Don't shoot me down in flames.

Due to a major change in my life I am THINKING about buggering off somewhere
(South America, Australia - who knows) for a while. To do this I will need
to support myself and I was thinking of doing some sort of internship /
fast-track to become a dive instructor.

Now I know that I have little experience in diving (50 dives) and that it's
not really the best thing to do. However, people do this all the time (I
have 20 years training and teaching experience) and so I thought 'why not',
you only live once.

I will have a sizable amount of money to play with so I can support myself
as well as possibly paying for the training. I have seen adverts that offer
training, accomodation, flights and a job for around £5k in Aus etc. but
this seems both too expensive and, at the same time, a little too good to be
true.

Has anyone any experience with a similar sort of venture? I'd appreciate
hearing of any experiences and advice (except the old groaning of 'you're
not experienced enough') that is on offer.

--
Nick
x

There are two secrets to success...
1. Never reveal everything you know.

> Due to a major change in my life I am THINKING about buggering off
somewhere
> (South America, Australia - who knows) for a while. To do this I will
need
> to support myself and I was thinking of doing some sort of internship /
> fast-track to become a dive instructor.

A PADI Instructor friend once told me that he wished he had skipped doing
the Instructor stuff and just done DiveMaster. He said the best way to pay
for your dive master course was to arrange with a resort to do an internship
for leading the dives. He said you could almost guarantee getting a free
course and free diving as a result.

However, he didn't do that, he did a PADI Instructor course over here (about
£1K) then went to the BVI to teach - free accommodation, free diving, a
little money (salary), big tips (salary + tips, about 20K/pa total). He
paid his own Air Fare but said that switching locations was pretty easy via
a PADI-location system (or something like that).

Since 9/11 he's not worked as an Instructor. He said the BVI were expensive
to live in and he wished he'd gone to Turks & Caicos instead.

Personally, I've never tried it and would be interested to see what you find
out.

Cheers
Matt.

"Imorital" <me@privacy.net> wrote in message
news:bmjj5u$nnu63$1@ID-203763.news.uni-berlin.de...
> > Due to a major change in my life I am THINKING about buggering off
> somewhere
> > (South America, Australia - who knows) for a while. To do this I will
> need
> > to support myself and I was thinking of doing some sort of internship /
> > fast-track to become a dive instructor.
>
> A PADI Instructor friend once told me that he wished he had skipped doing
> the Instructor stuff and just done DiveMaster. He said the best way to
pay
> for your dive master course was to arrange with a resort to do an
internship
> for leading the dives. He said you could almost guarantee getting a free
> course and free diving as a result.
>
> However, he didn't do that, he did a PADI Instructor course over here
(about
> £1K) then went to the BVI to teach - free accommodation, free diving, a
> little money (salary), big tips (salary + tips, about 20K/pa total). He
> paid his own Air Fare but said that switching locations was pretty easy
via
> a PADI-location system (or something like that).
>
> Since 9/11 he's not worked as an Instructor. He said the BVI were
expensive
> to live in and he wished he'd gone to Turks & Caicos instead.
>
> Personally, I've never tried it and would be interested to see what you
find
> out.

I'll let you know in about 6 months. That's what I'm off to do.
The only difference being that I'm gonna get everything sorted out over
here, and do 6 month stints of winters abroad, summers in UK.
>
> Cheers
> Matt.
>
>

Hi,
Umm where to start, about 1984 I started diving with Hinkley BSAC and
thought I had found my thing, I was a coal miner having been out of school
and down the pit almost the same week never knew any different, all was to
go well did my novice, sport, DL and advanced diver I got to the point where
almost every weekend was diving or going on courses.
Due to events in 88 I was able to go to Stoney and give diver training a
bunch of cash and do a course or two to become a Divemaster and AI
eventually OWSI.
long story shorter I had given all my redundancy and time to this and was
having to put all my training and time into a daft idea of teaching scuba ?
I was very lucky and got a job offer in the Caribbean and once I got the
details like a house and passport sorted out (never been out the UK before
had I ) I was off.
I have had the best time anyone could have had since! that was 1990, loads
of things I did then I would not ever do again but shit happens.
I have worked all over the place from the Red Sea to the Florida keys,
inland and ocean..... do what you think is right have a propper job you can
go back to?? because mostly you work for the love of doing the job.
Do be carefull of good offers they tend not to be very good.
Do not go anywhere without a return ticket and contract of work.
Don't get to close to the local folks children can happen:)
Have a blast be able to go home to your folks or your own home.
Don't think the first job is like they all are.
by the way I am now a instructor working in the States and teach for Padi
Sdi.

On Wed, 15 Oct 2003 13:16:38 +0000, Nick Phillips wrote:

> Due to a major change in my life I am THINKING about buggering off somewhere
> (South America, Australia - who knows) for a while. To do this I will need
> to support myself and I was thinking of doing some sort of internship /
> fast-track to become a dive instructor.

Not done it myself. You won't be able to work in Australia, because you
won't get a work permit unless you're under 30 and can get a working
holiday visa. However, what you might want to look into is doing a DM
internship in Oz. I met a couple of guys in Vanuatu who did theirs in Oz
and it included several weeks in Vanuatu diving the Coolidge, which can't
be bad. I think they did their course with one of the Pro Dives, probably
Sydney.

