Mitchell Scuba College

Update 1/5/2016
I'm sad to say Mitch has passed away.

I only dove with Tony, his Divemaster or assistant instructor I think, once, but I guess he's the guy you should look for if you want similar training. Tony's much nicer and doesn't yell. I have no idea if Tony teaches though or how to even contact him.

My favorite tips from Mitch that I noticed other new divers have issues with:
* washing gear (and using pinesol on neoprene)
* looping your fins around your arms as you enter and exit the water so you don't lose them.
* adjusting the fin straps for fast donning in the surf zone ("sit in your easy chair)
* what to do when a wave is about to hit you in the surf zone

Hopefully you'll find an instructor that will show you these tricks as well.

I'm past 200 dives now and have started dives beyond the recreational realm and credit Mitch for giving me a strong diving foundation.

Thanks and RIP Mitch.
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I was first certified by Mitch almost 3 three ago. With well over 100 dives now in local waters I feel like I can look back at my training and give a proper review. I did eventually get my Advanced and Rescue training from Mitch but this review will just focus on the Scuba Diver (Open Water) certification class. If you enjoyed the class you can decide if you want to take more classes with Mitch for yourself.

I think the most important question I could ask myself about Mitch's training is would I send my loved ones to get certified with him? The answer is yes, absolutely. The reason why is because Mitch sticks to some of the older training methodologies.

For example he still makes sure you learn Dive Tables (this is optional with PDAI but very important because it shows new divers the deeper you go, the less time you have at that depth), makes sure you can do the fundamentals in the pool (clear mask, regulator recovery, etc) and actually does an assessment of your skills before going to the ocean. If he does not believe you are ready for the the ocean portion of the certification he will not let you go, and that is for your own safety. He is willing to work with those that are not yet ready to go to the ocean though, but the best thing to do is start swimming on your own to get comfortable in water.

Most importantly though, he works on your watermanship skills. This is, in my opinion, the most important aspect of the class as it is the foundation for all water activities. Having strong watermanship skills leads to comfort in water, comfort in water leads to not panicking underwater should anything happen.

Mitch makes you wash your gear after dives in the ocean. It was a pain at the time but in retrospect this was an essential lesson he taught. If you remain a vacation diver that rents everything, then yeah, you'll probably never use this. But if you become a diver and buy your own gear, taking care of your gear is essential. Learning how to properly maintain your gear ultimately is a safety issue and I'm so glad I learned how right off the bat. I remember meeting other dives trained else where and having them ask me how to clean their BC and other gear. I was shocked.

The last dive of the certification was a scary one at the time, but it was the dive I valued the most. Mitch let us go out on our own without a dive master or himself. This was a confidence boosting dive. It shows us that if we dived within our training we were good with just our buddy. California diving typically doesn't have the silly follow the PADI guide type of diving, so the confidence gained from this dive was the true first step on how I became a diver.

Oh yeah, he yells a lot, but it's for your own good and he means well.

My fiance and I first learned of Mitchell Scuba College through friends who highly recommended their Scuba Diver course. We had a blast and learned how to hang with the fishes. Two of our friends were getting open water instructions from a large dive shop at the same, so we were able to actively compare notes. (One of those friends asked us if our instructor would take her for a refresher later because she didn't feel comfortable yet -- and this was between her dive training days with her shop!)

The key to our training versus others that I've noticed is that we felt confident going out by ourselves (just us two) in new locations, immediately after the training. We were a bit perturbed by operators who tried to convince us we needed more guided hand-holding because we should be jittery as newbies. That's why the course teaches you to dive within your limits. And our instructor, he did a fantastic job of helping me work through my skill troubles. All that knowledge from all those years of hard-core diving and rescues... We've gone back for more advance training, and for our dive gear loot. :)

What can I say - Mitch is a old school, non-PC, tough love type of scuba instructor. Exactly the guy you want to be teaching you scuba. Believe me, you could be coddled by the PADI course instructors at the local dive shop, rushed through an accelerated course, and you would get your certifcation, but would you really know what you were doing? I say no. I know, having done just that, and feeling miserable about it - sure, I could have passed the class, but did I learn anything? Did I trust myself? No.

I took the NAUI open water diver course with Mitch last year, and knew instinctively that this was the right way to go: first, his background - a retired fire fighter, life long diver, more knowledgeable than any dive shop jockey you could ever find. Secondly, he is clearly not in it for the money. His courses are reasonably priced, his gear (should you choose to buy it) is affordable, tested and "approved." He could give a sh*t whether you pass, and will tell you so repeatedly. You may not like his quips, or comments, but ultimately, you are there to learn how to dive knowledgeably and safely. Whether he admits it or not, he truly cares that you know what the heck you are doing, and knows exactly where to focus, based on years of experience. I stumbled upon his classes at the Brisbane pool (itself a hidden treasure) and signed up for his two weekend course.

An aside - I missed the open water dives the first time around due to prior commitments - Mitch agreed to meet me, solo, in Monterey for two days to do my dives, and though it was tough, we (I) made it through with flying colors. By the end I felt like I really knew what I was doing..

