It is in Europe almost impossible to do teaching as a fulltime job. Or you need to have shop and/or filling station, or you must be very very lucky that this is possible.
But is not being a full time instructor a problem? I have done course with full time instructors and with just 'hobby'instructors. I cannot say that full time means better. If I look back at my own cave course, I did it with a full time instructor. I was at that moment satisfied, but if I look back we have only done skills during the course. No normal dives (part of a dive that was just a normal dive). And the dives were between 25 and 35 minutes. Nobody ever met the turnpressure, we always had to turn around before. I learned what I needed to know, but from that group of 4 (I know, it is a standard violation, but I did not know then), I am the only one that is still diving in caves. The total divetime of the course (cavern, intro and full cave in 1 week) was the bare minimum.
I have had hobby instructors for other courses who really liked the diving and did not bother about a longer dive than needed according to standards. They just liked diving and teaching. And because of this they were great.
I have also had 1 full time instructor who was great.
I see of course people from Europe going to Mexico to do courses there. But that are most times the divers that earn a lot of money and also did expensive holidays before. I also see divers that want to do a cave course but never go on expensive holidays. They go with friends 1 week a year to France, sometimes go to the German mines and are satisfied with that. They would never become a full cave diver if they had to go to Mexico.
At the moment if you just want to have the option to do some decopressiondiving, I would advice to do an advanced nitrox course. Then you learn how to plan dives, how to use a stage, but you are limited to 40m depth. Some say here do a T1 (or same course with IANTD brings you to 51m depth is the advanced recreational trimix plus), but from what I see is that people are really afraid of the gasbills. Helium is soooo expensive nowadays that I see that deep air is coming back and otherwise if people have the money they go to CCR, or decide to go cave diving. As cave diving can be done on air or nitrox and mabye a decogas. This makes it way much cheaper than trimixdiving.
Another point is that I see now is that people choose for cavediving over wreckdiving is that you don't need a boat to bring you to the wreck. Also the costs for this taxi are rising. And this is why cave diving is quite popular now. Freedom, lot of fun, and if the rest of your family don't dive you don't have to explain why you need 3000 bucks for a week diving, it can be done for less than 1000 including everything in Europe.
There is no cheap technical diving, but you can make it with some things a little bit less expensive and that is what you see that happens.
But is not being a full time instructor a problem? I have done course with full time instructors and with just 'hobby'instructors. I cannot say that full time means better. If I look back at my own cave course, I did it with a full time instructor. I was at that moment satisfied, but if I look back we have only done skills during the course. No normal dives (part of a dive that was just a normal dive). And the dives were between 25 and 35 minutes. Nobody ever met the turnpressure, we always had to turn around before. I learned what I needed to know, but from that group of 4 (I know, it is a standard violation, but I did not know then), I am the only one that is still diving in caves. The total divetime of the course (cavern, intro and full cave in 1 week) was the bare minimum.
I have had hobby instructors for other courses who really liked the diving and did not bother about a longer dive than needed according to standards. They just liked diving and teaching. And because of this they were great.
I have also had 1 full time instructor who was great.
I see of course people from Europe going to Mexico to do courses there. But that are most times the divers that earn a lot of money and also did expensive holidays before. I also see divers that want to do a cave course but never go on expensive holidays. They go with friends 1 week a year to France, sometimes go to the German mines and are satisfied with that. They would never become a full cave diver if they had to go to Mexico.
At the moment if you just want to have the option to do some decopressiondiving, I would advice to do an advanced nitrox course. Then you learn how to plan dives, how to use a stage, but you are limited to 40m depth. Some say here do a T1 (or same course with IANTD brings you to 51m depth is the advanced recreational trimix plus), but from what I see is that people are really afraid of the gasbills. Helium is soooo expensive nowadays that I see that deep air is coming back and otherwise if people have the money they go to CCR, or decide to go cave diving. As cave diving can be done on air or nitrox and mabye a decogas. This makes it way much cheaper than trimixdiving.
Another point is that I see now is that people choose for cavediving over wreckdiving is that you don't need a boat to bring you to the wreck. Also the costs for this taxi are rising. And this is why cave diving is quite popular now. Freedom, lot of fun, and if the rest of your family don't dive you don't have to explain why you need 3000 bucks for a week diving, it can be done for less than 1000 including everything in Europe.
There is no cheap technical diving, but you can make it with some things a little bit less expensive and that is what you see that happens.
