Address
Daniel Walters
17572 Pond Derosa Ln
Prunedale
California, United States
93907

Contact Details

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Classes I Teach 32

Dan Walters can teach 32 classes / events.

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Email: techdiver831@gmail.com

About Me:

I earned my first scuba certification with NAUI in 1982 thru Finstad's Scuba Shop in Santa Cruz, California. I quickly became hooked and spent many years diving the California coast (and quite a few more exotic locations) with my fellow scuba friends. It wasn't until nearing the end of a 30 year career as a Fire Captain within a local fire department that I decided to "go pro".Choosing to leave my basic open water training behind, advancing to the ranks to NAUI Instructor and eventually UTD Foundational Instructor, was clearly one of the best decisions of my life. All those years of diving has given me a really solid foundation and plenty of experience diving. I love sharing all this with new students and getting them started in their diving. I also spend time working our local dive boats when I'm not teaching. It's a great way of meeting people and learning more about diving. This is also where I bring my Divemaster students for some real world experience. The learning process never ends with a good instructor.I have a passion for deep technical diving, shipwreck diving, cave diving and underwater photography. Not a month goes by that I'm not trying to advance my training in these areas or as a instructor. In 2013, I opened my first dive shop. This was an amazing experience working with both consumers and the big business of scuba diving. Besides teaching 7 days a week, repairing scuba equipment, planning dive travel, meeting with dealers and agency reps, I still managed to find time for advancing my teaching skills. I am a big believer in training for success thru neutral buoyancy training while following DIR principles and UTD's ethos. It was UTD that changed everything for me as an instructor and business owner. Prior to that, I was one of the typical scuba instructors who trained students on their knees in the bottom of a pool. I realized that this doesn't really prepare you for the challenges of diving, not to mention the difficulty in trying to train students with just 6 hours of pool time. It wasn't until I met with UTD instructors that I implemented a more holistic approach to training and diving. It was time for change.Selling off my share of the retail dive business allowed me to refocus my energy in dive training. I opened UTD Watersports in early 2015. While primarily training all levels of recreational diving, I also provide access to UTD equipment, warranty and service. All this supports my ability to provide high quality training and equipment to my students, without the overhead of a full dive shop. You can read about UTD Watersports Monterey Bay in the March 2015 UTD Journal.My favorite style of diving now days is side mount. When I'm not teaching a back mount student, side mount is my go to rig. There's so much freedom of movement and when it comes to diving wrecks and caves, there is no better, safer solution. In fact, I love it so much that it's now my main style for single tank recreational diving! As you can see, I'm pretty crazy about diving.If your looking for a great learning experience, in a low key, small class environment, then give me a call!1982 -NAUI Open Water Diver2011- PADI Advanced Diver 2011- PADI Rescue Diver 2011- D.A.N. Diving Emergency Specialist 2012- NAUI Advanced Diver 2012- NAUI Rescue Diver 2012- PADI Tec40 Diver 2013- NAUI Master Diver 2013- NAUI Divemaster 2013- opens dive shop "Pro Scuba Dive Center" in Scott's Valley, Ca. 2013- Certified Scubapro "Basic" Repair Technician 2013- Certified Scubapro "Pro" Repair Technician 2013- NAUI Scuba Instructor #55227 2013- GUE Fundamentals 2014- GUE Doubles Primer 2014- UTD Essentials of Sidemount (Doubles)2014- UTD Foundational Instructor #119 2015- Instructor, University of California, Santa Cruz 2015-2016. 2016- Creates UTD Watersports Monterey Bay