Byron Bay Australia - Zero to Divemaster Course

[georoc01]

Not knowing how truly long the class is, the only question I have in a zero to hero class is the task loading. If you are a natural diver (which I had one girlfriend who took to it as such), then the additional task loading of all the other skills necessary to get to dive master is certainly possible in a short period of time.

For me personally, its more challenging. I still need to worry about myself and my buddy to start moving into a dive master realm of teaching others. After 35 dives I am better than I was at 5th, but I doubt getting 15 more dives under my belt is going to have me ready for dive master.

That said, you can get a lot of dives in full time diving in 10 weeks. But I wouldn't want to lay out that kind of money until I was sure this was something you really want to do, and I don't think you would know that until you had completed your Open water and had some dives under your belt beforehand.

 

[almitywife]

Hi guys,

I'm hoping to do the zero to divemaster course .................Any thoughts, advice and/or info?.........

yeah - sure - great...... and please stay that far north because the death of tourist/queensland recreational diving was created for the tourists and tourist dm's such as yourself

do i sound jadded... yes i am and im sorry but there is no "hero" in these courses

but i welcome your enthusiasm and i hope australia is everything Azza promises it to be

enjoy...... its already summer here and its hot and sunny so heres to a great summer season

oh, and april.... bait balls and sharks up about that way which is a great site to see!

cheers

 

[Tassie_Rohan]

Hey mate
If I was to do it all again I would have flown to Aussie to do my course....sun, sand, girls, bikini's....cant go wrong
..

Doesn't NZ have sun, sand, girls and bikini's?



(I guess rain, rocks, sheep and gumboots does gets tiring even for a local after a while...)


It's a lovely area up that way (I'll be living there in two weeks time) - just be sure to dive as many different conditions as you can and built up experience: freshly minted DM's without real diving experience really stick out and its tiring to have to look after them and the dive group while on a paid dive.

Cheers,
Rohan.

 

[almitywife]

........(I guess rain, rocks, sheep and gumboots does gets tiring even for a local after a while...)
............

i think its Ugh books actually

 

[Peter Guy]

Re diving Byron Bay -- absolutely wonderful! It is a place to which I must return.

Re doing a "Zero to Hero" class -- Don't do it -- especially not at a place like Byron Bay.

Last year I got to spend some time with an instructor who had more than 1000 dives (can't remember exactly how many) -- but, in reality, he had only about 10 dives, each of them repeated 100 times. ALL his dives were in the same general place (BVI) -- all warm water, good viz, same equipment (single AL80/3 mil wet suit).

I suppose I've become a bit of a snob but I think a DM/Instructor should have a much broader experience base than that. Unless they were hiding something, it looks like all of the diving in Byron Bay is at Julian Rocks -- an area a few acres in size in the middle of the bay. While the diving is fabulous, it is, for the most part, the same every dive. (I can hear Tim H saying -- I've done 1000 dives there and every one was different -- true but all similar.)

Anyway, that's my take on it and its worth what you are paying for it!

 

[Azza]

Doesn't NZ have sun, sand, girls and bikini's?

It does but it rains too bloody much here
Plus always better to play up overseas....

 

[KeithM]

yeah - sure - great...... and please stay that far north because the death of tourist/queensland recreational diving was created for the tourists and tourist dm's such as yourself

Not sure I quite understand your point but there are plenty of locals diving around Brisbane :diver:

 

[almitywife]

Not sure I quite understand your point but there are plenty of locals diving around Brisbane :diver:

yeah, i was very jaded that day

reminded me we are coming into summer so i will soon be seeing alot of combi vans full of backpackers with their padi pro cards and totally clueless how to dive in anything other than pristine conditions. i always remember the git that spent 40mins telling me about how good he was with 800 dives on a liveaboard but he couldnt even put his own fins on because he couldnt handle sydney surge

on a postive note, you are more than welcome to keep them on your side of the border

 

[Zeeman]

Please do some dives on your own, with friends, at other locations - without DM's or guides. There is something about diving with just you, a buddy and a plan that teaches more than a course can.

I was in Puerto Galera in the Philippines earlier this year, and there just happened to be a guy on the boat who appeared to have just gotten his DM cert - he was not DM for the dive.. But his attitude was that he was the caretaker. Before the dive (a drift dive) he bellowed out to his buddy:
"You and me, we'll take up the back". I looked at the other 2 guys in my group, and my German buddy (all VERY good divers, with literally thousands of dives up there sleeves, and watched them shake their heads and raise their eyebrows - this all seemed to go un noticed...

My 2 photographer friends found their 3 foot by 3 foot patch of coral and stayed there the rest of the dive.

Me and my German buddy drifted along with the rest of the group and the "real" DM. Spot on at 45 minutes, the guy was banging his tank and signaling to surface. the briefing was clearly stated "max dive time, 1 hour". The real DM was still at 11 meters for heavens sake, and this guy was telling me to surface...

This is the kind of knob that often pops out of such DM courses. We call them 60 dive DM's, and they seem to assume everyone else "needs" them to tell us what to do...

Please, do not become one of these.

Z...

 

[OpenWater]

Don't worry Z, I wont

I decided I'm going to work up and build experience as I go through the different courses.

Open water at the great barrier reef then advanced OW whilst in Fiji in April doing environmental work in which I can do the AOW and 50 dives.

DM in the very distant future if at all...