Suzanne Capener, scuba instructor

About Me

I'm a scuba diver and loving it. I enjoyed scuba diving so much that I decided to become an instructor to share my passion for this sport with others. Not being satisfied with regular open water diving I became a technical diver and later a cave diver. I enjoy all diving but cave diving is by far my favorite. I also enjoy taking pictures underwater, so take a look at my gallery. Never content with my own skills I constantly seek out more training and work on improving my own diving and teaching techniques.

I'm an instructor with Scuba Diving International and Technical Diving International and teach independently as well as through a great local training facility Underwater Dynamics, located right in the middle of Utah Valley - Orem, Utah.

I love teaching beginning scuba classes. Not many experiences can compare with the satisfaction I get seeing my students finishing their class and getting excited about a new world they are about to start exploring.

So you want to be a scuba diver?

That is great! Contact me and we can discuss your options. If your schedule doesn't allow you to sign up for a regularly scheduled open water class or you think you could benefit from one-on-one training, I teach private classes as well as group classes. If you have friends who also want to get scuba certified, sign up together to get discount pricing.

I'm a certified scuba diver, now what?

Awesome! You can join me diving. I'm a member of UNiTeD dive club and we get together to enjoy local diving almost every month.

You can always learn something new and improve your skills. I teach a variety of specialty scuba courses, with my favorite specialties being Advanced Buoyancy and Nitrox. Your dives will become more enjoyable once you´ve learned the proper techniques and can effortlessly hover over a reef or a wreck. Nitrox will allow you to do longer dives, have shorter surface intervals and it will allow you to do more dives per day.

Diving in Utah is almost always better in a dry suit. Even in the summer when the air temperatures soar high, the water temperatures in most Utah lakes drop rapidly with depth reaching low forties below fifty feet. Dry suit diving does require special training and I can provide you with it as well.

Where can I go diving?

Obviously this will depend on your budget. Some of my favorite destinations are not that far - I really enjoy diving kelp forest in California. There is a huge variety of marine life there and you may get a chance to interact with sea lions or dolphins.

Diving in Utah lakes, though not the most spectacular, provides a great opportunity to practice your scuba diving skills and to spear fish or gather crayfish. Technical divers would be interested in deep wrecks in Lake Mead and submerged structures in Flaming Gorge and Lake Powell. There is an active underwater cave exploration going on in Utah that attracts qualified cave divers.

Where do I get my gear?

Once you realize that renting "life support equipment" may not be such a great idea, you may start wondering where to get your own scuba gear and what should you buy first. Most scuba divers already own personal snorkeling gear - mask, snorkel and fins, so purchasing a set of regulators and a dive computer would be the next step. Purchasing buoyancy compensator and a wetsuit or a drysuit comes after that.

Scuba equipment requires maintenance and you will be able to do some of it yourself, but items like regulators or inflator hoses on your buoyancy compensator should be serviced by a professional. Generally you will not get any warranty or support for equipment purchased online so your best bet is to go to a local dive store. The best scuba store in the area is Underwater Dynamics. There you will get great service by factory trained technicians and experienced staff will help you select the proper gear.