SO YOU WANT TO BECOME A DIVEMASTER OR SCUBA INSTRUCTOR? HERE’S WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW.

I often receive curious questions on how to become a professional diver. Many find that being a scuba instructor or Divemaster seems to be the ultimate dream job, and it is in many ways. However before getting into the business one needs to be aware that it is not all fun and games and that you have many lives in your hands when you take on the responsibility of caring for them under water. I decided to become a Divemaster after a live-aboard trip in Egypt after having seen the cool instructors on the boat - they had the lifestyle that I wanted. At the time I had approximately 30 logged dives and I came back home and signed up for a Rescue diver course (which by the way is the best and most awarding course out of all the PADI courses). I also started looking around for Divemaster internships around the world. It really didn’t take too much effort finding one, just the courage to send out emails to all dive centers that was of interest. I always encourage Divemaster candidates to look for a working internship at a dive center where they work off their course fee. That way you will receive top-notch training by a company that will be relying on you for their survival. The risk if you choose to pay for your Divemaster-course is that the instructors won’t invest as much energy in making you the ‘perfect Divemaster’, because at the end of the day you are just another paying customer. There are of course instructors and dive-centers that will go out of their way to give you the best training possible, but you need to be aware that the quality of a Divemaster course is directly dependent on how much heart and energy is put into it by the instructor in charge. Another thing you need to watch out for is to not get used for free labor. Working for free isn’t what a Divemaster is supposed to do, and although you will have to work to get the experience needed you shouldn’t be expected to work in an office selling courses for an entire season with the promise of attending pool sessions somewhere in the future. (But do keep in mind that you will carry tanks. A lot of them, that’s ok – you’ll get ripped.) You’ll learn from diving, and therefore diving and guiding should be a large part of your training. Make sure you know the time limit of your internship so you don’t work on it forever. The quality of your Divemaster course will determine how good you’ll be as an instructor, at least in the beginning. I thought that the IDC course would train me to become an instructor, but the reality is not so. You train to become an instructor on your DM-course and working as a DM. When you do the IDC-course you are already expected to be as knowledgeable as an instructor in terms of diving and teaching. What you learn in that course is following the rulebook. With that said, I cannot stress enough how important it is for you as a DM-candidate to find a dive center that not only let you get practical experience guiding and helping out on courses, but also put some pressure and demands on you. I rolled into my DM-internship thinking that I was a pretty good diver and got shut down on day one by my instructor having to endure multiple embarrassments including hanging off of his octopus for thirty minutes. It was a terrifying experience, but it took me down to earth and was more valuable than any other experience I’ve had with scuba diving. It was a necessary experience, because I needed to understand the seriousness in taking people under water and the harsh reality of the consequences if I were to not do my job properly. Personally what I do as an instructor teaching a DM to make them more humble for the job is to have them guide a bunch of kids on their first night-dive, a quite demanding task that includes getting blinded by dive torches and high stress levels. Works like a charm. But if you are determined to become a dive professional all I can tell you is to just do it. It really isn’t that much of a far fetched reality, and it really is an amazing job!

#scuba #diving #USA