith Ortins of Diving Unlimited International and Julie Footman of Aqua Diving Academy in Portland Maine.  Both of these ladies wondered why I would dive in anything else.  Julie went as far to say that she got cold in wetsuits so she always dove in a drysuit, no matter where she went.
Over the years, I have changed my tune.  I found that dry suit diving was not as intimidating as people made it sound and it really extended my diving season.  Diving dry has also opened up new dive locations and made others more comfortable.  I cannot imagine diving in 14mm of rubber again (a 7mm one piece suit with a 7mm xip up vest)!  Ashton learned to dive in a dry suit so he could go ice diving in New Hampshire.  We now run a trip there every year.  We also ran a trip to Antarctica earlier in the year – definitely a dry suit location.
One of the ways to find out more about Dry Suit Diving is to attend the Diving Unlimited International DOG Rally and Demo Days.  DOG stands for DUI Owners Group and there will be divers there from all over the area.  Additionally, you can try out a suit or any type of DUI undergarments.  They bring a truckload of stuff to allow you to try anything in their product line.  Join Oceanic Ventures staff members, Ashton Arsement, and David Morris as they travel to Terrell Texas for the annual Diving Unlimited International, DUI, DOG Rally and Demo Day. 
 For $10.00 (15.00 at the gate) you can try the equipment, have lunch and receive a cap. There is also a dinner Saturday night ($10.00 ticket). Prices are higher at the gate so get your ticket from Oceanic Ventures before the event. You can order them by phone or by emailing Ashton@oceanicventures.net.
Need to know where to go?  Here is more information on Clear Springs Scuba Park [https://www.clearspringsscubapark.com/] Need more details, drop Ashton a note or call us.

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Need to Get Wet & Have Thursday Off? Let's Go Scuba Diving!

We have had several requests to get wet!  Some of those requests came from bankers who had Thursday off.  So, since the weather is so nice right now, we thought it would be fun to go diving.  We have arranged to go to 288 Lake for some fun in the sun and to practice buoyancy skills.  The plan is to meet at the store at 9:45 and then go down to the lake.  My thoughts were to do a few dives and go somewhere for a late lunch.
If you are interested, please send me an email at divesafe@oceanicventures.net or call me at 713.523.3483, so I can make sure there are enough cylinders.
Let’s go diving!…Eric

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DUI Demo Days

 


Chef Eric
Chef Eric
 

It is hard to believe it has been a year since we were last here for a rebreather confined water for Mark Conrad, Wade Sparks and Terry DeWolf.  But here we are again for the DUI Demo Days at Lake Travis and this year the water level is up to a reasonable level. 

 

 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

his year I was joined by a number of our staff including Dive Mom herself, Pat Croll, Vernon Dittrich, Bob Sloan and Wade Sparks.  Vernon and Pat were finishing a class, And I had scheduled this weekend as a practice session and a chance to get some skills out of the way for our Grand Cayman and Inner Space experiences.  Joining me for this session were CCR Normoxic Trimix students Harvey Sisco and Matt Booth.

 Saturday found most of us in the water except for Wade who became the cook for the day, keeping all of the


Chef Wade
Chef Wade

 participants well fed.  Vernon and Pat ran their students through their drills and mine were troopers as well, accomplishing most of the skills leaving only a few for our later dives.

Sunday found me with a plugged up head and students who had accomplished a lot the previous day.  Matt had to teach a class of his own, so Wade and Harvey went diving so Harvey could continue working on his trim.   This left me with Wade’s job from the previous day – that’s right Chef for a day.  Of course, during the night a storm blew in, dumped a lot of rain which continued the next morning.  This made cooking more ao a challenge although it had slowed to a slight drizzle.   The biggest challenge was sinking in the mud in front of the grill or walking around with 20 pounds of Texas Clay caked to my feet.
 

 

All-in-all we had a great time and the event was a success.  On top of that, we all had a good time.       

 

 

 

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Feeding the CHUM

Chum MeetingDry suits in Texas – what are we crazy? 
When we introduced drysuit diving to Houston (ok, on a retail basis) who would have thought that we would actually have sold some, much less have two regular demo events in the state and make the DUI Hot Sheet for the most dry suit sales in a month? Ann & I certainly planned for the eventuality and Faith Ortins, our friend at DUI had faith in us but to see it happen has been exciting. It is hard to really introduce someone to the concept of Dry Suit diving, especially in Houston which is the gateway to warm Caribbean and Pacific diving but it is fun to help people extend there diving horizons and their diving seasons. 
This evening we had the opportunity to introduce some diving divers to the fun of being warm while underwater.  The City of Houston Underwater Mariners invited us to talk about dry suit diving  and tempt their club members into attending one of the upcoming DUI Demo events, the first of which is in two days and the other in the spring.  DUI helped us by donating a DUI jacket to the event for us to give away and we of course threw in some t-shirts and other give away items. 
This was a special meeting so according to Ryan, there were not as many people as in previous meetings.  Still there were 30 brave souls (lots of rain just before the meeting screwed-up traffic in Houston) who came out to hear me espouse the virtues of drysuit diving.  To entertain them, I obtained a number of slides from friends around the industry showing divers diving dry and some of the places they could dive.  Faith sent me some fun photographs including a photo of divers having martinis on an ice flow in British Columbia (posed of course – you can’t drink and dive!) 
While we were not successful in getting some members of the group interested in joining us that weekend, we did garner some support for the spring event. And, who knows, we may have sent a few of them group thinking there was diving in the winter…