This monTh, we have been playing fantasy dive centres. seriously, if you had the budget and a plot of land, what would you come up with? We had a think, and concocted a few ideas that were a bit too blue-sky for their own good. so, after banning fanciful notions of helicopter garages and underwater volcano-crater bases, we confronted the idea head on – by checking out the real-world competition. All of this prompted a fascinating debate: is there such a thing as the ideal dive centre?

When it comes to the basic structure of your centre, it doesn’t matter if you’re based right on the beach or inland: you need a setup that people will recognise as a solid working dive centre. That means up-to-date hire kit and a regimented system for its maintenance and storage. You need changing rooms, working showers and secure storage for kit and valuables. if you have a classroom, it should be comfortable; if you have a training pool, it should be clean and deep enough for buoyancy lessons (at least 3m).

Whatever luxuries and amenities you choose to offer, they should be fully functional – no-one’s going to brag about your Jacuzzi if it’s filled with brown water. on the other hand, spending a few quid on a decent library of species-identification books, a water cooler to keep your clients hydrated and showers that actually work will stand your business in good stead. oh, and the centre that provides kit crates big enough to take an average pair of fins should win a nobel prize!

Let’s consider how dive centres operate in a truly competitive market. in sharm El sheikh, scores of businesses vie for your custom. The leaders of this market have become recognisable brands, names such as sinai Divers, Red sea College, oonasdivers and, of course Camel Dive (www.cameldive.com). now in its 24th year of operating, Camel somehow gets large numbers of people diving every day, and still manages to look cool and laidback while it goes about its business.

The centre itself has all the prerequisites of a professional operation, but it stands out because of all the little extras: the café, the ice cream parlour, the chill-out area and the rooftop bar (not to mention the boutique hotel), which long ago attained cult status in sharm. The staff members are young and look great in their Camel-branded kit, but crucially they are able to handle large groups of holidaying divers with tact and charm.

For a similar model, there is nesima Resort and Dive Centre, further up the coast in Dahab (www.nesima-resort.com). it has the classic centre layout portrayed in our graphic overleaf, with the compressor room and the dusty old off-roaders kept behind the scenes, the rest of the setup constructed around the big rinse tanks. nesima gives you your own locker to stow dry items, valuables and clothes during your diving day. Yes, i know it sounds a bit mundane, but think – how many places offer this simple service? most

In search of the

perfect dive centreWhat makes the ideal dive centre – is it the effortlessly cool staff, an idyllic shoreside setting, the unmistakable aroma of the compressor shed? Simon Rogerson weighs up the options

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Well set: dive reception at Camel Dive Club [1]; kitting up [2] and boot-drying area at Werner Lau’s centre in Bali [3]; transporting kit at Werner Lau’s Filitheyo resort [4]

1 Fleet of pickups: you need a working fleet of workhorse vehicles that can be used for

ferrying cylinders, wet divers and other filthy items to and from entry points. it doesn’t matter how rusty and bedraggled they are, as long as they go

2 The classroom: should be air-conditioned in tropical climes to keep students alert. no need

for frills here, just a whiteboard, a screen and some chairs

3 Reception: this is your respectable front-of-house, with your most charming staff

to oversee admin and greet the punters. You can fill the closed office to the rear with grumpy staff who smoke cigarettes all day and moan about the accounts

4 Water cooler: keeping your guests hydrated is a priority, and remember that charging

for water doesn’t win you goodwill

5 Secure storage: increasingly common among European-run centres, this is a secure place

to stash your valuables while you’re out. Everyone gets their own locker key

6 Locker room: everyone gets a numbered locker and crate for overnight storage of their

equipment; this area incorporates numbered wetsuit hangers

7 Compressor room: off-limits to the public, this is another workhorse section of the dive

centre. in the illustration, the resident ‘compressor monkey’ is seen relaxing in the traditional manner

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8 Training pool: a must for any serious training centre, the pool should have a deep

section (about 4m) for courses. here, a valiant student is seen executing his first giant stride entry

9 Wet hangers: everyone gets two numbered hangers for drying BCs and wetsuits

out in the open before transferring to the locker room

10 Beach barbecue: for flame-grilled burgers after your dive. Don’t

pretend you don’t want one. To be replaced in cold-water centres with a stoney-Cove-style bacon buttie hatch

11 Cool café: inspired by Camel in sharm, we’ve decided we can’t live

without a café selling hot chocolate, italian ice cream and freshly grilled paninis

could this be the perfect dive centre?

