Dan's Dive Shop was Established in 1974 and since that time has been an innovator in Canadian Diving.

By 1996 Dan's was One Canada's Top Choices in Technical Diving Instruction. By 2000 Dan's had expanded substantially into a Global Force in the Technical Diving Community for a number of reasons, namely, the quality, effort and ability to offer the best diver education possible in the Technical Diving Courses market.

Our technical diving course graduates grace the water with more finesse, comfort and experience than the majority of divers from other training agencies.

Our Mission Statement:
To provide our Students with the highest level of quality, safety and excellence in technical diving training, equipment and service.

To Keep our divers actively challenged through continuing Technical Diving Instruction, education, advanced diving adventures, exploration, technical diving expeditions and by introducing our divers to the widest range of diving environments and information possible.

We believe that all of our staff must keep current with new techniques, changes in equipment, information, training and embrace the most current trends in diving.

Our Technical Diving Courses Embrace 3 main areas:

1. Diving with a standardized, simple Hogarthian style equipment configuration (clean, simple, streamlined) and embracing the most current equipment and philosophies in technical diving.
2. Gaining a Solid Foundation of Practical and Academic Knowledge started in your Basic Nitrox Course and through a series of academic lessons build on that foundation with each lesson.
3. Building on Rudimentary skills while introducing and mastering mandatory skill sets introduced through dry-land drills, confined water training and open water training in a positive, constructive manor, where students can review video footage of the dives with their instructor.

*Group and Private Instruction is available for ANY of our Technical Diving Courses.

* If you can't come to us we'll even come to you regardless of the Country or Province you live in, simply fly us out there and we'll start your journey into technical diving* Email us for a Quote Tech Questions

How do you find a trainer for Tech Diving? The first thing you need to do is get details about the different courses that are out there. There are a lot of agencies to choose from and unfortunately, every agency has its good and bad instructors. We have one of the Best technical diving instructors in Matt Mandziuk who teaches our NAUI, TDI and PADI technical diving courses.

Ideally you want to train with an agency that is international, well established, cutting edge, one who has standardized their equipment configuration and established a set of standards in writing that all instructors are to meet or exceed.

We have chosen NAUI as our main Technical Diving Agency for this reason. NAUI Tech began working on the standards and techniques in 1996, which some agencies have tried to pass off as their own. By 1997 NAUI introduced NAUI Tec to the industry. NAUI is the Industry Leader in Technical Diving Education. They have codified techniques and established standards that remain unsurpassed in the industry, despite what many agencies claim they have invented. NAUI is also the Most Respected Certification agency in the diving industry with a range of cutting edge courses not offered by any other agency and a number of different training progressions available depending on the divers path.

We also offer TDI Technical Diver Training. TDI is the Largest Technical Diving Agency in the world. They offer a great range of diving courses and course materials for all technical levels and are found in most countries around the world.

For those who wish to stay within the PADI system of diver education, we have re-formatted the PADI courses to ensure optimal learning and discipline, as we do with all of our recreational and technical diving courses. We are certified to teach all PADI Technical Diving Programs up to Trimix. Please note that no other mainstream technical diving agency is accepting of PADI Technical Diving certifications. You cannot take a PADI Discover Tech, Tech 40, Tech 45 or Tech 50 courses and cross into another agency for Helitrox, Trimix or anything else.

Just like any other technical diving program, we exceed the minimum standard in every way. There is a huge difference in the type of training we offer.

Choosing an Instructor:

Technical Diving is not a popularity contest. You want an Instructor who dives for fun, as well as when educating. An Instructor who keeps current in diving equipment, trends in the industry, changes in diving techniques, theory and lastly, who shares a modern focus on diving and holds their diving courses to a higher standard.

A Technical Diving Instructor must be a Certified and Active Cave Diver or Cave Explorer. Cave Diving is the original source for technical diving and the lessons learned , the respecting of the rules, utilization of the cleanest and most effective equipment configuration, disciplines and finesse that is taught in cave diving is not fully understood by a trainer who is unqualified for cave diving.

Choose an instructor who is actively exploring new areas, participating in diving projects and has accomplished more than just certifying divers or getting paid to dive. Ask them for their Personal Diving History. It should contain a wealth of dives and experiences. Ask the trainer how many dives a year they conduct and how many dives they do for fun vs. work.

Diving is a sport of passion and you want someone who still enjoys diving for fun and makes an attempt to dive on a regular basis. You want to know how active the instructor is when it comes to personal fitness. An instructor who takes personal fitness and diet seriously and is a non-smoker is preferred.

Find out when the last time the instructor candidate took a training course to upgrade their skills or knowledge. They should take a course a year to keep current with what's going on in the technical diving industry.

Now you've found a Trainer, what next?

Once the above questions have been answered and you've compared us to everyone else, we should arrange a time to sit down privately in a meeting with you. This is the point where the learning begins. We can also do this in a Telephone Conference Call for those that can't drive down to the store or are setting up a course out of province.

A CD will be given to the candidate, dive experience will be discussed, equipment will be sold (if needed) and the training process is already well underway before they've even enrolled in the course.

Pre-qualification:

There is a pre-requisite for any technical diving course, where students must successfully complete our NAUI Intro to Tech program. This program is the best diving program to grace the industry since Nitrox. The program begins by focusing on many rudimentary aspects of scuba and preparing the candidate for the world of technical diving introducing proper disciplines to the diver.

The Intro to Tech program is in place to improve candidates comfort, awareness, techniques and team working skills. It is also designed to weed out candidates who haven't got the time in the water from endangering themselves.

