Instructor

A Day on the Bay: Running in the motors

Date: 6 April 2014

Team Aquaventures on board ready to roll

One Sunday in early April, Tony did a very early launch for an Aquaventures PADI IDC, taking the divers to the wreck of the BOS 400 and to dive with seals at Duiker Island in Hout Bay. You can see in the photo above that the sun hasn’t even reached Maori Bay as the divers kit up! The visibility on the BOS 400 was about six metres, and it was about eight metres at Duiker Island. At the wrecks inside Hout Bay (the Aster and Katsu Maru), there were reports of visibility of up to 15 metres.

After the early launch, Tony and I took the boat for a drive south towards Cape Point. We weren’t in a rush, partly because we needed to run in the boat’s motors gently, and so we stopped to look at the scenery.

Chapman’s Peak Drive is carved out of the mountainside at the intersection of the Cape granite and sedimentary layers (geologists love this fact), and this can be seen clearly in areas where the mountain isn’t highly vegetated (such in as the photo above). Tony showed me a strange “door in the cliff” – a neat rectangular opening (it seems) that looks like it should be in The Hobbit. You can’t approach it closely on a boat because there’s foul ground in front of it, and the sea is turbulent even when there’s not much swell.

Long Beach is long. There were lovely big waves, with spray unfurling from their tops in the light breeze. We could see horse riders on the beach, surfers in the swell, and at one point right across False Bay to the Hottentots Holland and Hangklip. Further down, the boiler of the Kakapo shipwreck was clearly visible on the sand.

Idle near a small kelp forest off Long Beach, Kommetjie

Slangkop lighthouse (pardon the blurry photo) is being painted, it seems – the building is completely clad in scaffolding. This was our turning around point, but first we had coffee and a snack. Boating makes you hungry!

On the way back we stopped a few times to look around (Tony was looking for a whale shark, after NSRI report from St Helena Bay the previous day, and unconfirmed sightings of one in Kommetjie) and dangle our (ok, my) feet in the freezing water. There was an offshore wind blowing. In places the air was freezing cold, and in others the hot wind, smelling strongly of fynbos, made everything wonderfully pleasant.

We took a drive across the mouth of Hout Bay to Duiker Island, where the water looked quite clean. There were snorkelers in the water with the seals. I drove us back from the island (slowly) – I don’t have a skippers licence yet, and in order to get one I need (supervised) hours on the boat. So this was practice.

Once inside Hout Bay harbour, we milled around a bit waiting for the slipway to clear (some poachers were launching, amongst other activity). We came across the Seal Alert boat, which has sunk into disrepair but is a very enjoyable resting spot for some of the local seals. There are also a few boats that have sunk at their moorings – apparently because their drain plugs were stolen.

The middle (bright green) ship in the picture of the fishing vessels moored in the harbour in the above gallery of images, is the sister ship of a ship that ran aground off Betty’s Bay in February, breaking up and spilling huge amounts of fuel near the vulnerable penguin colony.

Bookshelf: The Rapture of the Deep

Rapture of the Deep: And Other Dive Stories You Probably Shouldn’t Know – Michael Zinsley

I shouldn’t have read this book after The Face of the Deep by Thomas Farber. The comparison is unfavourable. While Farber is lyrical and thoughtful, Zinsley describes alcohol-fueled romps through the South Pacific, Southeast Asia and the Caribbean while working as a diving industry professional.

While most of the observations about the cultures that the author encounters are quite prosaic, this is the first book I’ve read that frankly deals with the commercial side of recreational scuba diving. Perhaps it is necessary to be prosaic in order to discuss this; the reality is far from the romantic vision sold by some of the dive certification agencies. Zinsley describes greedy dive shop owners who send their staff out to dive in appalling conditions, and does not mince words about the paltry pay one can expect as a Divemaster. He observes that Instructors get paid slightly more, but that they tend to spend most of their time in swimming pools, and that a number of them end up as shopkeepers, hardly diving at all.

There are some highly amusing but very politically incorrect descriptions of Zinsley’s former students and clients who dived with him at the various operations where he worked as Divemaster. It seems that a lot of the time, your Divemaster can tell within a few minutes whether you’re going to be trouble on a dive or not. (Try not to be trouble! It’ll keep you healthy – or alive – and make the dive a lot more enjoyable for everyone.) Zinsley describes his experiences with nitrogen narcosis and a scare with decompression sickness.

