The business with dreams
The reality is different, and everyone who has ever asked a little more knows that. As a divemaster you can only find a job in a few places anyway, you are poorly paid – and it doesn’t get much better as a dive instructor. To really get a foothold in the business, you have to have more to offer than a Divemaster card.
Nevertheless, simply doing what you really want to do and sharing that passion with others can be one of the best decisions in life. If you really, really want it, you can make it even in diving. And just the fact that you get to dive while you work compensates for a lot. It doesn’t have to become a career for the rest of your life.
All evil…
When it comes to the best way to become a diving professional, the first big debates are already starting. At least if you dare to ask on facebook or in other forums….
In German-speaking countries, people mainly complain about the evil bases that exploit poor beginner divers as trainees and don’t pay them for their valuable work. Americans seem to see it differently, they rant like mad about the shameless divers who don’t want to pay for their divemaster but want to earn it with an internship.
So who is the bad guy – the base operator or the future divemaster?
As always, it depends. Basically, diving costs money, and proper training costs a lot of it. If a training course is too cheap, it is likely that it cannot be good.
If you pay for your courses, you have the right to insist on the agreed service and, in case of doubt, you can easily change providers. So if you earn a normal salary in a normal job, it’s a good idea to simply book the courses you want to do.
However, those who earn little can also find offers to pay for the courses with work. Here, too, payment is made, just in a different form. And this can look very different.
Training versus collaboration: What should you look out for?
Basically, the work you can do as a trainee on a base is semi-skilled, unskilled work – nothing for which you will be paid handsomely. So if an offer sounds too good, you should be suspicious. No base gives away its training, the more you get, the more meaningful work is expected for the base. At best, this can mean that you spend more time at hotel pools selling trial dives than in the water yourself and end up knowing the compressor room better than the house reef – at worst, however, it can also mean that you are employed as a guide or even as a diving instructor far too early. It is definitely a good idea to ask what tasks you are expected to take on and how many dives you can normally do yourself.
But you should also adjust your own expectations. No, you can’t guide with 30 dives, yes, introductory dives are demanding and you have to be qualified to lead them. You are doing the training to learn this and should be able to do it at the end, not somehow do it from the beginning.
And even if it feels like you’re working ten hours a day, six days a week: Take a close look at how much of that time you spend on activities relevant to the base. If you go diving twice a day, there’s not that much left over….
Exploitation at its finest: the most chilling examples
Life as a trainee can indeed be pretty disgusting. If you get the wrong base, you’re the lowest in the base hierarchy, cleaning, filling bottles – and maybe diving from time to time. It’s bad when trainees don’t get into the water, don’t gain any diving experience or training for months on end, and instead just serve as unpaid unskilled workers. If they end up being given a certification for which they haven’t even done the training, that doesn’t make things any better.
Even worse than this exploitation, however, is when trainees are used as instructors. In many bases, it is common practice for inexperienced divers to guide guests and even carry out introductory dives – the most extreme case I know of is the young man with just over 20 dives who was alone in the sea with six (!) introductory divers.
The best internships
But since not all bases are bad, there are of course also examples of how things can go well. Ideally, you will be in the water a lot during an internship and get to experience the full program of everyday base life. 30-40 dives a month, accompanying introductory dives and courses, working as a reliable buddy, finding your own way, then guiding yourself under observation, observing different diving instructors and being able to pick out the best one – that’s how you learn. The more time you spend doing this, the more real experience you can gain. Even the best course can’t give you exactly that: Experience. You have to do it yourself, and a longer stay at a diving center offers good opportunities for this.
That’s why many bases offer internship programs that you have to pay for as a candidate. Of course – in this case, you won’t be used for base activities, but everything revolves around how you learn best. Whether paid or as a kind of scholarship, the best way to learn is to spend as much time in the water as possible, with a healthy mix of dives that are challenging for you and dives where you can observe beginners taking their first steps.
Internship with us
Young people in particular often simply don’t have the money to pay for many dives and proper training – but they have endless time. That’s why we offer a relatively cheap to almost free option when we need guides for the next season. “At the end” because the course is paid for first. However, you don’t just learn the standard program on the course, but slowly get to the point where you are responsible for all the basic work in the team like everyone else. You don’t just do a few training dives, but dive as often and for as long as you want. You usually take part in the dive that makes the most sense – even if something else would be more fun.
If you have the time, you can really study hard and get to the point where you can actually work for us as a guide. And this is also where we get something back: the moment we can actually employ someone independently, we also pay them. In this way, it is possible to “earn back” the course, so to speak – but because this depends on the customer volume on the one hand, but also very much on the guide on the other, we don’t make any big promises.
Those on a normal income are probably better off simply booking the courses and lying in the sun after diving instead of filling their tanks. To make sure that the experience is not neglected, we still offer that everyone who does a Pro course can dive with us for as long as they want – and take part in whatever helps them progress. The advantage of a paid course is clearly that your training is the focus, not the needs of the base – you don’t work here, you are a guest.
… and it’s still fun
Despite all the warnings and all the caution: of course we all do the job because we enjoy it. Again and again, over and over again, for years. Anyone who has been at it for a few years has a lot of annoying stories to tell – but also some good ones. And over time you find out whether, how and where you would like to work. I’ve been doing nothing else for 15 years now and wouldn’t swap my life for a normal job for anything in the world.
