gehadoski
Contributor
How is the instructors world?
Career or hobby
- Thread starter gehadoski
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This really depends on the locale, I guess.
In the US, only very rarely do instructors earn enough for a living just by teaching. One usually has to be in the business of selling equipment and/or organizing trips to generate sufficient income.
As such, in my area (Northern California) almost every instructor I know, except for those that either own a dive store or work as sales staff in one, are weekend instructors that teach more as a hobby than as a career. I think many of them just make enough to cover expenses and finance their diving. (new equipment, etc.)
In the US, only very rarely do instructors earn enough for a living just by teaching. One usually has to be in the business of selling equipment and/or organizing trips to generate sufficient income.
As such, in my area (Northern California) almost every instructor I know, except for those that either own a dive store or work as sales staff in one, are weekend instructors that teach more as a hobby than as a career. I think many of them just make enough to cover expenses and finance their diving. (new equipment, etc.)
Don Burke
Contributor
The "full-time" instructors I know actually pay the bills with boat cleaning, salvage, and object recovery.gehadoski:
Instruction income just covers instruction expenses and dive gear.
DennisS
Contributor
The market is flooded. Supply and demand is working well if you need to hire an instructor.
Money wise...forget it! I don't know any Instructors who are in it for the money and most full-time Instructors have another job because they can’t survive on what the industry pays as the norm.
It’s a weird one because the shops say that the industry is slumping and that they are not earning the bucks so they can't afford to pay the instructors more and the manufactures say the same but someone has to be making money out of it. Gear prices just keep going up so where is the money going?
It's a lot of responsibility for very little pay but in my book thats not why yopu become an instructor. If thats on your mind you should be doing something else.
Coogeeman :dazzler1:
It’s a weird one because the shops say that the industry is slumping and that they are not earning the bucks so they can't afford to pay the instructors more and the manufactures say the same but someone has to be making money out of it. Gear prices just keep going up so where is the money going?
It's a lot of responsibility for very little pay but in my book thats not why yopu become an instructor. If thats on your mind you should be doing something else.
Coogeeman :dazzler1:
gehadoski:
Aloha.
The instructors world is just fine. In Hawaii, there always seems to be a lack of instructors. However, you do have to expect to dive 7 days a week. Scheduled days off, seldom work, due to the lack of instructors. Working the Visitor Industry, can be a challenge, with back to back open water classes, or Introductory Dive classes. Divemasters might lead more dive tours, but they also get paid less. Figure on 600 to 800 dives a year. Pay? I think $2000 a month would be at the high end, I have made more, and also less.
The visibility is good, water is warm year round, and yes you get to dive. I have stayed in the teaching , and guiding end of the game, it might pay differently, if you got stuck behind a counter selling gear.
There is a lot of satisfaction, in taking people on their first real dives, and thats the real payoff.
Aloha Turtleguy
Working in the Bahamas was hard work. 12 hour days and often 7 days a week. Its important to remeber that I would be in the water for less than 2 hours of that on most days. It is certainly not a job where you get to spend lots of time lying in the sand. Lots of time in the bilge of the boat, or standing over the bank filling for a couple of hours. :sunny
In the states it has been much less difficult. Of course it is once a week with a group of college students, and a couple of days in a shop ofr 6 hours. It's a lot easier being a college student!
In the states it has been much less difficult. Of course it is once a week with a group of college students, and a couple of days in a shop ofr 6 hours. It's a lot easier being a college student!
over regulated in the uk... lots of excessive red tape, medicals, insurance, etc... yawn... I'd rather fun dive over here and teach on my hols somewhere nice n hot, than read the next exciting update that the HSE have come up with in their bid to stop people teaching to dive in this country! lol.
Just a hobby for me. Hard to make a living at it, at least around these parts. Even harder as a DM.
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