When prompted for a memorable diving story, Thunder Reef Divers shop owner Greg Wolf begins to laugh.
“My favorite stories are the ones where I messed up,” he said, “jumping off a boat in heavy current with no weight belt.”
Though Vancouver-based Thunder Reef Divers opened in 1985, it has been through the hands of several owners. Wolf initially owned another local dive shop before acquiring Thunder Reef.
“I began to talk with the owner here because I needed a swimming pool,” Wolf said. “So then, in 2007, I picked up this one. Toward the end of 2007, I closed the first [shop].”
With Thunder Reef’s larger space came more responsibilities.
“It was a trade off,” Wolf explained. “I understood that it was going to be a lot more maintenance and upkeep, having a swimming pool. But it was nice having the flexibility to be able to just put someone in a pool. I didn’t have to schedule around other facilities’ hours or open swims. It actually opened us up quite a bit for doing classes and also customers coming in and doing refreshers themselves.”
The first few years were a bit shaky for Wolf, thanks in large part to the Great Recession.
“In 2007 [the business] actually went down for a few years with the economy… It’s been coming back, plus or minus. This last year has been the best year so far. [When] people feel like they have disposable income it tends to do better,” he said.
Like any small business owner, Wolf said he struggles with a finite amount of time. He laughed when asked about the challenges the business faces day-to-day.
“I bought the entire property – building and all – so I get to do all of the maintenance and upkeep,” said Wolf. “For me, it’s time. I work a day job and then come here and try to keep up.”
For those uncertain about diving locally, Wolf is quick to assure that the region does offer cold, but clear diving, with views of starfish aplenty, lingcod, moon snails, little fish, wolf eel and more.
“The largest octopus in the world [is] the giant Pacific octopus. You can see those up in Hood Canal, the Puget Sound area. They’re all over, but that’s the primary diving area because you only have to deal with ebb and flow when it comes to currents,” Wolf explained. “You don’t have to deal with the pounding surf on the ocean side.”
One area Wolf would like to get more in line with is social media, which he admits isn’t his strongest stroke. Though he insists that word-of-mouth is the social and marketing strategy of choice, a fairly active Facebook presence (which touts local fun dives, an underwater Easter egg hunt and a May swap meet) suggests an awareness and cultivation of the local diving community.
“We have different groups that come in,” he said. “The Gold Dredgers Association – we see them quite a bit and try to support them. Some of our local dive rescue [teams] have used the pool for training.”
Even the military has spent time at Vancouver’s Thunder Reef Divers, Wolf shared.
“The Air Force uses our pool for trainings,” he said. “When they come in everything is in boxes. They don’t let you down to the pool when they’re using it and they put it back into boxes and they leave. I honestly don’t know what [they] use, but they have to have some neat stuff.”
Thunder Reef Divers
12104 NE Hwy 99, Vancouver
www.thunderreef.com
