Going PRO in Thailand

[lord khram]

I know. I really think I should do some real training with real divers somewhere cold and dark and utterly miserable....

You can call it cold dark and miserable, but again you are making incorrect statements. yes at times it can be very dark and almost zero visibility. but weather permitting most of these problems can be avoided at planning stage by selecting the correct locations for the state of the tide, selecting to dive at neap tides, you and many others really do not know what you are missing.
Believe it or not I have countless times experienced in excess of 30 metres visibility around the UK shores, Thousands of wrecks and all the history that goes with it, and still so many more to potentially find.

 

[lord khram]

Read the thread OW diver time requirements. I am not saying that this is typical behaviour of all instructors / divers. But it proves by someone else's words exactly my point about some dive proffesionals having limited experience?

And bowmouth, you mention doing decompression stops, from my very limited experience of PADI training, I seem to remember being told by my instructor that PADI do not endorse decompression diving and indeed if you are to accidentally exceed the NDL you are to stay out of the water for 24 hours. Is this still the case?
If so you have quite clearly by your own words violated PADI standards. I do hope you were not looking after a customer at the time.
I must add that you seem to be missing my point. I am not generalising about all PADI professionals, I dare say that most are extremely proficcient.
But what I object to is the limited experience produced by this onward internship spiral in Pattaya, by the ones that have only dived in the one area.
Also I must add that as a diving customer in this area I feel that this system has resulted in the poor quality service provided in pattaya by most of the shops, because all too often some individualls (not all) know no better.

 

[Bowmouth]

I do hope you were not looking after a customer at the time.

Lordy-Dordy,

Thank you for your concern.

And yes, during most of my decompression dives I was looking after customers (not student divers) although in some cases I must admit I was even all alone.

And, to make matters even worse, I did this sometimes 4 times a day for weeks on end...

I have never done planned decompression dives during student training dives but have done simulated decompression training dives with DM candidates.

 

[Bowmouth]

Believe it or not I have countless times experienced in excess of 30 metres visibility around the UK shores...

Lord K.,

I do believe you.
Still, it's not my cuppa tea...

 

[limbo]

Read the thread OW diver time requirements. I am not saying that this is typical behaviour of all instructors / divers. But it proves by someone else's words exactly my point about some dive proffesionals having limited experience?

And bowmouth, you mention doing decompression stops, from my very limited experience of PADI training, I seem to remember being told by my instructor that PADI do not endorse decompression diving and indeed if you are to accidentally exceed the NDL you are to stay out of the water for 24 hours. Is this still the case?
If so you have quite clearly by your own words violated PADI standards. I do hope you were not looking after a customer at the time.
I must add that you seem to be missing my point. I am not generalising about all PADI professionals, I dare say that most are extremely proficcient.
But what I object to is the limited experience produced by this onward internship spiral in Pattaya, by the ones that have only dived in the one area.
Also I must add that as a diving customer in this area I feel that this system has resulted in the poor quality service provided in pattaya by most of the shops, because all too often some individualls (not all) know no better.

LK,

As long as you don't dive with your PADI hat on, you can do deco dives as much as you want. How can you otherwise get all the DSAT Tec Instructor pre-requisites, in case you would like to go down that road.
PADI as such, the recreational scuba organisation, doesn't condone deco diving. Two different stories.

Regarding to your point of view of limited experience (different thread?), if somebody has done well over 1.000 dives in a certain area, he may be very exprienced in that area. I know plenty of Thai (and Western) DM's and instructors with tons of logged dives (some over 3K or more) who never dived outside of Thailand. I'd call them well experienced. Their choice, maybe they don't have the money to travel around and pay for dive trips.
I would love to dive the North Sea, it's just a bit too far away.
Although it might be nice to have all that varied experience, it's not a prerequisite for becoming a good or experienced instructor. They might need to take some precautionary steps if they end up diving in cold and dark water though.

I can see your point about the service that you received in PTY and it's not good what happened to you, bad customer service. Having said that, why keep flogging a dead horse? You found a solution to the problem, why don't you move on?

