Part Time Dive Master, Is there such a thing?

[Ankush Mittal]

You might be able to get work, but no matter what, you will always be the fresh DM with less experience than all of your coworkers. Your services will almost certainly be substandard by comparison, so your guests will be shown fewer cryptic animals, have a poorer overall experience, and have a guide that is less capable in an emergency. You are going for a zero to hero plan, which relies on gaining lots of diving experience really quickly once you become a professional. As soon as you are certified, it will be time to go home and hang up the gear for 8-10 months. By the time you get back in the water, you will practically need a refresher of your own, except you also hope to guide people at the same time.

I would disagree that I am treating this as a Zero to Hero program, I am talking about getting a job as a DM at an area where I would have a minimum of 200 dives in that.area itself, if my original post failed to clarify that, my bad. I also dive for a week atleast every 6 months increasing my scuba knowledge in one way or another which will continue.

But either way the right path would be to go with IDC for what I have in mind for my future.

 

[Ankush Mittal]

In thailand it's usually 100baht a tank. Which means if you lead two people on one dive it's 200 baht. If you go out on the morning boat with 4 people and they each do 2 dives you will get 800 baht. Sometimes slightly more for night dives - but they will sometimes have fun divers tag along with AOW night dive is numbers allow. Guiding the morning and afternoon is not unusual.

Earning 30k baht a month isn't that hard if you are willing to take nearly no time off and dive the same sites repeatedly. And if you are there in high season. In low season you have no chance.

Thanks for the confirmation, I guess the best thing option would be to get the necessary skills and stand out in some way. May include becoming an instructor EFR or something along those lines.

 

[Ankush Mittal]

The question will be what would set you apart from other people basically trying the same thing, do you do gear repair, boat repair, compressor repair. You won't have the experience to get a shop to hire you based on dive skills but most tropical dive shops can use help on repairs and maintenance. Have you considered the Seashells It is closer to home so you should know more of the marine life

Seychelles isn't, unfortunately that close, especially in terms of connectivity of flights. Phuket/Khao Lak is looking like my best option which is where my heart is anyway. But, i do get your point about the skill factor, as that is the same conclusion I came to which I mentioned in the post above coincidentally. But, more specific to maintenance and repair is something which I had never thought about and will consider. Thanks for your suggestion

 

[Lorenzoid]

Ankush, if you decide to give it a go, please let us know how it went. Despite our skepticism, I think most of us would like to believe it is possible to spend a few months a year as a divemaster happily living on a shoestring in Thailand. Living the dream.

 

[Ankush Mittal]

Ankush, if you decide to give it a go, please let us know how it went. Despite our skepticism, I think most of us would like to believe it is possible to spend a few months a year as a divemaster happily living on a shoestring in Thailand. Living the dream.

Haha! If and when I go for it, I shall keep you guys updated of my journey.

 

[HantsDiver]

Thanks for the confirmation, I guess the best thing option would be to get the necessary skills and stand out in some way. May include becoming an instructor EFR or something along those lines.

Do not waste your time with becoming an EFR instructor. I'm going to be brutally honest here - the places you will DM will have an abundance of instructors who will do the EFR course as part of the rescue course. They will not have a DM doing it. It's actually a good thing for the instructor to do as it gives them a chance to get to know the students a bit. I honestly think in thailand you have about a zero chance of teaching EFR.

Now stuff you can do to make you more employable is... Being enthusiastic and being willing to take any jobs. To get your foot in the door with a business you might have to take a night dive with 2 students (meaning 200 baht usually). That is a crappy job. But people who do those jobs are liked by the manager.

I have taught in busy parts of Thailand. Much of the advice you get on here is totally not relevant for that market. Driving the boat is useless (by law it has to be a thai there), servicing equipment (as a freelance DM again useless). It will help to some extent if you have: deep, nitrox and wreck specialities.

If you are thinking about going to DM in thailand feel free to PM me. I can give you links to some facebook groups which are used for finding work and you can see how freelancers find work. Remember that they will only revert to the facebook group if their regulars have let them down or can't do it. Making a decent impression and handing out business cards and CV's goes a long way. You will need a thai sim card for your phone but that is very cheap from 7/11.

 

[HantsDiver]

Ankush, if you decide to give it a go, please let us know how it went. Despite our skepticism, I think most of us would like to believe it is possible to spend a few months a year as a divemaster happily living on a shoestring in Thailand. Living the dream.

It's possible. As an instructor on certain islands, I wouldn't call it living on a shoestring either. It's hard work but a lot of fun. Totally different mentality to diving to the west - and dare I say more professional when it comes to teaching diving. It's peoples full time jobs - it's how they feed themselves. So people take it quite seriously.

 

[Ankush Mittal]

It's possible. As an instructor on certain islands, I wouldn't call it living on a shoestring either. It's hard work but a lot of fun. totally different mentality to diving to the west - and dare I say more professional when it comes to teaching diving. It's peoples full time jobs - it's how they feed themselves. So people take it quite seriously.

HantsDiver, you have got the entire essence of my question absolutely bang on, everyone had good suggestions, and like you said between certain specialty instructor courses and a great attitude I think I will be able to eventually carve out a slice for myself.

I will definitely get in touch with you sometime soon to get added to those groups. Thanks a ton

 

[Lorenzoid]

It's possible. As an instructor on certain islands, I wouldn't call it living on a shoestring either. It's hard work but a lot of fun. Totally different mentality to diving to the west - and dare I say more professional when it comes to teaching diving. It's peoples full time jobs - it's how they feed themselves. So people take it quite seriously.

Not to go around in circles, but I said "divemaster," not instructor, because the original post was about the feasibility of a foreigner working part of the year as a divemaster in Thailand. In previous posts, I said essentially that making a living as a part-time instructor seems a lot more likely than making a living as a part-time divemaster.

 

[TMHeimer]

I've been away 2 months and apologize if am repeating. Agree EFR Instructor not worth it (unless you want to do that away from Scuba as well). I assisted OW courses 4 years as a "part time" DM (and got paid $300 Canadian each course). I knew the sites and routines. I would not go somewhere I didn't know for a short time and assist courses/lead dives. The subject matter you need to know academically is pretty much the same, but I'd not want to venture elsewhere without a fair bit of experience there. Same reason I didn't get OW cert. until I moved to the Atlantic Coast where I knew I'd dive regularly.