If you are looking to learn to dive, I could not recommend a more reliable teacher. You may not like him, but you will learn all that you need to know and more. 100% yes.

Mitch is the best SCUBA instructor ever!

He's got a ton of experience, knows the material he's teaching, is a stickler for safety, passes along the important stuff, and most importantly, is a great all around guy. He's a straight shooter, funny as heck (unless you're the easily offended, "why, the universe circles around me" type), and most importantly, won't be trying to rip you off in either the course or scuba gear.

If you're thinking about SCUBA and want to be as safe as you can, and learn it right the first time, take his class.

You won't regret it!

I took Mitchell Course 7 years ago and taught the danger us all the danger and the important things that matters and keep you alive. Strict and straight forward, Mitchell gets the point across and is absolutely serious on safety.

Glad we experience diving in Monterey and experience the roughness and cold.
While we moved to Asia and been doing mostly warm water, Mitchell course reminded us the danger is just the same and not to be blindside by the danger just because it is warm and crystal clear.

Thank you and are truly grateful for the experience and the confidence to be under.

I agree with previous posts.

Mitch can be annoying/irritating/prejudiced but overall is entirely effective. His assistant Tony is equally effective in his water instruction.

My lady and I just dove all over Kona, completely independently, and were even complimented on our inexperienced comprehension. Mitch even shared his vintage HI dive guides that produced great days of diving.

We were definitely trained well by Mitch to start learning to SCUBA on our own.

Will probably take additional courses.

I took Mitch's course about two months back and have tested my diving skills with my fiance once more in the cold waters of Monterey Bay. Final verdict is Mitch's course taught me the necessary skills and kept me comfortable in the water.

Like everyone says, he's no nonsense, but I'd rather be taught properly about a skill that has the potential to make me seriously ill or lead to death. Moving on from that more serious note, I really liked Mitch's knowledge of diving. We had a few ..actually I don't know what they did, but I seem to remember Stanford neuro... something or other. They asked some more difficult questions regarding the science of diving and Mitch was able to answer the questions and more importantly answered them without getting annoyed or moving on because it wasn't really important to just learning the necessary dive skills.

Pricing was incredibly reasonable and more importantly I feel more confident then some of my friends who did their PADI course. (Mitch does rag on PADI) The price was really fair. With some courses you have to separately for books and often equipment, Mitch's included gear, books, dvd, everything you needed to do the course.

Lastly I'll throw in one reason to do Mitch's NAUI course rather than PADI. I think when one of my friends did her PADI course it was roughly 300 (around 2 years ago) and she was only allowed to dive up to 30 feet and had to pay extra to dive with PADI certified divers when she went on vacation. With Mitch we went on a 50 foot dive on our second dive, and we're allowed to dive up to that level by ourselves. (ourselves meaning with my fiance Steve)

Ohp one last tip:
Mitch has this one signal when he brings his hands to his chest, like he's moving something closer to his chest and then he points his forefinger. This is usually when you're doing an ascent. Anyway that means when you're doing the ascent continuously breath out ONE breath of air. Trust me he'll know if you breathed in on your way up.

Myself and fiancee just completed our NAUI open water certification with Mitch so we can dive on our honeymoon, and would highly recommend him to everyone who wants to learn to dive.

As a novice I found his style very helpful - tough love for sure, but diving can kill you if you don't get it right, so we wanted to understand the issues to be able to enjoy diving and be safe.

We did research ahead of time and decided that we wanted to complete a NAUI course over other alternatives - you can do your own research to make your own decision, but one thing worth mentioning that we noticed is that Mitch is a Course Director with Naui, i.e. he teaches the instructors which sounds pretty good to me. Having completed the course Mitch was a wealth of knowledge, with a huge amount of experience and anecdotes to tell based on it.

His approach might not work for everyone - he's not PC, he doesn't hold back on criticism and (while our class seemed to be a strong group) he won't pass you if he doesn't think you're safe to dive for any reason. But at the end of the day, if you're not comfortable enough in the water to progress through the class what hope do you have in an emergency situation under 60ft+ of water? (He'll give you much more graphic examples of potential emergency situations than I can give justice to!)

Having said all of that, we liked Mitch, felt that any criticism was only to make us better and safer divers and loved the open water dives in Monterey.

Finally his price is all in (course notes, tuition, pool and open water dives, all gear and equipment you need), the only other costs we had were getting to and staying in Monterey. That isn't the case for almost all of the other dive courses we looked at.

It was such a terrible shock to hear of the passing of Mitch, today. He was not only my instructor and mentor, he was our friend. He will be remembered with nothing but respect and admiration. We lost a damned good man on Jan 30th, 2015! Godspeed!

My son and I were going to take his course this summer. Does anyone have a suggestion for a alternative -- possibly his dive master or assistant?

I never met Mitch, however I did have two of the most informative and common sense discussions around dive instruction with him, especially for kids. We were going to get certified last summer, and I interviewed a several instructors, and Mitch was by far and away the most impressive. I'm now really kicking myself for not finding the time last summer so that my son and I would have had the benefit of Mitch's experience.