Lara P.
1 Reviews
!BEWARE – UNDER NEW MANAGEMENT!(as of Nov 2021)TL;DR: und…
!BEWARE – UNDER NEW MANAGEMENT!
(as of Nov 2021)
TL;DR: under new management who will dismiss any concerns you have (even if you say you can’t breathe), give you old, faulty equipment and say it’s fine, and yell at you if you don’t do everything perfectly on your first go. I would give 0 stars if I could.
My two friends and I booked the PADI SCUBA diving course through the PADI website having seen some positive reviews of Anchor Diving. None of us had ever dived before, not even a Discover SCUBA. What we didn’t know was that they were under new management and there were no reviews since the management change…
No communication from the dive center until 7 days before the course, despite our emails asking if we could get access to the eLearning materials. We eventually got access less than 4 days before the course. The required forms were not sent to all of us, including the medical clearance forms, and we didn’t have time to get a medical assessment (less than 4 days!).
When we met Lewis, we were told that the confined dives would not be performed in a pool but that conditions would be similar (we found later that this was NOT the case).
The equipment was old and not well maintained, despite his assurances that everything had been serviced (everything had been sitting in the shop for 2 years). When we raised concerns, he dismissed them with increasing disdain and hostility. Information for equipment sizing was provided at time of booking, but no equipment was properly sized or ready for us. Here’s everything that was wrong:
– Wetsuits with holes
– Ill-fitting masks, fins, wetsuits, BCDs, and shoes
– Regulator air flow was inconsistent and inadequate during inhalation (confirmed by all three of us)
– Difficult/sticky buttons on LPIs
– Leaking BCD (even showed him in the water and he dismissed it as “overfilled”)
– Difficult to read depth gauges (which we were told to ignore during our dives)
– No dive computers
All the “confined dives” were performed in the same areas that we did the open dives, so obviously not confined water (contrary to Maltese law). The first day, the confined dives were conducted in a small bay area with rocky floor, currents/waves, marine life, and other divers – distractions that did not allow us to pay full attention to the task at hand. The second day the “confined water” dives were conducted in a larger, deeper area with reduced visibility and difficult entry/exit.
Lewis gave sparse explanations with his demonstrations of skills (prior to entering the water or at the surface) and questions were never adequately answered, despite repeated and clear questions.
Lewis intentionally overweighted all of us. The first day, he used rocks as additional weights in BCDs, despite all of us having provided height and weight at the time of booking.
Lewis had no patience or interest in helping us address any concerns or difficulties, including yelling at us when we tried to deal with our concerns or difficulties ourselves, after he dismissed them. When we told him we were cold or confused or uncertain, he disregarded any requests to inspect equipment or review clear detailed steps for a skill and replied in an increasingly hostile manner. When my friends declined to do the final dive, because they were uncomfortable with the equipment and conditions, Lewis replied “that’s a shame”.
Our course ended with me getting a ruptured eardrum (confirmed by three separate doctors) because of the poor equipment, hostile and uncaring instructor, and inappropriate learning conditions. After we aborted the dive and a single instance of asking how I was, he did not offer to take me to get medical attention because I wasn’t bleeding or sick in the car (which are not the only indicators of a ruptured eardrum).
The new owner is clearly unwilling to invest in functional equipment and, by Lewis’ own admission, didn’t bother to try to find someone with the appropriate temperament and ability to teach new divers, he just offered it to some guy he barely knew. – via 
Own or work here?
Your request has been submitted successfully.
