Advice please on where to do a Divemaster course in South East Asia

[Lisa Ray]

Hi just came across this site from a blog. I hope I can pick up some great information from some of you well travelled divers so thanks in advance for any advice and help.

I am leaving the UK with my boyfriend in January 2017, hopefully for good and we are looking to do our Divemaster certs maybe in Thailand somewhere and ideally in February 2017 for 3 months.

Our experience so far has been in Thailand:

Year 1 - Big Blue in Koh Tao SSI OW and SSI AOW & thinking of going back to do our DMT.
Year 2 - couple of schools on Koh Lanta and Rescue Diver Course.

I have heard that DMTs from Koh Tao are not taken as seriously as those trained elsewhere, can anyone advise here please? We don't want to disadvantage ourselves if we want to pick up some work on our travels.

We are on a budget too, any additional suggestions on other places in SE Asia that can offer a good variety of sites and reasonable on cost too. Also we are in our Mid-40's and want to avoid places like Pukhet or party places.

Lisa - grateful for any advice

 

[sammym]

No one is going to care where you did your DM. They might care if you know the sites in a particular location. Diving is not brain surgery - it's floating and swimming with a breathing device. If someone truly thinks the location dictates if you can do that well then you are best off avoiding them as they are simpletons.

If you are on a budget bring all equipment - it's stupidly expensive in Thailand.

Koh Tao doesn't have particularly world class diving. But it's relaxed, quite cheap and it's enjoyable. You can get a cheap apartment, enjoy decent food and meet lots of people who want to dive. It's not a bad place to chill for a couple of months.

 

[Steyr]

No one is going to care where you did your DM. They might care if you know the sites in a particular location. Diving is not brain surgery - it's floating and swimming with a breathing device. If someone truly thinks the location dictates if you can do that well then you are best off avoiding them as they are simpletons.

I partly agree, but keep in mind that DMing is not about diving - it's about watching others and ensuring their safety (which, again, should not be dictated by location).

Here in the southern parts of Australia, any diver (DM or not) who has trained and dived exclusively in tropical waters (including northern Australia) is viewed with a touch of suspicion. Our waters are cold and rarely flat. The visibility is much lower. Boats are almost never moored and nobody holds onto a mooring or shot line during descent/ascent. Divers are routinely dropped in open water with (for shallow OW dives) 12m+ of depth before they reach the top of the reef, which you can't see until you're 5m from it. Navigation is less visual. Many dives have to be done on slack water, so currents can be an issue at the start or end of the dive. The use of DSMBs is essential and mandatory. Divers get narced easier than in tropical waters and are more likely to face exposure problems.

That's not to say the diving is at all difficult or unique to this region (and it's probably easier than diving in the UK!), but it routinely presents conditions that are less common in many SE Asian regions. I've personally had to rescue tropical-water DMs who freaked out as soon as they dropped into cold, murky, choppy waters here.

There is also a perception (rightly or wrongly) that teaching standards and the enforcement of safety in SE Asian countries is perhaps lower than many western countries. (Obviously this is largely dependent on the quality of your instructor, and good and bad instructors can be found in any country)

However, while we may view tropical-water divers with suspicion, I don't think there is any difference in the way they are treated. If you want to work as a DM then a prospective employer would surely watch you on a trial dive to evaluate your competency and rapport with students, regardless of whether you were trained in Thailand or locally.

 

[Centrals]

Puerto Galera in Philippines.