Jack's Dive Center Jack LaPenta Owner

One Town Line Road
Plainville, CT 06062
TEL 860/747-3170
FAX 860/747-5007

Diver Jdiames would like to thank Jack LaPente of Jack's Dive Center of Plainville, CT for being my guest on the show.

Jack’s Dive Center, Inc. , has been serving the needs of divers since 1975. We are the oldest and most experienced Master Scuba Training Facility in Connecticut. Jack received the SSI Platinum Pro 5000 award in 1994, the most prestigious award offered by the diving industry, in recognition of his work in the area of dive training, equipment testing, diving experience (over 8000 dives to date), and community service.

Because of our experience in the area of dive equipment, we have been chosen by most all of the top line equipment manufacturers as direct distributors, enabling us to offer our customers the finest life support equipment available, at the lowest possible prices.

Our Diver Training programs are second to none, offering low student to instructor ratios and very personalized attention. We provide all levels of training from beginner to advanced, and beyond.

Please see our TRAINING PAGE for dates.


Dive travel has always been very important to us. Jack was the first person to take divers from New England to the Cayman Islands, over 30 years ago. He has made 76 trips to Grand Cayman alone, and can lead you to his secret dive locations, known only to himself and his group, but not to the local Divemasters, assuring you pristine reefs and mind blowing diving. Our travel itinerary covers the Bahamas, Caribbean, South Pacific, and local waters. We are also a wholesaler for the famous PETER HUGHES DIVING , offering the finest in live-aboard diving experiences.

Please see our TRAVEL PAGES for dates and destinations.

We have 30 YEARS OF EXPERIENCE IN DIVE TRAVEL, NOBODY DOES IT BETTER THAN JACK’S.

Our service department has won the Excellence in Service and Repair Award 3 years in a row at the Diving Equipment Marketing Association annual show. We can handle all your maintenance needs professionally and in a timely manner.

Frequently Asked Questions

If ever you get to CT, you need to visit Jack at his shop. He is well informed on the local diving sites. May even get you to go with him. I sure did, lots of times. Better yet, stop in, take a class, buy some gear, or just talk scuba diving.

Again I want to thank Jack LaPenta of Jack's Dive Center for being my honored guest on Scuba Diving - Learn to Dive Safe Talkcast.

Advanced Open Water Program

The first certification past the basic Open Water Certification a new diver should obtain is the Advanced Open Water certification. If you were to ask 100 dive instructors their answer would be the same, no matter what agency they teach with. This blog entry will begin to talk about what training the PADI Advanced Open water c - card (Certification Card) offers you. We will discuss the options that you have in dives choices, along with a few required dives that every Advanced Diver must obtain. In general terms this blog will discuss the many specialty dives you can choose from. In future lessons we will take a more detailed look at these specialties, but for now we will talk in general terms and give you a basic overview.

The PADI Advanced Open Water Certification consists of a total of 5 dives, each dive being from a single specialty rating. The course can take place over 1 weekend or in 5 separated days, that is of course dependent on the dive shop and instructor. Again, like the Open Water Course and many PADI courses, a knowledge development portion is required. This means that you will get an associated text. Many text packages comes with a video or CD.

As mentioned above there are a few required dives, they are the Underwater Navigation, and Deep Dive. We will discuss why when a detail explanation is give later. That leaves 3 dives to choice. These 3 dives can be of any dive you desire from the list. More on this later. You and your instructor will discuss what 3 non-required dives you will make. You should read the text and do the reviews for these chosen dives and the two required ones. Let's talk about some of these specialities dives.

DEEP DIVE
In the basic open water program your maximun training depth is 60 feet, although most dives any recreational diver make will be under this depth. However, there comes a time when you want to and need to go deeper. Why go deep? One reason for this dive is that when you go on a boat diver trip, many dive sites do go beyond the 60 foot depth. When you present your c-card to the Divemaster, he knows you have been trained beyond the basic depth. Many ship wrecks are deeper and required this advanced training. They will teach you how to descent down a line, how to make a recommended 15 foot safety stop, how changes in pressure affects air consumption and dive time, to name a few points.

UNDERWATER NAVIGATION
Have you ever gotten lost on land ? Think about what it would be like underwater. This one dive will show you how to dive a square, a triangle with a compass. How to look at plants, rocks, wave patterns, and sun shadows to help with navigation. Will you be an expert navigator at this point. No. Thats why you need more training.

BOAT DIVER
Diving on a boat is one of the best ways to dive there is. Boat diving gets you to locations that land diving just can not match. In this dive you will learn how to dive within a very confined and control space. Learn how to exit for the dive and enter once the dive is completed. Learning to boat dive is fun.


Nautilus Explorer ship holds 20 divers and 7 crew. Each 2 divers have separate berth with their own shower and head. She sails from Victoria, Canada. My berth was the third portal from the stearn on the starboard side. See you also learn nautical terms in the boat diver course.


Small skiff taking geared divers to a dive site.


Many boats moored side by side in the Red Sea. There could be as many as 10 boats with 300+ divers in the water at any on time. Surprising thing about is, there is plenty of room under water.


Divermaster helping a returning diver back onto the boat. This is the scene many times after a dive.

WRECK DIVER
In this first dive, they will start to teach you how to navigate around a wreck. when I was studing to teach the wreck course, my course director told us that the first dive brief goes like this, " This wreck underwater on the bottom should be floating on the surface." And after that all else is fluff. There is a little bit more than that, but that really sums it up. In the wreck diving certication, you wil learn some amazing things.