Some Divers don't think they need a course like Intro to Tech. If you think you are ready to by-pass Intro to Tech and want to try your hand at Advanced Nitrox/Decompression Procedures, a we will allow divers to pre-qualify for technical training by completing a dive with Matt Mandziuk demonstrating all of the skills from Intro to Tech and administering the written examination. There has never been a candidate able to complete every Intro to Tech skill perfectly choosing this option, but people will always ask if they "have" to take intro. The short answer is YES.

Technical diving students should want more time underwater and more dives, not some cookie-cutter tech course that is only 4-6 dives with no standardized gear or skill requirements.

Technical course training dives are conducted deeper, where divers have the opportunity to encounter a decompression obligation and at depths where scuba can become potentially harmful to themselves or worse off........Their fellow divers. Training for Intro to Tech in shallow water (30-45' typically) gives the candidate hours of underwater time during this course and being shallow in the event of a problem you're not going to bend yourself should you lose your buoyancy on a skill or simulated deco stop. We can also prequalify you and improve your skills before enrolling in a full tech course.

All Candidates are screened prior to training during a confined open water evaluation dive, where skills are assessed and adjustments in training can be made. This often saves a lot of money in the long run.

Unqualified candidates will be urged to retrain with us at either the Intro to Tech or Decompression Procedures level depending on the course they're enrolled in.

Debriefing: Skill development and discussion of divers progress after each dive is very important. We are very thorough in our discussions with you between dives. We will commonly ask you as a group "how did the dive go for you"? We will have you debrief yourself, your fellow divers and we will discuss things together and review video.

Humiliation and be-littling of divers is not the way to strengthen diver confidence, so we avoid negative, demeaning talks and treat you like a human being.

We are strict and we demand perfection, but you will see the best results from our training.

Additional benefits:

1. 1) We are an Established Dive Store with a public address and a real store front that we have been in business for over 35yrs. We have focused each year on continuing to improve this sport. It has been our experience that many technical instructors do not share their address or particulars with their students and often take fees for courses that are never completed leaving the student feeling extremely upset and ripped off. A retail store cannot operate like that. Our location does not change, where others can leave town un-noticed and not missed. A facility is harder to move around.
2. We have one of North America's Very BEST Instructors and dive explorers in Matthew Mandziuk, on staff full time to help you with any questions on equipment or technical diving instruction.
3. We have the only Coast Guard Certified Dive Charter Vessel in Eastern Lake Erie or SW Lake Ontario available for training. We can customize charters around your course and schedule to save local students hundreds of dollars in travel expenses (gas, motel, food, etc.). We can also arrange accommodations for the duration of your course. When we are teaching on the road, we have connections in many places and can arrange training dives anywhere, easily, as well as obtaining medical gas cylinders and much more. We also arrange accommodations for groups that come from out of town to train with us in many different graphic regions.
4. Convenience: Our courses are very convenient. We give our students a set schedule that gets you through your dives pass or fail. At times course dives may require make-up dives, but we complete our end of the initial partnership.
5. PRIDE. We will not issue a certification card to just anyone, you have to earn your certification. You will have a lot of fun, but will have to work for it as the learning curves during these courses are quite steep and the skills introduced are very cutting edge. We have video footage of graduates trained by other instructors to show you the differences between our methods and theirs.
6. We offer the LARGEST Selection of Diving Equipment in North America and offer more Inventory than any other store in Canada, while maintaining the most competitive prices in North America. We Sell and Service Every Major Brand.
7. Tax Write-off's. All of your Technical Diving Courses are tax deductible, you can sometimes receive over 1/3 of your tuition fees in a tax return, as we are a Vocational Institute. (rebate varies based on your taxation bracket). Put it all of these elements together and we are your 1 stop for all of your Technical Dive Training, Dive Equipment and Dive Charter needs.
8. Pricing vs. Quality: There will always be someone offering a cheaper or a shorter course, but candidates should demand excellence and strive to find the best technical training progression out there. We believe ours is it. Remember that The Quality IS the Difference. You should want the best and you should get the best.
9. Professionalism: We believe our store, staff, selection and pricing are all a reflection of us. Our instructional staff are true role models who act professionally while training, don't smoke, who don't use drugs and who don't drink alcohol in epic proportions during dive training courses. There is nothing cool or smart about getting intoxicated during dive training courses and diving that day or the next morning. If your shop does this file a complaint with their training agency as this behaviour is not acceptable.

Here are some additional points to consider in addition to the ones above:

• Number of dives required for the program to start and number of training dives required during the course
• performance requirements of skills: Are skills being conducted using proper trim and buoyancy or are you kneeling on the bottom of a pool or quarry using your hands instead of utilizing proper fin techniques?
• gasses to be used: Helium vs. Deep Air on backgas and Oxygen vs. a "training mix" like 80% oxygen "just in case" a student loses their buoyancy or exceeds their MOD.
• are your training materials included? Books? CD's? Video's? They are at Dan's, so you're not paying additional fees for you text books, work books, cd's and dvd's.
• are your certification fees included? They are at Dan's. Each certification card is approximately $35. A student graduating from a NAUI Technical diver level 1 program could be spending an additional $105 just in certification cards!
• Are you and your instructors diving dry or wet on cold technical dives? Real technical divers dive in drysuits (maybe not all the time) to enhance comfort and ward off the cold. Remember nitrogen is more soluble in cold water than warm water.

Are you doing any pool sessions for the course? We do.

* Video Taped yes or no? We video tape all of our technical diving courses from Intro to Tech and up.

* Equipment: Is your instructor in the same equipment as you or are they diving a rebreather? Is the equipment used uniformed among everyone on the program or does everyone do their own thing with the equipment?

If you are serious about obtaining the best technical diving program for you, please stop by the store and chat with our staff or email us so we can give you the information that will take you down the right path.

We want you to learn diving the right way and we're it.