Zinsley has visited and dived in some of the world’s most exotic destinations, and it’s probably more accurate to classify Rapture of the Deep as a travelogue with diving. This is a light, riotous, unapologetically misogynistic read with no literary pretensions whatsoever. I’d specially recommend it for professionals in the dive industry, who will empathise with much of what Zinsley describes.

You can buy the book here if you are in South Africa, and here if you’re not. If you want to read it on your Kindle, go here.

No mask breathing

Just thought I’d share this photo of Kate taken early last year when she was in Cape Town preparing for her Instructor exams. Firstly, the way she has all her gear tucked in and organised around her body is something that new divers should try to emulate. Dragging octos and pressure gauges mean expensive repairs and servicing, not to mention the damage that this equipment does to marine life and reefs.

Secondly she’s practising no-mask breathing, a skill which might make you want to panic, but is actually not that difficult once you relax and realise that water isn’t going to flood up your nose when you take your mask off. Think of swimming in the pool before you learned scuba – water doesn’t go into your nose unless you actually use your nose to inhale. Which in this case is obviously a no-no!

Guest post: Kate’s IDC

Kate practising a no-mask swim in the pool

Many of the divers who regularly dive with me will know Kate, who came out to South Africa for two months in late 2010 to qualify as a Divemaster. She had never dived before when she arrived, and I took her through a full Zero to Hero course, including 60 dives to meet the requirements for Divemaster, before she went back to the UK.

She returned to South Africa in April (her family joined her here for a short holiday) to prepare to do an Instructor Development Course, for which she had to get her dive numbers up to 100 dives. She did her IDC with Danny Martin, who trained me and who I rate as one of the best Instructor trainers in South Africa. We asked her to write about what the IDC involves so that those of you who are curious can get an idea of how one works.

The PADI IDC is an instructor development course that consists of two halves, the first (three days) is Assistant Instructor and the second is Open Water Scuba Instructor (four days). The final two days are when the Instructor Examination (IE) takes place. An examiner is brought in from somewhere else (usually outside the country) to test the candidates. We also spent an extra day doing the EFR Instructor course.

I undertook my IDC with Danny Martin at Coral Divers, Sodwana Bay, South Africa.

The programme consisted of completing;

An exam (made up of 5 parts: physics, physiology, environment, equipment, and standards and procedures)

Prescriptive teaching presentations (taking a knowledge review question and expanding on it so as to help students understand the answer in more depth)

Confined water presentations (giving a pre-dive briefing, demonstrating the skill, having the student demonstrate the skill and then giving a debriefing)

Open water demonstrations (same procedure as in confined water, except that the Instructor does not demonstrate the skill this time)

Watching risk management and marketing presentations

Testing our own skills in the pool, for ease of understanding and ability to demonstrate

Rescue workshops

The main aspect of the IDC is preparation. After completing my Divemaster course with Tony, he then made sure I fully prepared for the IDC. There’s not a lot of new information to learn as most of it is covered in the Divemaster program but having someone to test me on everything was rather handy. Tony also took the time to do one to one pool sessions in which he would make sure my skills were above the standard needed. He also ran me over what to expect from the IDC and how to prepare myself.

Sodwana was a great place to complete my IDC. The environment is really friendly and the diving is exceptional (it was a minimum of 26 degrees at all times!). The accommodation is tents or wooden cabins, and they have a bar and a restaurant. There is a tractor service to take you to the beach every 45 minutes.

I definitely would recommend doing the IDC, for me it has opened up a new love for diving. It takes you further then being just a Divemaster and gives you more responsibility within the diving community. You also find that the experience increases your diving ability and performance.

I started diving in October 2010 with my Open Water and completed my IDC in June 2011. I also completed a load of specialties and am now preparing myself for a trip to the Arctic circle.

Kate is now a PADI Open Water Scuba Instructor. When she has done 25 certifications, she will be certified as a Master Scuba Diver Trainer – this means she can teach courses from Discover Scuba Diving and Open Water up to Divemaster, along with a list of Specialties. I am very proud of Kate and really enjoyed teaching her. She impressed (and often wildly amused) everyone who met her while she was in South Africa and she will be a great ambassador for diving. I am looking forward to following her adventures!

Dive Deals column: The invisble cost of learning to dive

This is the second column in a three part series I wrote for the DiveDeals.co.za website, as part of my regular weekly contribution. Part the first can be found here.

The “invisible” costs of learning to dive

Last week we broke down some of the non-negotiable costs that are included in a course fee for an entry level scuba diving course. Some of them may seem far-fetched. This week I’ll explain why they aren’t.