My experiences in PTY are very positive and I'm happy with the outfit that I dove with sofar, they went out of their way to accomodate me and my students using their services.

 

[stiggy]

There seems to be a lot of armchair/bathtub divers here,Spending more time forcing there opinions on scuba board than actually getting wet.

Some individuals seem to take great pleasure in telling others how things should be done! how Dive operators should run there shops and how they consistently get bad service.

My own experiences across Asia are mainly positive and like ANY other industry/profession there are good and bad.I guess my own experience helps me avoid the cowboys You can often tell with a few polite direct questions what you can expect to get.

Going pro in Thailand is in my opinion a great opportunity to get a lot of dives under your belt and in most places a lot of exposure to real customers,the nice easy going ones and of course the know it all complainers. The course directors /Instructor trainers are often very experienced and have a lot to offer.

There are also a lot of add ons that can done such as gas blending Compressor maintenance courses First Aid O2 instructor Etc etc All at a reasonable cost.

Fair enough you may not have cold water experience at the end of your training.But a huge amount of dive destinations fall within the tropics and it would take a lifetime to see them all.

Do your homework when looking where to get trained and dive there first before committing to higher level training.

 

[lord khram]

I totally agree, but again I am just giving my opinion that I do not approve of this type of zero to hero course.
If you read the original post on this thread, all I am saying to the guy is to maybe consider doing the individual courses at different shops / locations over a greater period of time to gain a more varied base of experience. common sence I think?

 

[marinediva]

I feel the biggest advantage of Thailand Dive Industry is the fact that living costs are extremely low......I could afford to rent out my unit in AUst, take off ten months to live in Thailand, do couses, and buy equipment. It is not something that I could have done in AUstralia for the same cost or convience.

Like my ma always says......Since most countries got rid of their small coins, common sense is not that common anymore.

 

[lord khram]

I feel the biggest advantage of Thailand Dive Industry is the fact that living costs are extremely low......I could afford to rent out my unit in AUst, take off ten months to live in Thailand, do couses, and buy equipment. It is not something that I could have done in AUstralia for the same cost or convience.

Like my ma always says......Since most countries got rid of their small coins, common sense is not that common anymore.

Yes I agree with your point entirely.
But what is wrong with doing the various courses at a number of locations in Thailand, by doing that you will learn much more than doing everything with one shop at one location.
If cost is your main motivation then there are other places in Asia that are even cheaper than Thailand, maybe these could be considered also.
And at last I am told that one of the Pattaya shops (real divers) is doing the zero to hero on a pay as you go basis. something like this will also be worth considering and I feel is a much fairer way as nobody can lose out.
If you pay all your money up front then a few weeks later decide its not for you or have a problem and have to return home, the big Pattaya shops will not give refunds under any circumstances.

 

[marinediva]

Okay LK
The advantage of doing the courses at one or two dive shops is firstly a discounts offered to do a number of courses.
Next......by the time you get to DM training the number of tourists who are doing OW courses etc, if you are at a larger Dive shop that mean there are enough courses to keep the DMT's busy.
Many times I have heard first hand from DMT from other dive shops with no courses to jump onto because it was low season or such like.
Then you also have the factor of weather in Thailand. If you spend some time there the weather on the west is not the same as the south east etc. Staying where the weather is good MOST OF THE MONTHS means more diving and more courses available to assist with.
Pattaya is somewhere I mindfully chose not to go.
To me it seemed like it was fully of dirty old men on sex tours, and it did not attract me to spend anytime there whatsoever. I very quickly made to way to Koh Tao area. After all that is what Pattaya is known for.....sex tours not the dive industry.

Yes there are places that are cheaper than Thailand, but you risk being blow up or becoming involved in domestic terrorism. And the areas where you can stay and spend time just don't have the same numbers of tourist factor as discussed before and are best travelled after certification.

The last factor of all this is staying with one shop means the head instructor gets to know you,
and after you may receive some employment, and that means some experience.

Yes, staying in one stop can be boring for the diver, but since you are assisting and not looking at the marine life, you are actually watching the students, or tagging along with a DM on a tour and watching the people qualified and helping them out, you tend to learn very fast.