Rope Splicing
Looking to learn the lost art of rope splicing?
Look no further than Captain Kurt 's Splicing Academy, learning from a professional rigger with over 50 years of experience.
In his introductory 3-strand splicing class, you'll learn the about rope splicing tools, understand the structure of rope, and practice constructing a beautiful and serviceable spliced line.
By the end of the class, you'll have a line that you created with a spliced eye and the tools to use in the future.
Don't miss out on this must have skill for boat owners!
This is the foundation for several other classes Captain Kurt teaches on this topic.
Class length: 2 hours
Cost: $125.00 Includes : The splicing tools and the rope for your sample splice.
Class size: Minimum 2 maximum 6 students
Location: Yacht Haven Dive center
Give this class as a gift to an avid boater or sailer in your life.
Our Team
Our team of instructor have backrounds that include commercial diving, Scientific diving, Movie production and Search and Rescue.
Our instructors have gone thru rigorous instructor training programs and real world experience that make them the best of the best. They have trained many students young and old thru the years.
Cheyenne Asher aka:Chey
NAUI Dive Master
#55809
Cheyenne Asher aka: Chey pronounced “shy”🤣which she is not.
Chey has worked as a Commercial diver with Jen Jay diving, is NAUI dive Master certified and has been diving all around the globe, including the San Juan Islands.
Chey has worked as an EMT with San Juan Island EMS and a volunteer firefighter (Lieutenant) with the Town of Friday Harbor and is extremely well versed in medicine.
She also was a dispatcher at the San Juan County Sheriff’s Office.
Chey is one of the most calm persons you will ever be with in the water. Her ability to communicate diving skills are superior. She did a good percentage of her dive training in British Columbia and the San Juan Islands.
Chey has been through factory regulator repair school in British Columbia.
Chey currently works as a police officer for the SanJose Police department.
She is also trained to run the dive boat , Air fill station and various other marine operations.
Mitch McCloskey
Dive Master
I now live full-time in Friday Harbor, dedicating myself year-round to the conservation and exploration of the underwater world. As the project manager for the eelgrass restoration project at the San Juan Islands Conservation District and a Scientific Diver for Friday Harbor Labs, I engage in various diving projects that are close to my heart. My journey into dive master training with Jeff is not just about deepening my own expertise; it's about sharing the magic of the depths with others, guiding them safely into the mesmerizing cold waters that I have come to cherish.
My Dive Experience
My diving career began in the Caribbean, documenting bioluminescent mating displays of cypridinid ostracods, tiny crustaceans with a remarkable trait uncommon in their class. This project marked my first foray into SCUBA diving. Night dives without lights to preserve the natural beauty of the luminescence, was quite an experience to say the least.
I momentarily stepped away from the ocean to study the sleep patterns of honeybees and fruit bats. Yet, the call of the deep was irresistible, leading me to pursue graduate studies at Alaska Pacific University, I delved into the sleep behaviors of octopuses. It was in Alaska that I fell in love with cold-water diving, a passion further fueled by participating in and eventually helping with scientific diving courses at the university. These experiences in the alien underwater world of Prince William Sound solidified my commitment to making cold-water diving accessible to others, believing firmly that with the right guidance, anyone can embrace this exhilarating activity.
My connection to the sea has also taken me back to Alaska on occasion, where I assist in surveys assessing the populations of red sea cucumbers and sunflower stars. Despite a brief hiatus working on glacier tours and commercial fishing, my heart remained tethered to environmental science, leading me to the San Juan Islands.
Jeff Asher
NAUI Instructor
#54386
Jeff has over 50 years of diving in the San Juans and around the world from warm water diving to extremes of ice diving and cave diving.
Jeff Started diving in Monterey California at 14 years old before he had his drivers license. Jeff relied on his mother to drive him to dive sites. During one occasion in front of the Monterey Bay Aquarium a diver was caught up in kelp and brought to shore unresponsive and paramedics were performing CPR on the diver. Jeff's mother thought from a far that it was Jeff and after finding that he was safe told him not to dive again because it was too dangerous ..... well he did the exact opposite and his career was launched.
Jeff Started his career in the National Park Service as a Ranger were he was involved in Swift water rescue and high mountain rescue
Jeff has supervised dive operations for dive rescue and recovery for the San Juan County Sheriffs office for 25 years and operated the Sheriff’s boat as a licensed Coast Guard approved Captain.
He is a Graduate of the accredited NOAA dive academy in Seattle Washington and has taken many other advanced dive classes and workshops.
During his career with the Sheriff's office he responded to and investigated underwater deaths that ranged from Homicide, accidents and suicides.
Jeff worked with U.S. Customs and Border Protection with their diving operations including but not limited to nighttime diving operations and numerous smuggling interdictions.
Jeff worked with the Department of Emergency Management in Olympia , WA as an adviser for underwater incidents and has responded to water related disasters throughout Washington State. and Oregon.
Jeff has worked in the commercial dive setting with Jen-Jay Diving on Power cable lays, Sewer repair and biologic surveys.
Jeff has supervised dive operations on various movies for IMAX and Disney productions.
Jeff worked as EMT with San Juan County EMS and conducted dive rescue operations for training with EMS.
Currently Jeff is a supervisor for Executive protection located in the Bay Area.
Kurt Schwalbe
NAUI Instructor
#13052
Former NAUI Course Director
From the time Kurt first saw Lloyd Bridges starring as Mike Nelson in Sea Hunt on TV, he just couldn’t wait to learn how to dive. For as long as he remembers, his childhood wishes and requests had always been for “frogman’s mask and flippers”.
When he got to college in 1964, he learned to dive with the school dive club. He still remembers the elation of that first breath underwater.
Years later, after diving to cut a mooring line from the prop of a friends boat, another boater came up and asked for zinc anode installation on their boat. That was the beginning of a career.
Since then, he has been working at various types of commercial diving. Besides boats, he has worked on projects from government infrasctucture repair to commercial seafood harvest.
In 1991, Kurt qualified as a NAUI Instructor in order to share his love of diving with others. Since he held a USCG Master License, it was a natural progression to own and operate a dive charter boat based in Friday Harbor.
In 1995, he joined the San Juan County Sheriff’s Dive and Rescue Team, serving for 20 years as training officer.
In addition to teaching advanced courses in diving, Kurt most enjoys introducing people to diving for the first time and seeing the smile on their faces after that first breath underwater.
Dedication. Expertise. Passion.
Diving professional that have experience as commescial divers to Underwater search and rescue diving