{"id":923,"date":"2016-05-27T02:09:34","date_gmt":"2016-05-27T02:09:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.planetdiveholidays.com\/blog\/?p=923"},"modified":"2016-05-27T02:09:34","modified_gmt":"2016-05-27T02:09:34","slug":"mikes-dive-store-shop-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.planetdiveholidays.com\/blog\/mikes-dive-store-shop-review\/","title":{"rendered":"Mike’s Dive Store: Shop Review"},"content":{"rendered":"

We have a fantastic competition running the whole of June in association with Mike\u2019s Dive Store (www.mikesdivestore.com<\/a>) to win a Muvi K2 NPNG Action Camera<\/a>! We\u2019ll pick the winning entry on the 1st July. If you\u2019re the lucky winner then we\u2019ll send a new Muvi action camera out in the post. Good Luck!\u00a0So we thought we’d look a bit closer at Mike’s Dive Store and find out why you should be buying all your new dive kit from them!<\/p>\n

So Steve (Scuba Steve, the Owner), why is it called Mikes Dive Store?!<\/strong><\/p>\n

Mike\u2019s London Dive Store may have been established for more than twenty years but its history goes back much further than that. It\u2019s founder, big Mike Calder, was the super-salesman at a dive store in Fulham Palace Road in West London. A local lad who was larger in life than in so many ways, he was so successful at serving divers with the equipment that suited their needs best that people beat a path to his door from all over the country.\u00a0Mike was a diver and he believed that if his customers were satisfied they\u2019d return. He took the long view. He was eventually so successful that other dive shop owners even protested he was distorting the market.<\/p>\n

It was inevitable that he would set up in business for himself and with the help of a local friend started selling dive equipment from a warehouse at Richmond\u2019s waterside. Eventually he moved the business to the more accessible premises it is in today.\u00a0Mike was a giant of the UK\u2019s diving industry in many more ways than one and all who knew him were shocked when he was suddenly taken from us long before his time, in 2009.<\/p>\n

I had worked alongside Mike and purchased Mike\u2019s Dive Store when it became available. Mike\u2019s son chose to sell to me because he could see that I\u00a0had the same passion as his dad for scuba diving and was confident that I\u00a0would carry on the tradition of good service and advice from a position of a wealth of knowledge very much as his dad had done.\u00a0Mike may have passed away but Mike\u2019s Dive Store is alive and well, and I am\u00a0carrying on the traditions that Mike established for it.<\/p>\n

How long have you been diving?<\/strong><\/p>\n

28 years<\/p>\n

What are your top 3 destinations & why?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Sudan<\/a>
\nI learnt to dive there and haven\u2019t found anywhere that has the combination of soft and hard corals and big fish. Daedalus \u2013 Northern point at 5.45 in the morning \u2013 Hammerheads in the Blue and one of the most interesting reef walls I have ever seen.<\/p>\n

Mumbo Island Lake Malawi
\nSeeing otters, monitor lizards and snakes on the same dive is quite special.<\/p>\n

Pemba Island Tanzania<\/a> \u2013 Eastern Side
\nYou feel like the only people on the planet. But I do need to squeeze a fourth in as I have just been to Socorro and it blew my mind how close the Giant Pacific Manta\u2019s and dolphins come to you \u2013 one interaction with a pod of dolphins was so close and intimate I even shed a tear \u2013 first time in 28 years of diving!<\/p>\n

What’s left on your dive bucket list?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Cocos and Malpelo, Galapagos<\/a>, Guadeloupe for the great whites<\/p>\n

Do you have a bricks and mortar store or is it all online?<\/strong><\/p>\n

We have both, which separates us from the e-commerce box shifters, to us dive equipment needs to be sold with some sort of explanation \u2013 a lot of time people need a little guidance to get the correct dive equipment for their sort of diving and this can usually only be done by someone that has some sort of experience with diving and actually cares and wants to share their enthusiasm with a new diver.<\/p>\n

What brands do you stock and how many product lines?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Our main brands are Scubapro, Mares, Aqualung, Apeks, Suunto, Typhoon, Tusa, Waterproof and Atomic but we stock over 60 brands and have over 12 000 products in store.<\/p>\n

What are your best selling products at the moment?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Bcd\u2019s and regulators as people gear up for the diving season ahead, cameras are also a massive growth area from the Muvi underwater camera right through to the sealife Micro HD<\/p>\n

What makes you different? Why should people shop at Mike’s?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I make a fact of hiring people that are not only enthusiastic about diving but that have been to different areas diving in the world, so not only do we sell gear but we are a great resource for information on the actual dive sites themselves \u2013 right through from which dive sites in which season to where you can find the best Margarita\u2019s or Shrimp Tacos in resort. It always makes me happiest when on a busy day in the shop we can have three or four different groups of customers chatting and discussing dive destinations, equipment, photos and general dive knowledge and giving information on the resort the other guys are about to visit \u2013 so not only are they getting good dive info from the resort but they are getting it from someone who has been there two days ago! We service equipment, conduct dive computer battery changes, sell cold water equipment, warm water dive equipment and we all passionately love the sport. We give 1% of all online profits to charity to preserve the marine environment and are constantly surprised that no other major UK retailer does the same.<\/p>\n

We also stock the equipment we sell – so if you want to come in and compare we have the available stock to do this. With most dive equipment nowadays \u2013 certainly the brands we sell it is all good quality and will do the job for 10-20 years so it mainly comes down to which one fits you and your diving needs and this can only be answered by actually trying two or three different brands next to one another, which can obviously only be done in a store that has the stock. We are also London\u2019s largest dedicated dive store with over 3000 sq ft and 12 000 stock items!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"We have a fantastic competition running the whole of June in association with Mike\u2019s Dive Store (www.mikesdivestore.com) to…","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":925,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"csco_singular_sidebar":"","csco_page_header_type":"","csco_page_load_nextpost":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[44,41],"tags":[277,276,275,274],"class_list":{"0":"post-923","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-gear","8":"category-people","9":"tag-interview","10":"tag-owner","11":"tag-review","12":"tag-shop","13":"cs-entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.planetdiveholidays.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/923","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.planetdiveholidays.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.planetdiveholidays.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.planetdiveholidays.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.planetdiveholidays.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=923"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.planetdiveholidays.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/923\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":926,"href":"https:\/\/www.planetdiveholidays.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/923\/revisions\/926"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.planetdiveholidays.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/925"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.planetdiveholidays.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=923"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.planetdiveholidays.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=923"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.planetdiveholidays.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=923"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}