Sonoma Coast Divers

My husband & I have bought: my mask, fins, gloves, hair guard, wetsuit cement, anti-​fog (my spit doesn’t work for me), some lead, and more miscellaneous things here; as well as, I got my SSI open water certification here with Steve Johnson, Evan and Rick.
Overall, I’d say 5 star operation, but since my husband use to run the dive shop in Bodega Bay and took me to the Free Dive Shop in Sacramento and got his Naui open water done in Monterey (in 2006)… well, he has different expectations for how «things should be»
The shop itself has SCUBA and free dive equipment (more SCUBA). Tom very helpful, if you’re not quite sure what you need.
They offer SSI, freediving, and spearfishing classes; if you want to do the class, but can’t do the Saturday and Sunday classes you need to have access to pool and talk to the instructors about private classes.
For SCUBA, they are SSI, there are other places you can get NAUI or PADI certified, but the biggest difference between the three… has more so to do with your instructor than anything else. When my husband got NAUI certified in 2006 he said his instructor sunk everyone’s gear to the bottom of the pool, had them swim to the bottom and put everything on down there (no real practical use, that I can see), but with Steve we had the option to take off out BC at the bottom of the pool and put it back on (kind of hard to do, since the second you take it off you start to float up). My husband also said for their ocean dives they went down to 80ft, I did my dives in Gerstle Cove, where I was bouncing off the bottom at 30ft. We talked about me doing the dives in Monterey, but he said it’d be better for me to do them up here (less vis, colder, more of a pain in the butt conditions «will make diving anywhere else easy»). Also, for SSI their dive cards are online, so if you want a physical one you need to order one; you’re also going to want to invest in a dive book.
I did lose one of my weight packs, they charged me their cost to replace it.

I love these guys! I have bought all my gear from them and could not be happier with it! Tom has been amazing, and extremely helpful. I recommend this shop to everyone!

Bought a diving package and certification for my 18 year old son for Christmas. He told me it was the best thing he’s ever done. He went to Monterey for a weekend alone. The instructors explained everything that was needed. The diving for him was «phenomenal». Great learning and growing experience.

I bought a spearfishing class through Zozi here and it was great. A little far from the city, up in Jenner but beautiful spot.
The guides were helpful but also gave us a lot of freedom after they showed us how to do things.
If you take the classes — don’t forget to bring something and stay for the potluck. It is fun to discuss all the fish you didn’t catch!

Great dive shop! Got my daughter an open water course for her 18^th birthday. She loved it. Rick and Steve are great instructors and made the experience fun and educational. The folks at the shop are very helpful. My daughter had a blast and I got a new dive buddy out of the deal! Thanks guys!

Sonoma Coast Drivers is GREAT! The staff is amazing and always extremely helpful, and always ready to answer my questions.

We did a groupon for an intro course to spearfishing. Ive already gone fishing before so I wanted to take my friends and let me tell you what, I had a blast!!! We didn’t catch anything and the ocean was a little rough but still we had a lot of fun. PRO TIP, if you’re doing the intro class I’d bring your abalone gear to get those.
Staff was great, friendly, and nice. We all had beers and are at the end

Sonoma Coast Divers is a great dive shop, and my go-​to location despite the fact that I live in Oakland and am much closer to several other outfits. Seems like most of those companies are either looking to vacuum as much money out of my pocket as possible, don’t have much in stock, or are staffed with less than knowledgeable employees.
SCD’s staff is super friendly, knowledgeable, and helpful no matter what your experience level. They have a good range of equipment on-​hand and seem to always have some brand new trinket for scuba or free diving. Case in point, locally made abalone float covers, custom dive boards (for free-​diving), and innovative weight systems.
In addition they’re a great source of knowledge for both local and tropical diving. All the staff members dive locally, and the shop runs dive trips to warmer climes a few times a year.
I’ve attended a few of their local dive events: abalone diving and fun dives, and always had a great time. They’re clearly doing these to increase interest in the sport, not make money, and it shows.
Very glad I found these guys.

The best dive shop around! Pam is the best and always goes above and beyond to help me. Tell your friends, this is the only dive shop they’ll ever need.

I took the abalone diving class, and had a great time! Even though we didn’t catch anything, we enjoyed learning, diving, and later eating!
I would agree with another Unilocaler that some more focus on beginning diving and snorkeling skills would have been helpful. My goal now is to get some more snorkeling time before I head back to give abalone diving another try.

