DiveGlide

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DiveGlide is the latest device to get people hooked on water sports. It basically looks like a giant egg with detachable wings and a metal bar to hold on to. Inside the partly opened shell compartment 50lbs of weight and two air cylinders are placed. By pulling on a ball shaped knob you can add up to 250lbs of positive buoyancy lift inside the shell to rise towards the surface. To descend, all you have to do is tilt the front end down and air bubbles escape out the back end opening and you are gently pulled forward and downward. It takes a little training to master how to ascend and descend and once you’ve practiced a little, you feel like you are gliding through the water like a conventional glider does in air.

Glenn Faires of Golden Rock Dive Center invented Dive Glide in St. Eustatius (Statia). He has been perfecting DiveGlide for over 7 years. The most recent version is 30% lighter than the original model and it can be shipped just about anywhere in the world as it only weighs less than 32lbs; full production models may eventually weigh as little as 25lbs without mounted weights and tanks.

Just like surfing, snowboarding, or skiing, you use your muscles to choose a course and propel yourself forward. What makes DiveGlide so great is that for some adventurers, gliding under water gives participants a chance to dive downward and get a glimpse of colorful creatures and tropical reefs. In this respect, DiveGlide used by snorkelers, can act as a gateway step towards a desire to use DiveGlide while on scuba. So a trip spent gliding underwater could lead to another certified diver. This is one of many reasons why DiveGlide could have such a powerful effect on the world of scuba. As more resorts make DiveGlide available as one of their water related rental products, it will be interesting to see how much the need for local scuba diving instruction is increased. With an increased number of vacationers becoming certified and divegliding, the number of people they tell how much fun they had will expand and therefore the number of new vacationers desiring to try DiveGlide will increase too.

Here in the Scuba dive industry we are constantly reminded about the need to bring in young new divers to our sport. The more opportunities young people have to enjoy the water and related water sports, the more these young aquatic oriented adventurers may gravitate towards scuba diving activities whether it be a discovery scuba diving course or a full open water course. With this in mind, it is just a matter of time before a diver will be able to earn an Underwater Photography DiveGlide scuba certification or a Night DiveGlide scuba patch. Perhaps these courses won’t be available right away, but that all depends on how quickly resorts and other water destinations make DiveGlide available for beach enthusiasts from all walks of life.

Now, we are not saying that DiveGlide is the only solution to bringing new people into the scuba world. We think it is just one of many activities that can go hand in hand with scuba diving sport activities. If having so many other different land locked outdoor activities to choose from helps keep some potential people from ever trying scuba diving, then it’s only natural that having as many sports as possible that funnel interest back towards the water and Scuba diving can only be a good thing for the overall scuba industry.

On the other side of the coin though, gliding underwater like a giant manta ray and playing with the buoyancy properties of bubbles might be the only activity that some divers in the future will choose to do. You don’t need to kick with your fins or paddle with your arms, all you have to do is gently adjust the position of your body and the angle of your DiveGlide and you are free to fly underwater wherever you want to go and this makes DiveGlide just too much fun not to try.