WHO WE ARE

What distinguishes Scuba World Sacramento from the other "dive stores" in the area has more to do with who we aren't than who we are.  SWS is nothing but and all about SCUBA diving.  That is not just our main focus but our only focus.  What this means to the community is that you have a place to go to learn how to scuba dive, continue your dive education, improve your diving skillls which, in turn, increases your diving pleasure, hang out and talk scuba, meet up with other dive buddies and find everything you could ever want to own in the way of scuba gear.  Our efforts are not spread out over other sport activities which can result in you not having the best advise possible about any one sport.  We can easily say we are expert at what we do because we've been doing nothing but the dive business for the past 11 years.  We are small.  We are focused on one sport.  We do not offer swim classes for the kids or sell mountain biking equiment or rent you trailers.  We just eat, sleep and breath scuba diving.  But, at the same time, we do not take ourselves too seriously, either. 

What makes us different?  Well, it has a lot to do with Andy, the store owner.  We at SWS feel that the dive business, for us anyway, is all about people.  If you like Andy after meeting him, trust him to steer you in the right direction when it comes to purchasing dive gear and can think of nothing more fun than spending an extended period of time with him on a dive vacation, then you will know for yourself what disinguishes SWS from other stores.  We aren't into empire building with our store.  We just want to provide the opportuinity for you to dive safe and have fun.  We've been doing just that for the past 11 years. 

When Andy Siebert moved from South Florida to the Sacramento area in 1990 as he was approaching age 50, it was only at the urging of his wife, Lynn, who promised him a SCUBA store if the opportunity ever arose. In 1996, the opportunity presented itself, and Andy became the owner / operator of Scuba World Sacramento, Inc., a PADI dive store on Madison Avenue. Andy was SCUBA certified just out of high school at a local YMCA in Michigan. “I was 19 at the time, but I didn’t take up the sport seriously until I was 42,” said Andy. Lynn admits that the lure of opening his own shop was a bribe to get him to Sacramento so that she could look after her aging parents. There are not many instructors, let alone SCUBA store owners, who continue to actively teach classes. But Andy does. On any given weekend, you will find him in the classroom at the shop, in a pool or at the Coast Guard Jetty in Monterey Bay introducing new divers to or assisting new divers in developing new skills in what many consider to be an extreme sport. To Andy, who has logged over 3,000 dives, it is life. “Because of my age, I will never be able to travel to outer space,” said Andy. “SCUBA diving offers me the opportunity to visit an alien environment and to explore one of the only two remaining frontiers.” And explore, he does. Lynn is the driving force behind SCUBA World travel. Coordinating dive trips to locales as local as Monterey and as exotic as Tahiti, Fiji, Galapagos Islands and Indonesia, Lynn is in her element when planning trips. “We’ve got it going on – whether you are a snorkeler, like me, a beginning diver or an advanced diver looking for the thrill of the dive,” said Lynn. “Our trips offer up the unexpected.” Andy is the first to attest to that fact. One of his most memorable experiences was diving with a whale shark over 40 feet long on a trip to the Galapagos Islands just two years ago. And he will tell you that his traveling dive team – the divers who accompany him on any given trip – have stories to tell, as well. On a recent trip to Tahiti, Andy opted out of a dive due to sinus problems. On the way back from that particular dive his dive team happened on a mother humpback whale and her calf. They were invited to swim with the mammals by the divemaster. It was an experience, Andy said, that they will never forget. Nor will he, even though he missed it.

With the same bravado necessary to open a dive shop when many people are contemplating retirement, Andy and Lynn recently tripled the size of their store and will be celebrating with steep discounts and special offers starting on Friday, June 1 and runs through Sunday, June 3, 2007.
Diving. An extreme sport reserved for the young? Or an opportunity for all ages to explore a foreign environment? Ask Andy. For more information, call 916-332-8294 or go online to www.scubaworldsacto.com  .