Sapona is made entirely out of concrete. It was once owned by Al Capone for drugs and protitution. Visit SAPONA Site for more information. The S. S. Sapona lies in 17 foot deep water, 4 miles south of Bimini Island in the Bahamas. Military target practice and the weather have stripped the hull of most of its concrete. The wreck is a very popular diving site since it is in such shallow water and attracts a multitude of fish. Check out Blackbeard's Cruises to take you to this wreck, and many other sites including a controlled shark dive.






NIGHT DIVER
If you learn to dive at night properly, it opens up a whole new adventure in diving. You will learn how to use your underwater lighting systems effectively. How to signal underwater when you can not see your buddy, to name but a few. More importantly, during a night dive you will see fish that only come out at night. While in Bonaire diving, we did many night dives. But on one of these dives we a small cleaner shrimp, and the largest lobster you ever did see. So learn to dive at night, it is fun and an exiting part of diving.

PEAK POSITIVE BUOYANCY (PPB)
If you heard by first ten minutes lesion on buoyancy this is a must dive and certification for ALL divers. During these dives you wil learn how to maintain a neutral position in the water. Learn how to adjust your weight to make you move more horizontal than vertical. Learn also how breath control is an important part of any dive.


Learn how to hover motionless in the water column. A very important skill to master and learn.

These additional dives can some from any of the above or from these listed below: Drift diver, altitude diver, dry suit diver, ice diver, multilevel diver, search and recovery diver, underwater naturalist, river diver, underwater videographer, enriched air, dive propulsion vehicle (DPV), and underwater photography. As you can see there a lot of options for you to chose from. I must mention that these dives are introductory dives. They are the first dive you would make in any full specialty certification. Once you make these dives, they can and will be credited to that specialty.

Visit the links on the side for many valuable free stuff.

What is the Open Water Scuba Course ?

Discussion is on what is involved in the basic Open Water Scuba Diver course.

This is the card you will get if you complete the PADI Open Water Scuba Program.

In most classes you will be given a course book.
This book is divided into 5 sections which relate to the 5 pool sessions (if you take the PADI open water training course, which I highly recommend that you do. Depending on the class structure, you will be asked to read the book and do all the exercises before attending class ( a chapter at a time). Some classes maybe during the week, while others could be 2 separate weekends. In any event you will have FUN while learning how to breathe underwater. Just think when you are done, you can go on many trips and see fantastic fish and animals in thier underwater home. In class, the instructor will have you learn all material to 100 % MASTERY. If on the 4 short quizzes and 1 final exam, the student must understand all missed questions. If you missed the question, you will know why you missed it.

Topics in the course book are: how to use equipment and how it works and why, bouyancy - why things float and sink, why knowing about pressures in the water are important, how NOT holding your breathe in diving if the # 1 rule, how to effectively descend and ascend safely, basic underwater hand signals, how to use the standard dive tables, to name but a few.

After the class, each student must master a number of underwater skills. These skills will be done at a local swimming pool, where the environment is safe. Some of these are breathing underwater, swimming without sinking to the bottom, taking off and putting on your mask, how to recover your regulator (mouth piece) if it comes out of your mouth, how to inflate your BCD (Buoyancy Compensation Device) under water, taking on and off the BCD in water, and many more.

When all students master these skills it will be time to advance to a local dive site. The local dive site could be a pond, a small lake , or a sound. Don't worry, there will be plenty of staff there to assist you during this time. Their main goal is for you to have FUN and learn how to safely dive in the Open Water. No new skills to learn, all the skills you did in the open water will be repeated here in open water. There are a total of 4 dives that must be preformed.

When you complete these open water dives you will be awarded and Open Water Scuba Diver card. With this card you can rent dive gear, and air at the local dive shop. Now it is up to you to contact a local dive shop and learn to dive. As you are aware from my Bio, I am a PADI dive instructor and believe that PADI is the best dive organization in the world. Go to this site for PADI. You will not go wrong if you take your class from an approved PADI dive shop . Go to start your dive, and find a local one in your state and city. Tell them how you found them, they will be glad you did. Good luck and I hope to see you "under the water"

The diver on the platform to the left is getting ready to do a Giant Stride Entry. This entry in one that you might use when diving from a boat. Watch out below, here I come.

These two pictures were taken at the Blue Hole in Santa Rosa, NM. This is an open water training site that is used by many dive shops from about 3 states. I have helped conduct many classes in these waters.






These last three pictures are of Dutch Springs in Bethelhem, PA.

Check out my sponsers links...they have a lot of free stuff to give you.

Introduction: Who is Diver James - The Scuba Guy ?

In this coming episode I talked about my dive background. How I started to dive in 1980 while overseas in the NAVY in the Philippines. Then not having dove again till 2001. At that time I got certified with PADI. After my basic open water training, I went crazy. I took every course as a student I could take. In fact I took almost every student dive course PADI has. Then one day in Tigard , OR. I asked what a Divemaster was. The next day I started my professional diving career. I later moved to Albuquerque, NM and got my Assistant Instructor certification. Then I moved to Philadelphia and enrolled to become an Instructor. Again, I went crazy and enrolled to teach as many specialties as I could, Again I moved to Reno, NV and got my certification to help teach instructors.


This BLOG is designed to enlighten divers and potential divers how to dive safely. To give some basic dive instruction. To talk about equipment issues. In this blog I will up date the material to reflect the talkshoe broadcast. If during my talk, a picture is needed, I will try to post it here for viewing.