You may think it costs a dive centre nothing to fill a cylinder. You may be close, but purchasing a compressor and maintaining it costs money. The compressor operator has to be qualified to fill cylinders, by doing a Department of Manpower-approved compressor course. This also costs money. A dive operator who doesn’t own a compressor will need to find a dive centre who does, and pay between R25 and R50 to fill cylinders. None of these are optional costs to a dive instructor.

You may also say, once you have a cylinder it costs nothing to use it. Wrong again: a cylinder needs an annual inspection that costs up to R100, pillar valves need regular services, tank nets wear out, and handles break. These costs aren’t optional.

You may think a dive centre gets equipment really cheap. Some do, but how good is it? And if they get it so cheap why do they want so much money for it when you buy it from them? Dive centres and schools need their gear to be rugged, robust and trouble free so not all choose budget equipment. A half decent dive school will have all the sizes, from XXS to XXL and a few of each of these sizes, this includes booties, wetsuits and fins. A decent wetsuit can cost you R2,000 – R3,000. What do you think it costs for 20 or 30 decent wetsuits?

Nothing you subject to human bodily fluids, regular immersion in salt water, and exposure to sun and sand lasts forever and dive gear is no exception. There is costly maintenance on all dive gear regardless of its quality, so this also is not a variable in course pricing.

A vehicle is required to transport the instructor and the gear to the beach, as is some form of building to house the classroom and training aids, store the gear and park the car.

Lest we forget, you expect to have the undivided (or at least, not too divided!) attention of an Instructor for at least three to four days. For anyone to stand in front of you as a qualified and paid-up in teaching status instructor, he/she has most likely spent around R70,000 and used at least 6 -12 months getting the required training and qualifications. You may not be surprised to learn that they would like to recoup that money.

This is all without a boat. Let’s leave the boats out of this, as it is possible to qualify as a competent diver by doing shore entries.

So we’ve established that learning to dive costs money, and we’ve identified some of the areas where expenses can build up. Next week we’ll try and tie it all together, looking at what it actually costs to dive – what will a dive centre or scuba instructor charge you for a course, and what that implies.

Rescue Diver

It’s taken me long enough, but I recently completed the PADI Rescue Diver course. During the Open Water course, there is emphasis on self-rescue (cramp removal, regulator recovery, and so on). The Rescue course teaches you the skills to rescue other divers, and proactively resolve problems where necessary. The Emergency First Responder course (first aid) is a pre-requisite for this course.

The theory aspect was very interesting – there’s a lot about the psychology of stress, and application to the particular environment that divers place themselves in. Unlike a mountain climber or a horse rider, a scuba diver is in an element that is hostile to human life: you can’t breathe water. So a clear head and swift action is essential, as well as resolving problems immediately when they arise. By the time you get to this level of diving, bolting to the surface when you get into difficulties is completely out of the question (not that it’s ever really an option after you get out of the swimming pool on your Open Water course!).

The practical aspect of the course involves dealing with unresponsive and panicked divers, and effecting various rescue scenarios. Kate and I practised some of these skills in the pool in preparation for her Instructors’ course. When it was her turn to be the panicked diver underwater, she displayed a level of malevolence and forethought that I hope never to experience in real life! She accidentally unclipped her own weight belt, and then yanked off my mask and removed my regulator. I was wiser the next time, and jumped onto her cylinder so that I was out of reach. Decisive action is often required in these situations. The alternative – if you’re going to get injured trying to assist – is to allow the other diver to exhaust themselves, and then perform a rescue.

There are no dives as such – you will do rescue skills as part of your dives, but many of the skills (such as the ones shown in the pictures) you will practise on the surface, in the surf zone, and on the beach. The skills can be quite strenuous. I also found it tiring to be the panicked diver for Kate to practise skills on – uses a lot of air! One thing that was immediately obvious was that it’s important to be in reasonably good shape to be a safe diver. Not being able to do things for yourself means you definitely won’t be able to help another diver.

The Rescue course is a prerequisite for Divemaster and Master Scuba Diver (and Instructor, obviously), but should also be seriously considered by divers who plan to move on into technical, cave or deep diving. It’s a great confidence-builder, and if you’re the sort of person who finds themselves not enjoying dives (or the build up to them) because you imagine all sorts of problems arising, this is a very good course to do.

Newsletter: Birds and dolphins

Hello everyone

This was the sight that we experienced at Long Beach while kitting up for a days diving.

