I am a new diver from Canada and am desperately wanting to skip this upcoming winter. I want to go somewhere warm from January to June.
I have advanced open water from PADI, a handful of specialties and about 42 dives so far.
I need a location that is open to Canadian travellers that can do Rescue all the way up to MSDT. Something affordable would be nice.
Was originally planning on Thailand but they consider Canada too dangerous for now (COVID).
Any recommendations on country and dive shop would be greatly appreciated.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:
I think your motivation is a precious resource.
Seriously.
You’re very focused on becoming proficient at something and willing to make a significant commitment to get there.
However, the world needs proficient divers more than it needs more instructors. There is no shortage of instructors. We are not on the cusp of a collapse in the industry because there aren’t enough instructors. Conversely, in the aggregate, there is a shortage of skilled divers.
The pathway to becoming a proficient diver is much broader than your chosen horizon of becoming an instructor with only a very modest amount of dives under your belt.
Just go dive.
BACKGROUND:
What if I were to tell you that what you’ve assumed is the right thing to focus on (before this whole thread emerged) was, in reality, off target and that perhaps there is a more noble direction to focus your energies?
Let me give you a completely unrelated analogy.
When you learned to drive a car, you wanted to become a better driver, right? You wanted to to learn to get where you’re intending to go, smoothly blend into traffic, adjust your speed and technique for weather conditions, learn about various car types that fit your needs or desires, learn about basic maintenance, perhaps minor modifications to your car, take trips, sometimes push the limits, learn from others’ accidents, etc, etc.
With all that said, did you ever say to yourself “To be a great driver, I should become a driver’s education instructor.”?
Probably not, right?
So, what is making you think you should pursue MSDT with only a very modest dive count under your belt?
I can’t predict your exact answer but I’ll bet that PADI’s marketing focus helped to get you where you are when you wrote this thread. My observation is that PADI wants to take new divers and convince them that the pathway to proficiency is by becoming an instructor.
I think this model is very limited in its approach. To be pointed, this model is focused much more on PADI’s revenue stream and helping you achieve individual proficiency is really very secondary. Hence the comments about becoming a sausage factory. Put another dollar in, get another certification....all at the expense of real training. PADI needs volume which means turnover so they’re going to move you along quickly to the next course.
That’s NOT to say that all PADI instructors are bad, not at all. There are PADI instructors out there that are very focused on training (rather than certification) but I don’t think they are the majority and I think they brought something else to the table (that PADI didn’t give them) to get them where they are.
I suppose I was fortunate that I had a several decades of individual, team and organizational training experience in high risk environments before I started diving. I started with PADI and quickly realized the training wasn’t up to my own expectations of how to run a training course where there is some individual, team, equipment and environmental risk. Every way I looked at PADI the path towards progress was pointed at becoming an elite instructor. I’ve seen elite and PADI ain’t it. Their marketing of “joining the elite” was a real turn off when what I saw was crap instruction and “Five Star” flags in sub-standard dive shops.
So, where is it that I recommend you point your energies and resources this winter? Like others have recommended, I would take the money you were going to spend on a bunch of courses and re-direct them towards just diving. That’s the goal this winter. “I’m going to ______ (insert tropical destination) where it’s warm and I can dive as frequently as possible and I’m going to become a proficient diver in a variety of conditions and equipment configurations.”
Also, I would research various certifying agencies. In no particular order, take a look at RAID, SSI, GUE, SDI, SNSI, CMAS, BSAC...the list goes on. Call up instructors and talk with them about how they run their courses.
I would select a few courses that are going to challenge you to the point you have to focus primarily on yourself to achieve or surpass clearly defined and communicated course standards. Courses that REALLY develop your individual dive skills. Playing Kindergarten teacher to a bunch of DSD folks on vacation doesn’t really develop your individual proficiency as a diver, IMO.
Perhaps you can train in one location with one organization and then go to another location to train with another organization. I understand brand loyalty but I would discourage you from limiting your horizons.
There is a much bigger world of diving out there than PADI would have you believe.
I think
@Diving Dubai makes some very cogent and relevant points and that you would benefit greatly from seriously considering his advice in your decisionmaking.
Best of luck.
