SCUBA…in Woodinville? Absolutely!

I had to ask: What’s a dive center doing smack dab in the middle of forested, wine-making Woodinville? owner Bud Gray was happy to enlighten me.

“SCUBA is just like any other sport activity,” he explained. Participants – in this case, divers – live everywhere, and stores open where there is opportunity. “A good percentage of my customers get on a plane a couple of times a year to go tropical.”

Gray thoroughly researched the area before opening his doors in 1999. Woodinville had the right mix of projected growth, families and income level. “It was an excellent place to open a dive center,” he says. And, he adds, business has been “very, very good.”

Undoubtedly, Gray’s success has as much to do with how he runs his business as it does with his location. “I look at the customers as friends,” he says, adding that he wants them to walk out smiling, and to provide repeat business. “I have to make customers happy to make a fair living,” he says.

Whether you are renting diving equipment to fix a swim dock at the lake, buying snorkeling gear for a family trip to Hawaii, or investing in a full diving set-up for a trip to the tropics, Bubbles Below has what you need. The store is jam-packed with high-quality swimming, snorkeling and diving gear.

More importantly, customers benefit from the expertise and individualized attention provided by Gray and his staff. His goal is to make sure you get the right item the first time, and if you don’t, that any problems are rectified. “We just find a way to never say ‘no’ to a customer,” he says.

To introduce customers to or expand their enjoyment of underwater sports, Bubbles Below offers a range of training opportunities. Over 20 instructors and assistants provide everything from beginning diving classes, to dive master programs, to courses in specialties such as underwater photography and night diving.

And then there are the trips. “If I don’t go on vacation with you, you won’t be a member of the family,” says Gray, who has led trips to exotic locations like Cozumel, Roatan and the Cayman Islands, as well as to destinations closer to home, such as the San Juan Islands and California.

Gray has been diving for over 40 years. He started as a commercial diver, working all over the world laying power cable. Ultimately, he started teaching, and is now certified as a Master Instructor. “I liked it so much I just kept doing it,” he says.

Eventually, after 21 years of working for big companies and teaching, Gray decided he needed to open his own business. He says he’s never worked harder in his life, routinely putting in 80-hour weeks. “It’s all for the love of doing your own thing,” he says, adding, “I get to make decisions for my own life.”

He stresses that he operates the business on the basis of revenue, which is why he calls it a dive center rather than a dive shop. “If it doesn’t make money, why…would anyone do it?” To be successful, a business has to be run “with love,” not “for love,” he adds.

And Gray clearly has a love of SCUBA. As a non-diver, I had to ask why anyone would want to participate: Isn’t it cold, wet and oxygen-less?

“It doesn’t have to be cold, it doesn’t have to be wet…and of course you can breathe,” says Gray. You have to have confidence in yourself and in your equipment he adds, explaining that that is where training and practice come in.

“It’s a brand new world down there,” he enthuses, drawing parallels between underwater sport and space exploration. Noting that Puget Sound is rated number two in the world for cold-water diving, he adds, “People have no idea what they’re missing.”

If I do decide to give it a try, I have no doubt that Bubbles Below will be my first stop. And Gray almost has me convinced to give it a try … almost.