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Details

Lodging

  • The camp home is nestled in the woods, close to  most of Florida's springs, and located near Luraville, Florida
  • Ping pong and various other indoor and outdoor games available at the home
  • Students are roomed according to sex and age
  • A maximum of 4 to 1 student to staff ratio
  • Laundry facilities are on-site
  • Home is air conditioned
  • Well-balanced home cooked meals are provided
  • Campers participate in meal preparation, cleaning, vehicle maintenance, and scuba gear maintenance​​

Transportation

  • Passenger vans and trucks are used to transport campers to and from activities
  • Options for getting your child to the camp are:
    • Free shuttle from the Target parking lot in Gainesville, FL
    • Drive your child to and from the camp location
    • Free shuttle from the Gainesville Regional Airport (GNV) ​
      • ​​Delta and American Airlines service the Gainesville Regional Airport (GNV)

Safety

  • All dives are supervised by dive professionals
  • Lifejackets are worn at all times while canoeing 
  • All staff are CPR/First Aid certified
  • A nurse practitioner is on-call 24 hrs a day

What  is  a  typical  Day  Like?

  • Breakfast
  • Travel to dive site
  • Briefing of dive site and general area
  • Conduct dive #1
  • Conduct dive #2
  • Lunch
  • Hike to remote spring, collect fish, tubing
  • Return to camp home
  • Free time
  • Dinner
  • Work on scuba knowledge development
  • Group game, movie or evening discussion
  • Lights out

Complementary  Equipment  Packages  

The equipment packages are complementary and are the campers to keep as long as full payment is received by April 15 in order to allow sufficient time for ordering and shipping of equipment. Campers enrolling after April 15 may need to provide their own mask, fins, and snorkel.

All equipment packages consist of new gear and correspond to the program that the camper is enrolled in. However, mask, fins, and snorkel are required for all programs, so modifications to these assignments can be made as needed. All campers must provide wetsuit and dive booties regardless of program. 
Explorer I Package
  • Mask, fins, and snorkel
Explorer II Package (must already have items in Explorer I package)
  • Z knife, finger spool, safety tube, whistle, and compass
Explorer III-S Package (must already have items in Explorer I & II packages)
  • Dive light
Explorer III-R Package (must already have items in Explorer I & II packages)
  • First aid kit
​Explorer III-T Package (must already have items in Explorer I & II packages)
  • Dive light

Teaching  Philosophy

​Hold the student to the highest standard and they will meet that standard. It is no more difficult to produce an exceptional diver versus a poor diver if expectations are held high and they are led by a positive example. Students emulate what they see and if what they see is poor dive skills from an instructor, that is what they will strive for. No matter what level of training, Earth Immersion Instructors and Divemasters always maintain neutral buoyancy and horizontal trim. Even during the Open Water Diver course we do not teach our students to kneel, sit or stand on the bottom as we feel this is an uncontrolled and unsafe way to dive. We believe that safe diving means being in control by maintaining neutral buoyancy and horizontal trim throughout the dive. This is not a skill that is performed once and forgotten about, we practice neutral buoyancy on every dive. Mastering neutral buoyancy and horizontal trim is also much better for the environment and is absolutely necessary to be successful in higher level scuba courses.
"I am very indebted to Mr. Davenport for helping me be such a confident person. He is as good of a mentor as you could ask for. He taught me just as much about life out of the water as he did in the water. He taught me about the type of responsibility you need to be successful in life." - John