Confused by age limits

[Kerry Hunt]

Hi there,

I'm not a diver (totally terrified of the whole thing), but my husband has been for years and my daughter now dives with him. My husband was already PADI qualified from years ago and my daughter took her qualification when she was 12. She took the adult exam so the only thing she couldn't do was dive deeper. Since then they have both become Advanced Divers and last year did their Rescue Diver. The dive school were impressed with our daughter's natural ability and have offered her an internship next summer to do her Divemaster. We of course want to support and encourage her but she won't turn 16 until December and I've recently read that you can't start the Divemaster until you are 18 years old.

Please could someone clarify?

Thank you.

 

[RyanT]

PADI does require their DMs to be 18. I have heard of students working on their skills at a younger age, at which point they have to wait until they are 18 to actually receive their certification.

 

[BazzaB]

DM Prerequisites from the instructors manual

• Certified as a PADI Advanced Open Water Diver and PADI Rescue Diver
• 18 years old
• Logged 40 scuba dives
• Completed EFR Primary and Secondary Care training within 24 months
• Medically evaluated and cleared for diving by a physician within 12 months

 

[Steve_C]

Does she want to do the DM? If it is for her own education, that is fine but if she is thinking she might want to work some at it, then she should have a good number of dives in different conditions. Ideally in the conditions she might want to work in. Everybody is different but I waited to several hundred dives before starting to my DM.

 

[Scuba Scott]

Does she plan on actually working as a DM? Does the shop plan on hiring her?

There is other training she could take at this point that would be much more valuable or she could just enjoy diving. She will not gain much diving skill from the divemaster course and it makes no sense to start it until she is 18.

Many times these internship programs are much closer to a slave labor program or worse yet, you pay for the opportunity to work at a shop. (Well I guess lots of certified DMs do that anyway)

I am not sure the shop has your daughter's best interest in mind here. The other possibility is that she is so mature the staff at the shop completely forgot she isn't 18 yet. I hope they didn't suggest the divemaster course just because they ran out of classes to sell her.

 

[Scuba Scott]

There is also the possibility they could be offering her a 2 year internship.
If this is the case I would expect the following:
1. She does not pay for anything. The course fees, material fees, and padi fees should be paid by the shop.
2. An agreement of maximum weekly work hours and duties is made.
3. Your daughter receives some additional compensation to even out the value she receives with the work she does.

If this is done the right way and everyone agrees what is expected I would think she would graduate as a highly skilled and highly employable divemaster.

 

[agilis]

From what I have seen in recent years instructors must at least be toilet trained while DMs need not be. Maybe it's just a matter of my perspective as a diver who still remembers dial telephones, phone booths, and what 'drop a dime' meant.