Working as a dive instructor

So I've been working as a dive instructor for a few weeks now. Been having a ton of fun though also have had to work like mad. As I said in my last post I'm working 5-6 days a week and each day is an 11 hour day so it is a pretty exhausting experience.

Now that I have been there for several weeks I've had a chance to do basically every job on the boat. I've organized the certified divers and acted as a guide for them, I've done the same for the snorkellers. I've taught a couple classes for open water diver courses, and I've been doing far too many introductory scuba dives, also known as the frogs. The intro divers are the scariest experience an Instructor can have I think. You have to take people into the water and take them on a dive with them having only had maybe a 30minute briefing on the whole theory of diving and no actual skill practice. Basically we tell them a little bit about diving and them put them in scuba gear and toss them in the water with an instructor to go for a dive.

You might ask yourself is this safe?
or Is this even a good idea?
or how about, why do you allow it at all?

Well thats pretty easy to answer, no its not really safe because it gives people a massive false sense of security. If anything at all goes wrong it is 100% up to the instructor to fix it because the diver doesn't have a clue how to. Sure it lets people give diving a try without having to commit the few days time to learn how to do it properly but I've seen far too many people already jump in and think they are completely compident to swim off on their own and go diving with no training because they don't know any better. And the whole reason for allowing this? well thats easy, MONEY!

So basically on a regular basis I take up to 4 complete non divers with me diving which is basically a battle to keep them all from not killing themselves or getting myself injured in the mean time. I've had people completely panic on my, litterally within 3 seconds on them jumping into the water they are jumping ontop of me flayling in the water. Are they going to drown on the surface? No they had a jacket full of air, they can't even go under the surface let alone drown, but do they stop and think about that? NO!
And guess what the most common question I'm asked when people are signing up to do an intro dive? "I can't swim, is that going to be a problem?" Lets think about this now, you want to go scuba diving but you can't swim? Seriously how dumb are people?

So basically if you ask me no one should be allowed to do introduction dives, everyone should have to take the full course, you might say thats not fair but guess what the #1 reason for people doing intro dives instead of a full course is, time? money? naw, "i'm too lazy i can't be bothered to do it." So you can't be bothered to learn a few basic things that might stop you from dying if you actually want to do it, uh huh and you want me to risk my well being so you can go diving also? Ya sounds like a good plan to me.

That being said intro divers are pretty stupid and no matter how crappy the dive site is they think its the greatest thing in the world and are happy afterwords, which means more commissions for the crew, too bad I don't get commissions till I have worked their for 3 months first.

We ended up with some massive mechanical problems on the boat also this week just to make things more interesting. First of all the electronics that raise and lower the back stairs in and out of the water shorted out and we couldn't lower the steps down into the water, or at least not at the start of the day, the skipper got them working after a while. Then the next morning when we went to go start the boat up it wouldn't go because the day before we refueled and when we did that we took water in with the desiel. So the boat didn't go out on Tuesday because they had to drain the fuel and replace all the filters. On top of that the electronics that raise the back steps got completely replaced, the cables that raise the back steps were also replaced and the steps were removed and re-machined to make them fit better. On top of that we cleaned absolutely everything, and treated all the exposed aluminium on the boat to stop if from oxidizing. So the last few days at work were pretty crazy.

All that being said work is still fun, and a bad day diving is still probably better than a good day at the office. Though diving for fun and working as a diver are very very different. It's a shame the customers don't always realise this though.

Living the dream

Its been a while since my last post which is mainly due to the fact that I have been insanely busy. I got a job as a dive instructor working for Tusa dive on their brand new day boat. (http://www.tusadive.com/index.html)

We take up to 60 passengers a day to go scuba diving and snorkeling. On average we have about 12 staff on the boat including skipper, and hostess, the rest being dive crew. My days usually start around 5:30am when I have to get up to be at work for 6:30. I have a 25min walk to work each morning from where I'm currently living. The day starts up with us setting up equipment for everyone who is going to be coming on the boat along with our own dive gear. The passengers start boarding around 7:30 with us leaving harbour by 8:30 after everyone is checked in and has completed all needed paper work. It takes about 1.5 hours to get out to the reefs normally depending on where we are heading on any given day. We do 3 dives a day, 2 in the morning and 1 more in the afternoon. On any given day I could be responsible for taking care of the certified divers, teaching open water diver classes, giving introductory scuba lessons, and looking after the snorkellers.

We try to have the boat back into harbour for 4:30 so that means we have to leave the reef by 3:00 at the latest having everyone back on board and all gear stripped down by that time. We then have to spend 1 hour a day cleaning and boat and going over safety drills. So its roughly a 11 hour long day, of which I am working 5-6 days a week.

As bad as that all sounds it really isn't, I am getting paid to go scuba diving after all. Of course I am responsible for the lives of up to 60 people on any given day which can be a little stressful at times but the crew on the boat is really good and we have a lot of fun doing what we do.