We (David and Loyda) had an amazing idea of selling all our belongings, uprooting and buying a scuba dive shop in the Caribbean. It was going to be awesome! We were going to live the DREAM! Having our own dive shop, provide scuba lessons / certifications and tours, meet lots of super cool and interesting people, and daily watch spectacular sunrises/sunsets with their mirrored reflections on the still water every day. What can compete with that?? Most importantly…. scuba dive whenever we wanted. It’s a pretty typical, and magical, idea many scuba divers daydream as doing ‘maybe someday’. Scuba fairies and angels were going to rein over our shop.
Well, we decided to explore this idea and emails went flying back and forth with potential sellers and brokers. It was fun, exciting, but scary at the same time. Our due diligence revealed that if we decided to take that wild ride, it was going to cost much more than the dive shop’s purchase price and some elbow grease. Our family ties and responsibilities in the states were too great to leave behind. While we had their love and support, due to existing circumstances, it would prove extremely challenging to easily return home and continue responding to some of those responsibilities. Sadly, the idea was abandoned and we accepted to remain in San Antonio the rest of our lives running the urban rat race.
In the mean time, we continued to fulfill part of our passion by continuing to participate in scuba dive classes, providing lessons and certifications to would-be divers in the San Antonio area. We enjoyed cultivating friendships with many of our students outside of the classroom, which gave us a great deal of satisfaction. As many came to know us, it was common to hear, “You should open your own dive shop”. Our personal vision and ideology of the business of scuba diving was quite different than what we had the liberty to share. It was time to move on. Isn't that what our parents and overpaid motivational speakers tell us to do? We followed our hearts and decided to ‘do our own thing’, even though we had absolutely no clue of what or how that would take shape. Shortly after, the words of our friends started to poke at our sides and we developed a business plan that would put us in business about a year later. Life has a spectacular way of saying… NO..NO… NOW!
To our surprise, a very unexpected - but welcomed, opportunity revealed itself. It was much too difficult to ignore. It would allow us to move ahead with our plans almost a year ahead of schedule. We were shaking in our boots as it was not the best ‘season’ to open. We held our breath, took a leap of faith and SA Scuba Shack became a reality. We started our scuba business from scratch. Thus far, despite some really crazy obstacles, and sometimes really funny challenges, we have been fortunate, and mostly blessed, with greater than expected success.
A very sincere, deep, warm and heartfelt “THANK YOU” to those who believed in us, and continue to stand behind us. YOU continue to inspire us, and we are honored to call you friends.