Finally a weekend of diving!!!! We had really good weather this weekend and despite a rather large swell in the Bay the conditions were good. Saturday we spent the morning doing a Divemaster mapping project, the target: a concrete yacht that sank some years ago and that now lies 25 metres inshore of the north western yellow marker buoy at Long Beach. You can read all about it here.

Navigating our way out there it suddenly seemed to get a little darker, more so than when the clouds cover the sun and at the same time Corne surfaced to get a bearing only to find the surface covered with hundreds of cormorants. I was waiting at the bottom and was amazed at these birds’ ability to dive, stop suddenly, look around, then swim off. I am not sure who got a bigger fright, them or me, but suddenly they seemed to be everywhere, perhaps our bubbles made them think there was a school of fish they could feast on, but instead they just found neoprene clad divers, way bigger than they could muster so they went off somewhere else. We saw them all again on Sunday, this time further out and from the surface.

Saturday afternoon five of us were back in the water and whilst swimming around the centre platform of the wreck these klipfish seemed keen on conveying some form of message to us so they all lined up. I never did get to work out what they were trying to say… So much to learn in the ocean.

I can honestly say that I cannot remember a dive where I have not seen something new, or a creature I have seen before doing something new. We see warty pleurobranchs ploughing their way over everything lately but on Saturday I saw a few doing acrobatic swimming and performing the most amazing somersaults… So much for me thinking they were like snowploughs… They seem more like circus animals!

Sunday we spent on the boat, the first dive was to Maidstone Rock. Andrew was completing his Advanced course and Gerard and Cecil were … well, only they know! The second launch took us to a new reef discovered by Grant and Peter Southwood called Tivoli Pinnacles, near Roman Rock. Being a new dive site we were possibly the first to see a few amazing features and Clare discovered her first underwater treasure… a hand wheel from either a stem valve or a fuel valve, with a diameter of 120mm and made of brass. It has clearly been in the ocean for some time given the amount of corrosion on the material (a salt water corrosion resistant material). We will clean it up and see what it looks like.

There was also what seemed to be a huge brass ring almost a metre across so this will be a dive site worth exploring further.

Despite two amazing dives on a flat calm sea with great visibility, the good stuff was not yet over and when we surfaced we were treated to the sight of a flock of I would guess at least a thousand cormorants and then Grant took us for a ride to a point just off the Kalk Bay harbour where we witnessed a pod of around 300–400 Dolphins. All in all a very pleasant day of diving.

This weekend

On Friday I will be doing Discover Scuba Diving students at Long Beach all day, then on Saturday will continue with the Open Water course started last weekend and more DSD students. There are also two promising boat days looming.

Sunday looks good for shore entries and we will dive with the cowsharks if the swell is small or perhaps A Frame and or Sunny Cove.

Congratulations

…are also in order for Kate, who last year in October arrived in Cape Town wanting to learn to dive. By the end of November she had done OpenWater, Advanced, Nitrox specialty, Night Diving specialty and Wreck specialty as well as Rescue and Divemaster. Back in the UK for Christmas she did a Drysuit specialty and an Equipment specialty, and returned here in April to do a Deep specialty and then achieve the highest non professional qualification, Master Scuba Diver. It did not stop here and we dived as often as possible over the last few weeks to get her log book up to 100 dives and today she finished her Instructor course and Instructor Examination in Sodwana and is now officially an Open Water Scuba Instructor. Well done Kate! To achieve this much in such a short period of time takes determination, hard work and commitment.

DAN talks

We attended a DAN talk last week on ears at one of the local dive centres. It was run by DAN SA and we had a doctor talk us through what goes on in the ear and why whilst diving and the importance looking after those pink bits. We also received a free diving emergency booklet that has lots of info on handling diving related issues. These talks will be on a monthly basis and the next one will most likely be about lungs… So if you dive and have lungs… You should be there… It’s free and its very valuable knowledge to have.

If you wish to dive this weekend please text me sooner rather than later because the weather is good and the bookings will fill up.

regards

Tony Lindeque
076 817 1099
www.learntodivetoday.co.za
www.learntodivetoday.co.za/blog

Diving is addictive!

People: Errand Girl

One of our divers, Bernita, has started a small business called Errand Girl, and we thought we would give her the opportunity to tell you a little about herself and what she does:

I consider myself an avid diver, although I’m sure Tony will tell you otherwise as I’ve not been in the water much of late!I started diving in Honduras in 2003 and have more or less been hooked ever since. In 2005 I traveled to Thailand where I did my Advanced course and fun dive after fun dive. Eventually my Thai visa expired, forcing me to travel to neighboring Malaysia, where I found the most beautiful rustic island I could have imagined (the Perhentian Islands) and set up home base there. I did my Rescue and Divemaster courses and worked as a Divemaster for two years. Finally I decided to take the next step and become an Instructor (I did my IDC at FloraBay Dive Center). I spent the better part of 6 years in South East Asia, working in the industry, or going on dive holidays (some people call me a “dive-dork” but I don’t mind, ‘cos it’s true).