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12 The benches: Werner Lau’s number-one rule is to make life as easy

as possible for your guests, so you definitely need a few benches for kitting up

13 Rinse tanks: the key here is a separate tank for the key pieces

of kit, so you have the small oblong tank for regulators, the large tank for BCs and wetsuits, and two dip tanks for ‘little and

large’ camera systems. Your punters aren’t supposed to use these as plunge pools, so remind them gently about what may have happened in the wetsuits and direct them to the adjacent shower block (14)

15 Rooftop bar: again following the Red sea model, we have built

a rooftop bar and given our instructors discounts to try and get the punters to stay spending money long after sunset

graphic: ian legge

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chilled out: Icelandic centre Dive.Is [1]; a warm welcome at African Divers [2]; suits drying at Werner Lau Filitheyo [3]; the relaxed seating area at Camel [4]

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of the time, you have to drag your stuff around with you in a dry bag, or keep disappearing off to your hotel room whenever you need something. it just makes life a little easier.

When it comes to sheer organisation, there are many lessons to be learned from Werner Lau’s centres (www.wernerlau.com). Werner started his first dive operation back in 1988 in the maldives, where he now has four dive centres and a liveaboard. in addition, he now operates two centres and a hotel in the Red sea, as well as two centres and four full dive resorts in Bali.

nothing is left to chance at a Werner Lau resort. You know that feeling when you’re looking for somewhere to hang up your wetsuit, and all the hangers have gone? Well, it simply does not happen. You get two individually numbered hangers for your wetsuits and another for your BC; the same number will correspond to your own overnight storage locker, plus inside hangers for your wetsuit and (i love this) dinky little inverted pegs to help your neoprene boots dry off. For all our jokes about German efficiency, we all appreciate good service, and perhaps that’s why Werner has made such inroads into the UK market. Deep down, we like it when things work.

‘When i first started in the maldives, the dive centres were not so professional,’ Werner says. ‘For me, it was common sense that we are working in a service industry, and the level of service should be high. obviously, it’s important to get the obvious things right with the hardware, the boats and the equipment, but you also have to train your staff. For me, training is a never-ending story; your reputation can live or die on the performance of your instructors.’

Fair enough. But what of Werner’s unmistakable company logo – the cartoon eagle ray with a cheeky, winking human face? ‘Well, it was commissioned in the early days and now it’s too well known to replace. it’s part of our identity, but at least it shows an important aspect of what we

do. For all the organisation and training, it’s fundamentally about having fun.’

indeed – a dive centre should operate with a degree of informality, and you don’t have to be a corporate giant to get the balance just right. For a little centre with a lot of soul, consider African Divers in nuweiba (www.africandiversnuweiba.co.uk), up in the northern sinai. Located next to the swisscare hotel, this popular outfit is run by Daniel and sarah Pikarski.

Daniel is German and sarah is English, so they know how to handle most European punters. Briefings are comprehensive, but full of good humour. Their little centre has all the amenities you could ask for, including a fridge full of ice-cold beer for when the diving is over. They ferry their punters around in a fleet of knackered old pickup trucks, which are absolutely ideal for trundling around the desert. Crucially, everything works, and their clients always seem to have smiles on their faces.

having said that, i’ve seen sarah in ‘telling off’ mode after one of her guests went AWoL on a dive and ignored the agreed plan. she quietly took the guy aside and said... something… then they trudged back up the beach – sarah back in happy mode, the offender looking contrite but with dignity still intact. it was a lesson in the art of the tactful bollocking. But it does show the forces at play when you run a business that is ostensibly about fun, but in which every mistake has a safety implication.

sophie Rennie is one of BsAC’s travelling instructors, and specialises in coaching military clubs. she, too, appreciates dive centres that know when to graft and when to joke around, and cites Discovery Divers of Plymouth (www.discoverydivers.org) as a perfect example. ‘They have a slightly chaotic approach to taking bookings, which i kind of like and which is partly a symptom of the random nature of UK weather,’ she says. ‘But as soon as you step on board, everything is done with finesse. The safety brief, exquisite seamanship, and diving

knowledge are a pleasure to behold. These boys know their stuff. But when you get back to shore, the laidback approach kicks in, and you finish your day with a bacon roll, admiring the view of Plymouth sound.’

Cold-water operations bring a whole new set of challenges, especially when it comes to diver comfort. DIVE’s technical editor Charles hood has toured more dive centres than most, and is always appreciative when he sees an outfit that uses its imagination to make your stay a little more pleasurable. he cites the example of the icelandic centre Dive.is (www.dive.is), which solved the post-dive warm-up issue by building a large hangar heated by geothermal power.

‘it’s an incredible setup,’ Charles says. ‘The hangar is the size of a 20-car garage, certainly big enough to take two big RiBs and still have plenty of space for racks of drysuits and the like. There’s a big hot-water dip tank and big hot-water hoses to wash down the RiBs, as well as big drying vents, all powered by guilt-free geothermal power. outside, it’s absolutely freezing, but inside it’s a constant 25°C!’

so there you have it. For the ideal dive centre, you need the organisational vision of the Germans, the charm and good humour of the English, the entrepreneurial savvy of the Egyptians and a big volcano from iceland. simples! n