Keeping your customers happy is the key to staying in business. We believe we provide the best to our customers, and they have rewarded us by keeping us in business almost 60 years!

In 1952 Mike Kevorkian established The Tarpoon Skin Diving Center at 925 Palm Avenue in Hialeah, Florida. Four years later he moved it to its current location at:

Tarpoon Skin Diving Center (NAUI 007)
3200 Palm Avenue
Hialeah, FL 33012

An indoor heated pool for student training was added in 1989

Tarpoon Skin Diving Center is proud to be the oldest dive store in the South-Eastern United States under original ownership.

In 1997, Mike's daughter Valerie expaned the business by opening the PADI 5-Star Tarpoon Lagoon Dive Center at the Miami Beach Marina.

It was, and remains, Miami Beach's only waterfront dive center with a 2004 Newton 46' custom built dive boat departing just feet from the store.

The Dive Center has gone from strength to strength over the years and continues to provide a range of products from Aqualung, Seaquest, Cressi, Scubapro, Suunto, Bauer and others. PADI dive classes for novices to Assistant Instructors begin regularly in our on-site classroom and outdoor pool in English, Spanish and Portuguese.

Today, Mike's grandson carries on the family tradition. You can find him working at our Miami Beach store.

Mike Kevorkian, who made his first scuba dive in the late 1940's, loved people and diving. To try to list all his life accomplishments would fill more than the pages of this entire magazine, wrote Tom & Patti Mount in 1988 shortly after Mike's death. A graduate of the University of Miami with a Master's degree in Science, Newsweek Magazine voted him 'Outstanding Teacher of 1959' for programs in underwater science education. Mike was the first 'Mr. Wizard' and produced 650 live programs for Miami's Channel 2, becoming the nation's first science television education teacher. His series on marine flora and fauna was featured in Newsweek Magazine. In 1963, he became NAUI Instructor 0449L.

In the dive business, Mike Kevorkian was an innovator. An avid spearfisherman in the early days, he developed the Tarpoon CO2 speargun, an effective weapon for hunting fish. After 22 years of teaching, Mike retired to devote full time to his diving activities and the Tarpoon Diving Center he opened in 1952. It remains, to this day, the oldest dive shop in Florida to continue to operate under original ownership. He was coordinator of the first underwater film festival in Florida, was responsible for one of Jacques Cousteau's first U.S. public appearances, and was an important early supporter of John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park, America's first underwater marine park. He was also instrumental in having the Christ of the Abysses Statue placed in the waters off Key Largo in 1965 and helped choose the site for the location of the statue, carefully studying the angle of the sun and the nearby corals. With the efforts of Captain Spencer Slate, a bronze plaque was placed on the base of the Christ Statue in 1988 commemorating Mike Kevorkian's ardent involvement in Keys diving.

Mike's work was a landmark to diving. A believer in high standards and safety, his pioneering work contributed greatly to the integrity of diver training on national and local levels. Mike served on the board of directors of NAUI and was South Atlantic Branch Manager. He earned NAUI's Outstanding Service Award and Continuing Service Awards for efforts in underwater excellence. He was inducted into the NAUI Hall of Fame in 1991 and the DEMA Hall of Fame in 2002.