I decided though, in June last year, that it was time to move back to Cape Town, mostly to be near to my family. I still wonder what I was thinking, giving up a life filled with beaches, sunshine and diving, but nonetheless, here I am.Initially I returned to the advertising industry, but recently decided that an office job was just too much for me to bear. So I decided to start a small business that would keep me on my toes and take me out and about. Hence, the birth of Errand Girl.

Here is some information Bernita’s business:

Errand Girl is a lifestyle management and concierge company. We aim to give you the ultimate gift: more free time to do with as you please! We offer a helping hand, making sure all those to-do’s get done, so you don’t have to think about them again. If you don’t have the time or inclination to attend to a task, we will take care of it entirely.

The list of services we offer is vast and tailored to each client’s needs: Errand Girl can drop your lawn mower at the repair shop, pop into Woolies for the forgotten groceries, gather quotes for that long awaited irrigation system, collect a birth certificate from Home Affairs, meet the plumber mid-morning to repair the burst geezer, find a fairy for your daughter’s birthday party, pay your traffic fines – we can send, phone, research, find, quote, arrange, meet, collect and deliver – you name it and we’ll do it.

Errand Girl charges an hourly rate for services rendered (excluding expenses incurred and petrol outside of the Cape Town CBD area). We send you a monthly statement reflecting how and when your time and money as been spent. We do not charge a commission on purchases or services sourced.

If you are interested to learn more about what Errand Girl offers please go to my website, www.errandgirl.co.za.

Bernita checks out a wall in the chilly Atlantic

Bernita also told us about some of her favourite diving in South East Asia (which makes me want to pack my dive gear and hop on a plane right away!). Here are her recommendations:

I wanted to tell you about a couple of my favorite Asian dive spots, but its too difficult to name just one so here’s a short(ish) list:

Malapascua (Philippines): Here they have almost daily sightings of thresher sharks and regular visits from manta rays and eagle rays. There is also great macro diving there, although the fish population is small and coral reefs have fallen victim to dynamite fishing.

Apo Island (Philippines): A very well managed marine park with huge populations of fish, sharks and rays and pristine reef.

Coron (Philippines): This place is unique in that an entire fleet of World War II Japanese ships was sunk in this bay so this is a wreck diver’s dream destination. The dive operators there allow full wreck penetration and the ships still have a lot of equipment and artifacts to see. There is also lots of fish life at these wrecks. Also very cool is Barracuda Lake (which houses no barracuda or other fish for that matter?!) but is cool because the top 6 metres consists of cold fresh water, then from 6-18 metres is warm (28 degree) salt water and below that from 18-30 metres is hot (37 degree) salt water. At 30 metres the water turns literally black- if you stick your hand below the 30m mark it disappears. I found it cool to see the thermoclines in otherwise clear still water and to feel the heat on the way down and the cold on the way up (I would advise definitely not to wear a wetsuit). You do however have a short climb up a limestone rock face, dive gear and all in order to dive here. I thought it was well worth it!

Komodo National Park (Indonesia): “Wild” diving with some crazy currents but amazing sightings. Loads of sharks (black tip reef, white tip, grey reef), dolphins, manta rays, as well as excellent macro dives. Another great thing about diving in the area is the opportunity to see Komodo dragons in the wild. I did a liveaboard in this area, which I can highly recommend as land based diving here requires long boat journeys and grotty hotel accommodation.

Bali (Indonesia): Bali has a lot of good and varied diving to offer. I dived the USS Liberty wreck in Tulamben. This dive sight is great as its only 30 metres off shore and max depth is 30 metres. The visibility is generally 15+ metres and the wreck is home to a huge variety of life from pygmy sea horses and ornate ghost pipefish to giant barracuda and schools of surgeon fish. I also dived off Nusa Lombongan and was lucky enough to see quite a few manta rays and sunfish (mola mola).

Lembeh Straights (Indonesia): if you like hunting for the weird and wonderful, it just does not get better than this! Lembeh has huge numbers of nudis, wonderpus, flambouyant cuttlefish, blue ringed octopus, pygmy sea horses, bobbit worms, hairy frog fish… the list is literally endless.

