Going PRO in Thailand

[josh]

Lordy,

I have never dived in the North Sea.
I have never dived with a dry-suit.
and I have no desire to.
.

You've not missed much. As a lowly Instructor from a Pattaya IDC, on my last trip back to UK I did sign up for, and do, a dry suit course (although, to be fair in the English Channel, or rather Plymouth).

I have to be honest here, the dry suit took me at least 5 minutes to get the hang of, but I perservered. I added on a few "pleasure dives" (my masochistic streak I think). I saw some fish. And a couple of crabs, and some seaweed. Well, OK a lot of seaweed. I did see an awesome wreck to be fair (forget off hand which one) a US liberty boat sunk in WWII. It was huge, and had as much marine life on it as about 2 square meters of the hardeep.

Vizibility was a treacherous 20 meters plus. As a regular pattaya diver I almost got vertigo from seeing so far.

 

[limbo]

Josh,

Believe it or not, I dived the Hardeep once with so much viz (20 meters) and I thought I was on the wrong wreck.

Didn't recognize half of it whilst swimming around it (a first for me) and it was than that I realized how big the Hardeep actually is.

 

[josh]

Josh,

Believe it or not, I dived the Hardeep once with so much viz (20 meters) and I thought I was on the wrong wreck.

Didn't recognize half of it whilst swimming around it (a first for me) and it was than that I realized how big the Hardeep actually is.

Apparently I got the Uk wreck on on of its best days - just had a look around - its 120 meters, compared to hardeep 60 to 70 meters. But hardeep is an awesome wreck, and yeah, that 1 day a year when you get 20 meters viz on hardep makes it all worthwhile down there.

 

[Bowmouth]

You've not missed much. As a lowly Instructor from a Pattaya IDC, on my last trip back to UK I did sign up for, and do, a dry suit course (although, to be fair in the English Channel, or rather Plymouth).

I think you are a brave man.
I'm using a full 5 mm wetsuit with 5 mm hooded vest on top in 28 Celsius of water and still feel cold.
I've considered purchasing a so-called "tropical dry-suit" but don't like the pee-options that come with such a suit.

The sea weed sounds good though. My Thai wife just loves the stuff and it may be one of the very few reasons to consider ever doing a dive in the North Sea. (when and if I get there again...)

 

[Arizona]

The Hardeep is always good IMO. Lots of coral and life. You just need to be patient and have good buoyancy to get the most out of it.

 

[Ex-Aquanaut]

[QUOTE]Lord Kram wrote: I am not going to change my opinion to suit you, as I have stated before, in my experience this type of internship does not produce accomplished divers / instructors. it produces people with an instructor card and a very shallow base of experience.[/QUOTE]

While pretty much the whole board realizes you have a strong negative opinion about Pattaya, the above cannot stand.

More than 1,500 instructors have been trained in Pattaya since 2001 and you simply can't paint them all with your broad brush of negativity. You qualified your remark as "in your experience" and, in other threads, you've proven and admitted that your experinece is extremely dated with all but one shop and your interaction with interns who've graduated from Aquanauts is zero and probably almost zero with Mermaid's.

So what expeinece are you citing.

I invite you (again) to come and dive with some of our graduate instructors. The ones we have on staff here are some of the most skilled, competant and proficient instrucotors I've ever met.

Oh, but I forgot, depsite offering you a half-price dive, you'd rather play keyboard warrior and continue to slate Pattaya, its dive operators and the students and instructors there.

 

[Apecks]

The Hardeep is always good IMO. Lots of coral and life. You just need to be patient and have good buoyancy to get the most out of it.

Currents were ripping last week when I did a few dives out in Samesan on the Hardeep. By far my favourite wreck (plenty of coral, marine life and penetration points)

 

[Arizona]

That was my point earlier, if you do dive Pattaya regularly you are most likely a sound diver. You need to be. It is excellent for training.

 

[Apecks]

Without getting into the old 'Pattaya v Phuket' battle as a mater of fact I do find the overall experience of diving in Pattaya / Samesan more enjoyable than diving down south. Sure the visability down there and marine life is better but I would take the variety of dive sites, attitude on the boats and dive community up in Pattaya rather than down south any day. I have always found it a lot more personnel up there.

 

[lord khram]

[QUOTE]Lord Kram wrote: I am not going to change my opinion to suit you, as I have stated before, in my experience this type of internship does not produce accomplished divers / instructors. it produces people with an instructor card and a very shallow base of experience.

While pretty much the whole board realizes you have a strong negative opinion about Pattaya, the above cannot stand.

More than 1,500 instructors have been trained in Pattaya since 2001 and you simply can't paint them all with your broad brush of negativity. You qualified your remark as "in your experience" and, in other threads, you've proven and admitted that your experinece is extremely dated with all but one shop and your interaction with interns who've graduated from Aquanauts is zero and probably almost zero with Mermaid's.

So what expeinece are you citing.

I invite you (again) to come and dive with some of our graduate instructors. The ones we have on staff here are some of the most skilled, competant and proficient instrucotors I've ever met.

Oh, but I forgot, depsite offering you a half-price dive, you'd rather play keyboard warrior and continue to slate Pattaya, its dive operators and the students and instructors there.[/QUOTE]

You are missing my point entirely. No doubt there are some excelent instructors working and others that have trained in Pattaya.
But there is also some extremely bad ones.
And I still think this type of course is not a good idea. In my opinion there are much better ways of becoming an instructor as I have said a number of times.
With regards to your offer of a half price day, thanks but no thanks. The way I was treated last time I was a customer of yours 1650 baht is still far too much, And at the time I said 'never again'.
You have not obviously read/understood my posts, yes my experience with your shop was a number of years ago but I have dived continually in the Pattaya area since up untill December last year, and at a number of shops.
By the way, have you given any more consideration to the reduction in price now the fuel costs have come down?