{"id":562,"date":"2006-07-30T20:40:57","date_gmt":"2006-07-31T03:40:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/?p=562"},"modified":"2008-01-28T19:09:45","modified_gmt":"2008-01-29T02:09:45","slug":"the-official-closing-party-for-american-diving","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/?p=562","title":{"rendered":"The Official Closing Party For American Diving, Lomita, CA"},"content":{"rendered":"

John told me about this party as we were packing up from the last dive.<\/p>\n

I stopped by Sea D Sea and saw Jake, who worked for American Diving until just recently. <\/p>\n

Jake also told me about this party while filling my tank; he was planning on stopping by himself.<\/p>\n

\"American<\/p>\n

American Diving on Pacific Coast Hwy and Walnut in Lomita.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

I arrived at the party fairly early. <\/p>\n

There was plenty of beer, the barbecue was just getting started, and a volunteer DJ was setting up in the back to spin some disks.<\/p>\n

This is a sad day for me as this is the shop that kept me diving during the time I didn’t have a domestically “officially recognized” C-card.<\/p>\n

However, everyone who dealt with American Diving sort of knew that their days were numbered.<\/p>\n

The manager Steve had been working as a safety diver for movie studios the last couple of years and his focus shifted away from running the shop full time.<\/p>\n

The owner of the shop retired from her profession of nursing and needed to turn a profit with the shop or sell it – it was no longer a potential tax write-off. <\/p>\n

The shop was almost sold until the new owners of the building raised their rent from $1100 a month to $4,000 a month – the shop was doomed from then on.<\/p>\n

American Diving sort of had a later reputation for having no equipment and in some local diving circles “poor customer service.”<\/p>\n

But this is where Instructor Ed brought me to buy my wetsuit and basic equipment. <\/p>\n

I also took my Advanced, Rescue and Dive Master Course here and helped with many of their classes and events.<\/p>\n

\"Me,<\/p>\n

Me, Laurie and Steve.<\/p>\n

\"My<\/p>\n

My last walk through the shop. <\/p>\n

This is the place I bought most of my initial equipment and took my continuing diver’s education – in evening classes in sweltering heat.<\/p>\n

\"Tom<\/p>\n

Tom from American Diving; Tom is an expert at SCUBA equipment repair.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

The party is just getting started…<\/p>\n

\"\u2026unfortunately,<\/p>\n

…unfortunately, I have to leave.<\/p>\n

Good bye American Diving! <\/p>\n

I will miss you!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

John told me about this party as we were packing up from the last dive. I stopped by Sea D Sea and saw Jake, who worked for American Diving until just recently. Jake also told me about this party while filling my tank; he was planning on stopping by himself. American Diving on Pacific Coast […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,9],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/562"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=562"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/562\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=562"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=562"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=562"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}