Sipadan (Malaysian Boreneo): Clear warm waters (visibility of 20+ metres), pristine reefs, loads of fish, turtles and sharks, lots of schooling barracudas and bumphead parrot fish.

(If you’re if heading to Thailand, Indonesia, Philippines or Malaysia and would like advise on dive spots, places to stay, food or other, please email me on bernita@errandgirl.co.za I’ll be happy to help if I can.)

Bernita now braves the relatively cool Cape Peninsula waters as often as her (busy) schedule allows. Why not check out the Errand Girl website to see whether she can help free up some of your time… To go diving of course!

Newsletter: Back from Sodwana

Hello divers and others

We are back from Sodwana. When we arrived the folks that had dived the day before said the conditions were not that great… “The water is only 26 degrees and the visibility was only about 15-20 metres.” Well… being tough and from Cape Town we just had to endure the hardship and had 8 amazing dives. It was partly cloudy most days so nobody came back toasted like we did on the last trip. To the 12 people that joined me, BIG THANK YOU. It was good!!! Clare has put together a disc of photos for everyone and we will make a plan to get them to you.

Below are a few photos from some of the dives.

I have a fair amount of diving to do in the coming weeks as we were able to sign up 28 people for a Discover Scuba experience. Kate is also back from the UK and needs to do forty dives before June when she will attend an Instructor course.

Descending at Pinnacles with Adam, Ollie and Goot

We also have an Advanced course running and this coming weekend I will start a Nitrox/Deep speciality combo, six deeper dives to some of Cape Town’s stunning wrecks, on Nitrox (enriched air) After the deep dives we will continue the Open Water student training.

The winter months bring cold but very clean water into False Bay, with northerly winds we have exceptional visibility and this winter we will focus on running the Deep, Wreck and Night specialties every month. The wrecks in Smitswinkel Bay are almost all in 35 metres of water and these wrecks are a sight for sore eyes when the water is clean. Night diving has so much to offer as the ambient light, moonlight and bright torches turn the ocean into a pool of light filled with some amazing creatures.

I have also bought more gear and have a few warmer wetsuits for the cooler months coming to a ocean near you.

I would like to make either a Saturday or a Sunday morning boat dive every weekend, weather permitting, so give me some idea of what days are best for whom so we can try and schedule something.

We have also added a few videos to youtube, quite a few new posts to the blog and the website has had a facelift. The blog is an amazing source of information for anything ocean and diving related with many book reviews and a host of other information on sea life. There are hundreds of photos and many of you appear in them! Take a look sometime.

I also have many of your dive cards and will try and drop them off but if you are in the southern suburbs at some point call me and we can meet somewhere. Sending them by post is often a problem as they are mistaken for credit cards and they often just vanish.

best regards

Tony Lindeque
076 817 1099
www.learntodivetoday.co.za
www.learntodivetoday.co.za/blog

Diving is addictive!

Diving as a career

Your final school year is almost over. After 12 years of going to school every day the idea of being free of that regime is a pleasant thought. But… What next? Many people have had their future mapped out for them by their peers and parents. Some however have no clue as to what they want to do. There are so many choices that it is not surprising the number of adolescents that have yet to decide what direction to take. A gap year is an easy solution, but not always affordable and slotting in to the job your parents want for you does not appeal to everyone.

If the outdoors, the ocean and travelling appeal to you then consider becoming a Diving Instructor. Take a year off after school, qualify as a Diving Instructor and then go to university and study something. As a Diving Instructor you will have part time work that is very enjoyable, way more rewarding than waiting on tables and you can work almost anywhere in the world.

Being a diving instructor is very rewarding

There are several centres around the country, in fact around the world, that offer career development courses (so-called Zero to Hero courses that will take you from never having dived right up to Divemaster or Instructor) and some will be free. In this situation you work as free labour in a dive centre and in return they train you. This option does give you a in depth insight to how a dive centre operates, but you run the risk of spending most of your time in a wet room being a slave.

My recommendation is to find a slot whereby you pay for the courses one by one. Avoid paying the entire amount up front as this sure fire way to ensure you have your training drawn out indefinitely. Get a price for all the courses you need, do them one by one and do them with different centres and different instructors if necessary. You will gain immense experience in different setups and your final stretch will be with a Course Director and then you will be set. As soon as you have been certified as a Divemaster you will be able to earn money, leading dives and even conducting some of PADI’s programs such Discover Scuba Diving.