Jason

--
http://www.scuba-addict.co.uk/ for Aussie diving reports including
Coral Bay, Rottnest Island, Dunsborough and Darwin

Cheers guys. (It's good to know it's been done before Mark) I've totally
had enough at the moment and really considering it for next year. All I
need to do now is sort out the crap personal stuff at this end and then go
(should take about 3-6 mths - perhaps a year - hopefully).

--
Nick
x

Nick Phillips <nick.removespam.philips@bt.com> wrote:

> I will have a sizable amount of money to play with so I can support myself
> as well as possibly paying for the training. I have seen adverts that offer
> training, accomodation, flights and a job for around £5k in Aus etc. but
> this seems both too expensive and, at the same time, a little too good to be
> true.

I think that that is about £2k to £2.5k too much. You could get from zip
to to MSDT with 25 to 50 certs for a total cost including everything.
transport, living, food, and course costs for £2k to £3k on Koh Tao in
Thailand.

While there is no job guarentee, given the floating nature of the
professional population and its popularity as a place to learn to dive,
the chances of having out of work for more than a week or three is
vanishingly small.

FWIW I would estimate that there are over 20,000 certs p.a. issued by
the 30 dive schools. and many people go just to fun dive. The island
itself is only 21 square km so getting around is easy


--
>replace spamblock with my family name to e-mail me

Go to Moalboal via Cebu in the Philippines or Perhentian via KL in Malaysia.
Great diving at low costs.
Both are a lot better than Koh Tao in Thailand.

BB <travelem@yahoo.com> wrote:

> Go to Moalboal via Cebu in the Philippines or
> Perhentian via KL in Malaysia.
> Great diving at low costs.
> Both are a lot better than Koh Tao in Thailand.

I have been to the first but not the second. The diving is indeed good
however you seem to have missed the point that Koh Tao as a training
centre is a far better choice due the large numbers using it

--
>replace spamblock with my family name to e-mail me

In article <xCejb.566423$cF.243067@rwcrnsc53>,
Mark <scubadoguk3@insightbb.com> wrote:

>Hi,
>Umm where to start, about 1984 I started diving with Hinkley BSAC and
>thought I had found my thing, I was a coal miner having been out of school
>and down the pit almost the same week never knew any different, all was to
>go well did my novice, sport, DL and advanced diver I got to the point where
>almost every weekend was diving or going on courses.
>Due to events in 88 I was able to go to Stoney and give diver training a
>bunch of cash and do a course or two to become a Divemaster and AI
>eventually OWSI.

This means that by the time you were an instructor you already had a sizable
bit of experience. This is something dive centers look for. UK and other
cold water locations count for a lot as well. Some of them in the tropics
regard this as technical diving. Also, references help a lot.

>long story shorter I had given all my redundancy and time to this and was
>having to put all my training and time into a daft idea of teaching scuba ?
>I was very lucky and got a job offer in the Caribbean and once I got the
>details like a house and passport sorted out (never been out the UK before
>had I ) I was off.

My point is that the important bit is to get your foot in the door, so to
speak, and you will keep accumulating references. The dive industry is
remarkably small, and references do help.

>I have had the best time anyone could have had since! that was 1990, loads
>of things I did then I would not ever do again but shit happens.
>I have worked all over the place from the Red Sea to the Florida keys,
>inland and ocean..... do what you think is right have a propper job you can
>go back to?? because mostly you work for the love of doing the job.
>Do be carefull of good offers they tend not to be very good.
>Do not go anywhere without a return ticket and contract of work.
>Don't get to close to the local folks children can happen:)
>Have a blast be able to go home to your folks or your own home.
>Don't think the first job is like they all are.
>by the way I am now a instructor working in the States and teach for Padi
>Sdi.

I have several friends that have gone through this part. The skill sets
that are in demand are kind of divided :

One set; "Junior", is the experienced divemaster that can be depended on
to bring divers safely home. It helps to actually be an instructor, but
it is the divemastering that will get you the job. This is the tour guide
spot, and you get to be in the water a lot.

The next set is the "Senior". For this you should have a number of other skill
sets. You should be an accomplished instructor, with at least 50+ students
certified. Having licenses for commercial boats, regulator service, and
havings skills in compressor and engine repair is a big plus.
This is the "dive shop instructor/skipper" that often end up running the
place. With a little experience you can get shots at "second in command"
on livaboard setups. The "second in command" is really the stand-in for
everyone, skipper, dive deck leader, engine mechanic and must have basic
skill sets and certifications for all of these.

The stratum between these seem quite barren.

There is no point in paying a lot of extra money to do these things away
from home. If anything, a UK reference/certification is regarded with higher
esteem than a blue water one. Things like regulator service, tank hydro,
skipper theory courses are indoors work that work a lot better in a
classroom in Europe than in a blue water territory.

I have also seen that employment agencies are helpful with arranging and
giving partial support for such courses if you are unemployed/underemployed.

-- mrr