Scuba as a career

[Cory]

Hello,
I'm new to the board and scuba in general(12 open water dives)I've defenetly got the scuba diving bug now and its left me wondering what the prospects are for someone who wants to possibly persue diving as a career?Is it fairly easy to find a job as an instructor over seas?Providing you have suffecient experience of course.Also what is the average income of a full time instructor?Is it possible to make a living at it?

 

[Ber Rabbit]

Here's a thread that can answer some of your questions:

http://www.scubaboard.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=4806

Ber

 

[DiverBuoy]

Cory once bubbled...
a full time instructor ... is it possible to make a living at it?

No. Ok it depends on your standard of living. For classes here locally in my area, when you divide all the hours into the per student course fee, it works out to like $2.15 per hour. Which I think is like 1/3 minimum wage. Most do it out of love of the sport ... or for really great gear deals Shop owners, course directors (PADI top level), and vendors who also instruct might do ok. But I've asked quite a few and they say on good years (when they pretty much never took a break, they made 60k. I don't know about you but that would never do for my standard of living, and those folks weren't doing it on instruction alone.

 

[MaresMan1]

My son is a Diving Instructor in St. Thomas. He is a PADI and BSAC certified instructor, and also a SSI Tech diving instructor (deep diver) and free diving instructor. He is a natural fish in the water and totally fearless.

With all that, he just makes a decent living in the high season and an OK existance in the off season. So diving as a profession is more for the love of it than the money.

Now having said that, you can also enhance your chances by becoming a equipment technician for maintenance and repair. Equipment techs make good money and get to go diving also.

Bottom line is if you really love the sport, you can make a decent living at it with hard work and the right attitude. But if you love it, it isn't really work is it? You can also get to see some great places if you play it right.

Best of luck in your choices

DiveOn
MM1:mean:

 

[Quest]

Im not currently in the diving industry. But, i have some good friends who do it for a living and i am pursuing an interest in it as you are.

Based on feedback from my friends and other bulletin boards it seems in the fort lauderdale area there are so many dive masters and instructors that many schools have a rotation list. So you may get 3 classes a month to teach or no classes for a few months.

The overall thing to consider, at least wherei am, is that there are so many open water instructors down here that they tend to take on the duties that divemasters usually take on in other parts of the country. So i find a dive master cert is pretty much useless down here for employment unless you know the owner of the dive business.

Many of the instructors i have met do it seasonally or part time.

Many will bartend during the diving off season (when tourism is booming in fort lauderdal and the bar business is crazy) then teach scuba or work on a dive chart in the dive season (when seasonal divers go back into diving and the bar business is slow).

My friends make around $60k a year but diving amounts to about $17k of that with the rest in the bartending business.

The last thing to realize is the competitiveness down here. Again down here open water instructors are as common as dive masters elsewhere in the US.

So to stand out from the rest and secure better employment options instructors need to achieve higher cert standards. So its common for instructors down here to be instructors in several dive organizations. Some of the more prosperious schools have instructors who are instructor trainers in with several dive organizations.

Now if you happen to be own of those multiple agency instructor trainers and own your own dive operation then you could make some very good money.

Again im not in the profession. But, try visiting a few dozen shops around here and you will see many of these store owners drive lexus or BMW's or Jaguars etc.

Leads me to believe they are bringing in some sort of reasonable money from their dive business!

As a good supporting example to this i saw this past weekend a small dive operation for sale in key largo for $1.2million dollars. Now if you can own a business like that for diving then you gotta be making some good reoccuring revenue.

 

[lowpasslew]

Not much money in it. I used to think money wasn't important, but then I got older and went back to college for many years.

The more valuable your services, the more you can charge. It doesn't take much time to become a dive instructor, so there are a lot of them and they can't charge very much.

Take ten years to become a health professional and maybe you can charge a bit more for your services, like me.

Look around, it isn't always the guy in the big car that is making a ton of money.

 

[KZMAN]

I have to agree with Quest, especially in the southern Fla. area. I know several, very qualified instructors down there, that barely make a living, (I know because I have to buy all the beer when I visit). Most of them moonlight as bartenders, or whatever to pay their bills. I even had one friend whom sold his very successful business, moved to Ft Laudie, to pursue a career, and after spending all his money on his dive education, he found it near impossible to find employment. But is very happy (even starving) simply for the love of it.

Remember, instuction, is not the only way in which to make a living in the industry. You may try starting a business, cleaning the hulls of the fat cat boat owners??? At least your under water.......

Good Luck on whatever you decide

 

[landlocked]

There is also something to be said for not turning your hobbies into work. I used to really like computers. ;-0

 

[Quest]

KZMAN once bubbled...


Remember, instuction, is not the only way in which to make a living in the industry. You may try starting a business, cleaning the hulls of the fat cat boat owners??? At least your under water.......

Good Luck on whatever you decide

And you will probably make much more money then if you were teaching diving! Its a pretty nice business operation.

Another idea too is dock building and repair. Get to use scuba and do general contracting work.

 

[slowdiver]

A fiend of mine moved to Hawaii and says he is making $100 a day being a divemaster. He seems to be making a living but he also has connections for very low housing rent.
Good luck.