Urban Manta Private Scuba Lessons — Local services in New York

Summary: Haphazard but mildly helpful and I still did get my certification, however I’ll likely re do it elsewhere before seriously diving. Update: the owner is now pretending this experience never happened rather than taking responsibility and perhaps learning from aspects of the feedback.

Details: I signed up for a private scuba certification. Sandra said the water would be very cold, so I also had to do the DrySuit certification.

The planning process was rather scattered and difficult. One particularly annoying example of this was Sandra’s insistence I show up on time the first day. I was there 20 minutes early. She was over an hour late. And she didn’t have the necessary supplies prepped (eg full tanks, etc). Or that she called me while we were both driving up that morning to review concepts I studied online. I had to insist I was uncomfortable reviewing while driving. Not to mention trying to learn and reinforce ideas while driving just can’t be an effective learning technique.

I’d characterize her instruction style as rote, repetitive and disordered. Perhaps it’s helpful for some people, but she simply would not stop talking. I found it difficult to find space to just think.

The entire class felt chaotic, disordered and haphazard. I found it difficult to follow her lectures or more aptly rants. Instead I’d simply re read sections of the textbook at night, since I rarely got a straightforward or helpful answer. I don’t doubt Sandra is an incredible scuba practitioner, but I feel she struggled with effective teaching.

I’m a strong swimmer and swam competitively for 8+ years, was a lifeguard and a swim instructor. However I felt unsafe after suiting up in multiple layers and in an ill fitting dry suit. I did the necessary test swim, but frankly regret doing so. That’s the first time I’ve felt at risk of drowning in the water in a long time.

On the last day of class, her brother came to join for some of the test dives. They spent over an hour, during class time, in a back and forth, heated spat. I’ll omit the details for their privacy’s sake, but that’s rather unprofessional and just felt awkward to be around. I also played the mediator and tried to defuse the situation. Frankly, I paid a fair bit of money to dive, not listen to family arguments.

Sandra also requested I not leave a public review unless it’s 5 stars as this is her business and livelihood. I decided to respect that request for some time, but I think I was wrong to do that. Also such a request felt a bit slimy.

Sandra’s clearly very passionate about scuba diving and she’s certainly a great diver. But I think she could seriously improve her teaching style and organization/professionalism.

Edit: shortly after writing this review I received a phone call from Sandra. She was understandably annoyed. But kept asking: “why would you hurt me? Why would you hurt my business like this? Why are you hurting small businesses?” I tried to highlight that exactly this kind of guilting is part of the issue and my aim is to inform others of my honest experience and hopefully provide avenues where she may improve. Not to mention extremely inappropriate and unprofessional. Unfortunately she only continued to ask: “why would you hurt me like this?” I can only imagine many other more critical reviews have been taken down.

Edit #2: Before I hung up, I stated twice, clearly: “please do not contact me again”. However, I am clearly lucky as I received this follow up text message: “I am appalled that I gave you a last minute class at a group rate, 3 days private lesson with one diver (note: I assume she’s referring to her brother who she fought with) joining the afternoon of day 3. … 2 years later you hurt my business with a bad review? I went way above minimum standards for your class and have the video footage, which is not a public link on your bad review. “

Edit #3: I once again told her do not contact me again. To that text, she replied: “I gave you a good class, and 2 years later you reached out to hurt my business. YOU...

When I decided to dive, it seemed bold at the time because I’ve never snorkeled, Fall was ending and the idea of having tons and tons of water around me while I build the muscle memory to use the only thing keeping me alive was not something I would willingly do, at least with a sane mind. I spent about a week researching about scuba and realized the importance of buoyancy and trim. Unfortunately, I also found that almost all beginner friendly scuba classes treat buoyancy as something to check off a list. I was personally shocked because it meant that the vast majority of divers never really spent enough time learning to be neutrally buoyant.

I cannot stress how important this is- divers kill coral, destroy ecosystems and by extension, marine life by simply being sloppy.

Sandra realizes this and much more, it is evident on her website. Her classes are small in size and feels like a mentorship program (which was exactly what I was looking for) as she often teaches beginners and advanced students side by side, giving the beginners an opportunity to watch and learn from master divers. Safety is paramount to her, followed by buddy awareness and buoyancy. She is a passionate cave diver which is a highly technical side of diving, hence even if you just try your best to imitate her underwater, you will end up learning more than any beginner anywhere in the world. She is also a very meticulous teacher. You really have to earn your certification from her, making it all the more rewarding when you finally do. (as opposed to diving in a resort and checking a list off)

In about 7 hours in the water at Dutch springs (including a snow day) I’ve become perfectly comfortable underwater -with a dry suit- evident to me and the other divers who buddy up, because of Sandra. She even managed to instill confidence and passion in me to get into technical diving and take up advanced courses.

I cannot recommend her...

Over the years, I have found that it’s far easier to learn, advance, and be safe at something new when you have a good foundation to build from. In my experience, this requires an instructor who is committed to teaching and their craft. For learning scuba diving, Sandra is that person and I strongly recommend her for open water instruction and beyond (though I just have an OW cert).

Sandra is a technical and cave diver - she has many great stories - and she always tries to instill the practices that are required for those disciplines in everyone she teaches. The result is that you (a) see good technique and practices, (b) end up with better technique and awareness by emulating and receiving feedback, and (c) know how much you have to learn. I did an Open Water and a drysuit course with Sandra and - since it was the end of the season - she had a mix students from other of courses. In other occasions, I might be skeptical, but Sandra used this time to allow me to perform the skills I needed to, get dive time, and see other divers in the process.

There are a number of other reasons I can’t recommend Sandra enough: she is extremely responsive she goes above and beyond to make her and your schedules work you get to meet a variety of different divers (beginners, intermediate, and advanced) who are all eager to learn and teach her gear is high quality and she makes sure that all of it fits before going out. For instance, she has a variety of drysuits and makes sure that they fit you. her prices are extremely reasonable considering what she offers

Anyway, this all leads to the fact that if you are in the NYC metro area and want to learn, Sandra is the person to go to. I only have 5 dives under my belt and I already know I’ve made the right decision to start learning from Sandra. I’m fairly certain I’ll be reminded of that each and every...