Specialties
Our Chicago based 20 passenger US Coast Guard Inspected Vessel, the Great Lakes Explorer, specializes in Scuba Diving Trips, Fireworks Party Cruises (Every Saturday Night June through September), Playpen Trips (Swimming optional), Air & Water Show Cruises, Pavilion Trips (Anchor off Charter One Pavilion during concerts) and Just Plain Partying (Bachelor/Bachelorette, Wine and Cheese or just any Occasion). We are also a water based PADI Dive Center offering scuba diving lessons. Open Water Diver, Adventure Diver, Advanced Open Water Diver, Rescue Diver, Dive-master, Master Scuba Diver, Assistant Instructor, Instructor, Master Scuba Diver Trainer, Emergency First Responder and DAN first aid courses. Specialty Diving, Dry-suit Diver, Night Diver, Underwater Navigator, Underwater Navigation, Underwater Photography, just to name a few. We also sell, rent, and service dive equipment, dry-suits, wet suits, regulators and more. So for beginner or Instructor we are Chicago's Scuba Headquarters.
History
Established in 1993.
Dive Chicago started out as a fictitious company that Captain Bob Schak created for a class presentation in a Instructor Development Course that he took with Ralph Erickson (founder of PADI). Ralph liked the presentation and the name very much and suggested that Captain Bob use Dive Chicago for business. Captain Bob followed his suggestion and here we are today.
Meet the Business Owner: Captain Bob S.
As a US Coast Guard Captain, Captain Bob has operated many boats over the years from small fishing boats, scuba diving boats and up to the large Wedding Excursion Valara VI. He is also an active PADI Scuba Instructor.
He first started driving Johnny Murphy's (his uncle) fishing boat the Channel Cat at the age of 2. Did his first scuba dive at the age of 9 with the cub scouts using a double hose Agua Lung set up. He currently Captains our boat the Great Lakes Explorer and still helps out with the Valara VI.