Scuba Center of Spokane Inc. is, above all, a way for Jamie Mankin to make a living doing what he loves.

"From my first breath under water, I said, 'I have to find a way to get paid for this,'" Mankin says.

Through his Spokane business, which he owns with his wife, Darci, Mankin rents, sells, and services scuba equipment and offers diving lessons and trips that also give him the opportunity for plenty of dive time.

Mankin obtained his open-water diving certification in 1989, and earned his diving instructor certification in 1992, he says. Soon after, he began working at Scuba Center as an instructor, and later store manager, before buying the business with his wife in 1996.

It's one of two scuba gear shops in the Spokane area, Mankin says. The other is Atlantis Aquatics, in Spokane Valley. Atlantis Aquatics also offers open-water scuba diving lessons, trips, and scuba gear sales and rentals here.

By working at the shop before deciding to buy it, Mankin says, "My goal was to get in and get comfortable," to be sure that running such a business would suit him. "I see people getting into this type of business thinking it's just going to be swimming around," which it is partly, Mankin quips, adding that the fun comes along with all of the usual daily concerns of running a business.

In addition to Mankin, Scuba Center has one other full-time employee, who works in the retail store and is a certified instructor. Several volunteers help with the lessons also, in exchange for experience and some free dive time, he says.

The store has survived for 35 years, but struggled after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, when Mankin says its revenues dropped about 30 percent. He says it took about five years for the store's revenues to return to pre-9/11 levels. This past winter also was tough for Scuba Center, with heavy snows blanketing the region right before Christmas, slicing into peak holiday retail sales. Business is going swimmingly right now, however, and this summer, Scuba Center is offering two classes a month with 10 students in each class, Mankin says.

The business offers scuba diving lessons all year, at levels from beginner to assistant instructor certification, and teaches about 200 students each year, Mankin says. Throughout the four-week beginner course, students study for two hours a week in the classroom, located in the lower level of Scuba Center's store, in a building it leases at 3809 N. Division. The students also spend two hours a week in the swimming pool at the Central YMCA, on north Monroe, where they practice the skills they've learned, first on their knees in three-foot-deep water, then at the deep end of the pool.

Students learn about how to use the equipment and how to avoid dangers such as decompression sickness, often referred to as the "bends," and overexpansion injuries. Decompression sickness, in which nitrogen bubbles form in the bloodstream, is the most common issue for divers. It occurs when a diver stays down too long at a certain depth or rises to the surface too fast. Overexpansion occurs when divers rise to the surface while holding their breath, because the oxygen they are breathing far below the surface of the water is compressed, and expands in their lungs as they rise to the surface.

"The No. 1 rule in scuba is 'never hold your breath,'" Mankin says.

Mankin says that thorough training, to help people avoid panicking while under water, is the best way to prevent both of those problems.

"Composure is a big deal," he says. The students carry compasses to help them keep their bearings if visibility is low, and learn to use dive tables to determine the maximum safe amount of time they can spend at a certain depth. Still, there are risks, so students also sign liability waivers to participate. The business has had one accidental death, which occurred on an open water certification dive early last year, and Mankin says the store is defending itself against a lawsuit stemming from that death.

After four weeks of study and practice, students travel to an open body of water, such as Lake Pend Oreille in the summer or Puget Sound in the winter. Each student must perform the required skills for the dive instructor during an open dive to earn a Scuba Schools International open-water certification.

The certification card looks like a driver's license, and technically is good for life, though some places that rent scuba equipment or take scuba groups out at vacation destinations require that a person show documentation, often in the form of a dive log, that they've made a certain number of open-water dives or recently have taken a refresher course before they'll rent them equipment to dive.

At the Scuba Center, four-week beginner classes cost about $270, and include the tuition, books, and equipment rentals needed for the class, Mankin says. Depending on where an open water dive takes place, it can cost an additional $25 to $50, he says. Scuba Center also offers classes to increase skills with the equipment and to learn safety and rescue techniques and refresher courses, ranging in price from about $50 up to about $200.

At its retail store, Scuba Center rents and sells scuba gear, including wetsuits for warm-water diving and drysuits for cold-water diving, as well as products ranging from masks and fins to rubber valve covers, lights knives, cameras, and two kinds of spear guns.

With a dry suit, which Mankin likens to a "watertight bag you climb into," a person can wear warm clothing, such as sweat pants and shirts, and long thermal undergarments, to dive fairly comfortably in water as cold as 26 degrees Fahrenheit, Mankin says.

A regular wet suit, which traps a layer of water between the suit and the diver's skin as an insulating layer, allows a diver to dive in water as cold as about 45 degrees Fahrenheit, he says.

The store also services the equipment it sells, including servicing regulators and replacing the seals on dry suits, and services rescue suits used by firefighters, which are similar to dry suits, Mankin says.

In addition, the shop frequently organizes dive trips around the Northwest and to tropical destinations about twice a year, Mankin says. He organizes the trips himself, using a wholesale travel broker in California to book the destinations he selects. Mankin says that bringing groups of up to 45 people on the trips helps the store to get very inexpensive package deals for its customers.

Though the dive trips don't provide a significant portion of the store's revenues, Mankin says they spur a lot of business in the retail store and help to cover his expenses to go on the trips, where he can indulge in his passion for underwater videography, too. When going on the trips, participants often bring their own "hard gear," such as masks and suits, if they have purchased them, although the group rents air tanks at the destination, he says.

He tries to vary the destinations to make at least two interesting trips each year for scuba enthusiasts. Though he does have a few favorite spots, such as Bonaire, an island off the coast of Venezuela where the store is planning to take an upcoming dive tour, Mankin says that to him personally, "every dive is a good dive."

Some of the factors that can affect a person's experience while on a dive include the temperature of the water, the range of visibility, and just how many interesting things there are to see. Marine wildlife is one example, as are wrecked ships and other sunken objects. In Lake Pend Oreille, near Hope, Idaho, there's a sunken hulk of a train that many divers find interesting, he says.

While the company plans two big getaways to warmer climes each year, it takes groups to dive locations around the region year-round, too, Mankin says.

"Vancouver Island is one of the best cold-water dives" in this region, he says. In that area, the Artificial Reef Society of British Columbia cleans out and sinks decommissioned naval destroyers, and cuts holes in the sides of the vessels to create habitat for marine life—and interesting terrain for divers.

Contrary to popular belief, winter is one of the busier times for the store, despite—or perhaps because of—the cold, Mankin says. People's thoughts turn to tropical getaways when the cold hits here, he explains.

"When we're up to our butts in snow here, it motivates people to find a warm beach somewhere," and they often prepare for such trips by learning to scuba dive, he says. People also give one another gear or lessons at Christmas, he says.