I went into this same store a few years ago and didn’t have a very good experience. Maybe it was on off day, maybe there is new management. Either way I had to give it 5 stars after my experience today. Each person I encountered was not only polite but friendly as well. I felt at home and very comfortable. As another business owner I can appreciate those that go out of their way to make sure their customers feel appreciated. Thanks and I will be back!

I recently took an abalone class with Tom and Al and had a great time. It was obvious that ab diving is something that these guys simply love doing and sharing. They rolled up with a trailer full of gear and their families. They went over a ton of content and were extremely helpful in the water. They brought all of the equipment to clean, slice, pound and cook the abalone. They even shared some of their catch with the group and their families cooked them for us.
I would like to see the class cover a bit more freediving basics and some freediving skills, instruction, and practice in the water. As beginners, everyone was limited by their bottom time. I think a little extra emphasis would improve that.
All that said, I have to knock them a star for logistics. The email with all of the details wasn’t received until a few days before the class. I sent a question and never received a response. The message had a different location than the attachments. One of the instructors showed up right at 9:00 am and the other a bit late. This wouldn’t be a big deal except that there’s zero cell coverage on the coast. We spent 20 minutes bouncing around the various parking lots before eventually locating the class.
All in all, a great day with a few trivial hiccups that I’d strongly recommend.

Tom, Pam and Lisa are wonderful. You really can’t ask for a more personable staff, I have always been interested yet nervous about the idea of diving however even after countless hours of pestering them with the most abstract scenarios they still have calmed my fears and led me on a wonderful path towards my goal of being a diver…
As an update 9÷18÷12, I have now completed my «open water diver» course and have decide to pursue my «advance open water» cert. I feel quite confident in every aspect of my training and eager to continue further on in the sport!

My husband and I just finished getting our scuba certification through this shop. LOVED IT! Our initial experience was with Pam — super friendly and extremely knowledgeable diver and sales person. All our questions were answered and she even eased any fears I had about diving for the first time. She helped us select the right gear for ourselves AND our budget and I never felt pushed to buy something more expensive (for example, she instructed us to purchase our mask based on fit and comfort rather than price — said it really just depends on what works for you and that might be the least expensive option. We both ended up with something below the highest end based on following her advice.). Drew taught our scuba class. What a great guy! He clearly knows his stuff and besides that, he’s just fun to be around. He never seemed impatient with anyone in class and genuinely seemed to care that everyone was having a great time and was safe. We just received our cert this past weekend and I can say this experience has us hooked. My husband hadn’t really even wanted to do it initially, let alone have any interest at all in diving along our coastline, but now he can’t wait to get back. When we’re ready to purchase the rest of our diving gear, this will be our first stop.

Friendly staff with good communication skills. They were clear on what my husband needed to do before his scuba diving lessons. I purchased the Living Social deal online for his birthday. He is stoked about getting certified and officially being able to dive with his pals and visit international waters to explore the world deep down under. The deal offers a weekend of classes, followed by pool dives and ocean water dives. They walk you through it and are extremely helpful. I hope my husband gets an experience of a lifetime and makes fond memories!

I absolutely disagree with the previous writeup.
I took an Abalone diving class through this shop, and it was an amazing experience. Tom and Drew came out and had everything set up including all of our equipment. Half of the class were late and had to drive back into town to buy Abalone cards, and Tom was totally cool about it. Drew took the 3 of us out who already had our cards, and was very thorough in preparation and direction.
On top of that, these two guys were incredibly nice. Drew was perhaps one of the coolest guys I’ve ever met. Super low key, but over the course of the day, we found out he used to be a Navy diver, is a nuclear physicist, grows and harvests most of his own food, had broken his back at some point, is a master chef, etc etc. And then there’s Tom, who really couldn’t have been any more nice and accommodating even if he tried.
I HIGHLY recommend taking a class with these guys, scuba or freediving.

The service smelled of used car salesman techniques and is unreliable.
I was on the way to Mendocino to go abalone diving. I was in a rush and wanted to buy a set of gear for myself and rent for my brother so I called several local stores. Bamboo Reef had the best deal on a wetsuit and also had rental gear that was relatively in expensive, so I took a detour to their store. Seemed like a great deal and required only one stop!
When I got to the store, I negotiated a deal to buy gear and rent for my brother. I then spent more than an hour getting fitted. Once I was set with my gear, I asked for rental gear for my brother. At that point they told me that almost all their rental gear was already rented. I was understandably upset, as I had already invested a lot of time getting my gear and I was in a hurry. Now I had to make another stop to rent. They had bait-​and-​switched on the rental gear.
Not good business practices. I would try somewhere else.