Divemaster Internships

[Dinlo33]

Hi all,

New to Scubaboard today and am looking for some Personal experiences on Divemaster Internships!

I'm currently at Rescue Diver Cert with 40 logged dives and am looking to move into the Professional certifications with the ultimate aim of working in the Dive Industry- starting out Recreational, but with the possibility of moving into Commercial in the long term.

Does anybody have any personal experience of Divermaster Internships across the globe? I have a goal of spending 2-3 months diving and earning at least DM, but if financially possible getting to IDC.
I dont have a preference of location, but I would prefer warmer climes as I have no experience of cold water diving!
I am also happy to find local accommodation as well dive school owned/organised.
Budget of $3000-$4000 in TOTAL for 2-3 months, cert, fees, living costs etc but excluding flights and gear.

Thanks for the help and look forward to hearing from you!

Will

P.S. sorry if this is in the wrong Category!

 

[rivers]

Just dive more. You only have 40 dives, you're still a newbie. Take that money, and start diving in the UK. We have great diving here

 

[Dinlo33]

Just dive more. You only have 40 dives, you're still a newbie. Take that money, and start diving in the UK. We have great diving here

Hi rivers,
Thanks for the reply! I will be doing some diving here soon I hope, but my long term plan is to leave the UK permanently and as such I am looking for some far off lands to make the most of my rookie experience and get some nice (and warm!) diving under my (w̶e̶i̶g̶h̶t̶) belt and start my pro journey!

 

[northernone]

You'll find thousands of places catering to exactly the kind of thing you're wanting to do. Asia or the Caribbean are both popular and can be easily done in your budget. Some people would recommend training where you intent to be employed.

I did my DM training, not as an internship, in central America. All in (flight, lodging, food, rentals, training, materials, certs etc) cost me 1400 USD (unfortunate typo originally, thanks for catching it @yle ). Talking to people that was somewhat on the inexpensive side but I was an experienced traveler already.

Enjoy your diving,
Cameron

 

[boulderjohn]

I am going to disagree with the "just dive more" advice if you are truly dedicated to your goal. If you just dive more, you will almost certainly just repeat the same dives at the same skill level while you fully and completely ingrain the bad habits you have now.

A couple years ago a brand new OW diver was assigned to me for AOW a few days after he got OW. What's the hurry, I wondered, but I taught the class. I wore my typical gear, which is often associated with technical diving, and he asked me about it. He got excited. Within 6 months he was working on both technical diving certifications and DM certification. Not much later he was both a trimix diver and an OW instructor. Not long after that he was a commercial diver earning his full income from scuba. Every now and then I get a message about his latest advance in scuba diving. He is still enthused and still growing as a diver.

If you are thinking about commercial diving, then you had better get rid of the "no cold water" mindset. You might as well get used to that early in your career. The diver mentioned in the second paragraph took Drysuit as his first post AOW certification.

 

[Trailboss123]

I know people who have taken Dressel up on their free internship offer and have had good things to say and positive outcomes: Free PADI DIVEMASTER INTERNSHIP with Dressel Divers

 

[Subway Watersports]

Hi Will and welcome to Scubaboard! We offer some great Divemaster and Instructor internships here on the Caribbean island of Roatan, the Bay Islands of Honduras. We offer all inclusive packages that include unlimited diving, equipment rental, accommodations and much more! For complete details, please feel free to e-mail us at internship@subwaywatersports.com. We are also happy to put you into contact with some of our former Divemaster and Instructor candidates so you can get an insider's opinion from them as well. We look forward to hearing from you Will and best of luck in your search for the perfect internship!

 

[Nianne]

With the price of the DM now, you're not gonna make 2-3 month in Europe with your budget, that's for sure, but in Asia you won't have any problems.

It's the biggest place that does that, so there's a lot of different opinion, but Ban's in Koh Tao is great for learning.
Leaving in Thailand is not expensive, the food is awesome, Ban's offers you free dives for the rest of your diving life and prepars you really correctly for the IDC, the water is usually around 30°, underwater is beautiful and there's foot massage everywhere

For the highest of your budget (DM is around 1000€), you could try the Canarian Islands, the water is not super hot but still bearable with a wetsuit and the living doesn't cost a lot of money.
And it gives you a good experience as a guide, since you have to search more to find interesting things than in warmer water !

(You can PM if you wanna know my personal experience (not trying to sell you nada))

 

[KevinNM]

Commercial diving isn't much like recreational scuba diving. You are not usually diving in warm clear water, more typically its cold and murky. Sometimes the water is polluted or toxic. And they are not paying you to dive, they are paying you to do something under water. Welding pipes, assembling or disassembling structures, scraping boat hulls, etc.

 

[yle]

I did my DM training, not as an internship, in central America. All in (flight, lodging, food, rentals, training, materials, certs etc) cost me 100 USD. Talking to people that was somewhat on the inexpensive side but I was an experienced traveler already.

You did flight, lodging, food, and the entire DM course for 100 bucks??

So... was the flight around 40 bucks, 5 bucks for food, 30 bucks for lodging... and only 25 bucks for the DM course?

That sounds, in every sense of the word, "fantastic."