Alexandria's Splash Dive Center Thrives on Dry Land

It’s March in Alexandria, and Eve Oelrich is planning a Caribbean getaway. 

Oelrich, of Arlington, is preparing to snorkel in the clear waters off St. John in the U.S. Virgin Islands. Before leaving, she stopped by Splash Dive Center at 4154 Duke St. to pick up her husband’s prescription snorkeling goggles.

What does she love about snorkeling? “The fish, the being in the water,” Oelrich said. “That’s pretty much it.”

Splash Dive Center has helped thousands of Northern Virginians develop a love of snorkeling or scuba diving, equipping them properly and sending them to nearby lakes or distant seas. Scuba diving is more popular than you might expect in Northern Virginia, said Janet Hays, who owns the center with her husband, David.

“With the transition of the military people, a lot of folks coming from someplace like California and are used to diving say, ‘Where do I dive locally?’ And they come here and get some advanced training,” Hayes said. “Right now as always, people can see the end of their military career, and they think of teaching scuba diving as something to do after their military career has ended, so we teach them.”

The center has 3,000 active customers. About 25 of those, Hays said, have completed the center’s professional track to learn how to be scuba instructors.

Splash Dive Center offers scuba diving and first aid training, sells and rents scuba and snorkeling gear, repairs gear—even if it was purchased elsewhere—conducts excursions in places including the Caribbean and the Florida Keys and helps customers book more distant diving trips. The shop offers dive suits for sale or rent in sizes for toddlers to XXX-large and other gear.

Locally, scuba divers train at Lake Norbrook near Manassas, Lake Rawlings south of Richmond and even the National Aquarium in Baltimore, Hays said. From there, many divers progress to north-central Florida, known for its caves and caverns, then the Florida Keys. Divers using special equipment for deeper excursions can dive off the East Coast to visit undersea military wreckage.

Hays herself became involved in scuba diving following a knee injury 14 years ago. “I was told to do the standard water aerobics class for therapy and got bored with that, progressed to snorkeling, got bored with that, so I said, ‘OK, what’s next?’ ” she said. “And scuba diving was next after that.”

Hays’ passion has taken her to 26 countries, including destinations such as Fiji, Palau, the Red Sea, the Great Barrier Reef and the Maldives. She left her job in the telecommunications industry and opened the dive shop with her husband in May 2009. At the time, the shop was located near Rocklands Barbeque. In winter 2010 the business moved into the two-story house on Duke Street, which once served as an office for Brian Moran, former chairman of the Virginia Democratic Party.

The Duke Street house was built in the 1920s, Hayes said. The original owner, she’s been told, had the first hardware store in Alexandria. The home’s back addition, now used as a dive suit rental room, was built when the owner’s wife had heart trouble and couldn’t walk up the staircase.

Hays is a scuba enthusiast and loves “the critters,” as she calls marine life. She’s taken a liking to sharks and is preparing to take a course on “shark immobility,” a method in which the diver holds a shark’s snout in a way that causes sharks to enter a catatonic state.

Her favorite spot to snorkel, she says, is Palau in the western Pacific.

“It has kind of a smorgasbord of everything,” she said. “It’s got shallow coral reefs. It’s got deep walls. It’s got some shark activity. It’s got a place called chandelier cave, so you get the cavern/cave effect, and it’s got a ‘clam city’ and jellyfish lake. Jellyfish lake is the only place in the world where you can touch jellyfish, because they’ve lost their stinging capabilities.”

For dive center employee Bob McLane, the best spot is the Galapagos Islands in the Pacific, or anywhere with vibrant reefs teeming with life.

“What I particularly love to see are the reefs, and the life that’s on the reefs and all the beautiful colors and the beautiful fishes and all kinds of creatures that hang out on the reef,” McLane said. “Everytime I go down there’s new stuff to see and new creatures to watch, and I love seeing all the big guys and the sharks, the turtles and things like that. They’re always especially a lot of fun. And I like the little stuff too, some of the gorgeous fish like angelfish and things like that. So diving’s a lot of fun.”

For more information, visit the Splash Dive Center website or call 703-823-7680. Winter open hours are from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Friday, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday and from 12 to 5 p.m. Sunday.

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