Where to pass the Divemaster level in Central/South America ??

[Pierre Dive]

Hi everybody !


My name is Pierre; I am a 26 years old french boy. I am running my own business as mechanical engineer freelance in France (I have a master degree in mechanical design). I am trying to "change" my life or at least my way of working.

I have recently pass my Openwater and Advance in Koh Tao (December), right now I am in Manaus, Brazil, and I will continu tu travel arround central/south america til something like avril.

I really want to pass my Divemaster level before to back in france to work 6 months, then may be apply for an internship for the instructor level ?
I want to do it in latino country just because I am in love with spanish !

So, I already make lot of research and I am thinking about doing it in Mexico, Yucatan, where I already pass some weeks.
Honduras looks nice but I am a bit affraid of staying may be 2 months on an island only with tourist people (yes, that is what I am but not what i am looking fot ). I really like the north of Colombia, so why not in Santa marta ?

If you can give me some advices, feedback about your diving experience in Colombia or in Central America, i will be glad because know, I feel kind of lost... (Why not Belize or I don't know ??)


I speak French, English and Spanish and I would like to start my rescue/divemaster in the beggining, middle of february. (I would like to pass the carnaval in Barranquilla, Colombia, but this is an other topic )

Thank you by advance.


Best Regards,

 

[runsongas]

just go dive. become a divemaster later when you are more experienced and if you actually plan to work as one.

 

[Zef]

Il y a beaucoup d'endroits où on peut s'entraîner pour divemaster ... mais pour "pass (reussir)", cela dépend plus de l'individu.

-Z

 

[Pierre Dive]

Thank you for yours answer.

Oui il y a beaucoup d'endroit, je dois en choisir un, c"est pour cela que je m'en remet un peu à votre expérience et vos connaissances

 

[Zef]

venez ici en Belgique ... les conditions plus difficiles rendent de meilleurs divemasters.

-Z

 

[diversteve]

Roatan or Utila offer a lot of dive training affordably. My personal choices on Roatan would be - in no order - Barefoot Divers, Subway Watersports, Coconut Tree Divers or Anthony's Key Resort. There's at least a dozen more also.

The reasonis that they all see a mix of new divers, experienced divers and cruise divers. So you're exposed to a wider range of situations during your training.

I recommend contacting Will Welbourn at CTD - I overheard him teaching a DM class once. His DM trainees were often on our afternoon boat shadowing us. Since I film, twice I had my own. Once we got caught in a ripping current and had to float about 20mins. to be picked up. No panic, I could see West Bay Beach if we had to swim in before the boat picked us up.

Barefoot and CTD also have a divemaster house in the West End which offers less expensive shared rooms. CTD's has a pool. You actually would not need a car in the West End, the boats are there, there's about 30 restaurants, a dozen bars and housing ranging from hostels to very nice. One possible factor doing DM - Anrhony's has a recompression chamber - nice to know.
If it matters - Barefoot is the nicest resort and operation of the four. Their rentals were better than my buddy owns. Lots of bugs on both islands - we used Deep Woods Off liberally.

Utila is a smaller version of Roatan, harder to get to with much less of everything. Most of the teaching shops are in town and everything is walking distance. Most of town is in an area about a mile long near the harbor. No shop recommendation.

You can probably fly direct from a large airport where you are to Roatan - airport code RTB. Utila is harder, there's no lights at the airport and a short runway. You can fly into San Pedro Sula and connect to a local flight, or make your way to the coast and take the ferry. The same ferry goes between Roatan and Utila only on weekends so it's the other way to get there.. aboututila.com lists most things, I've never found a similar website for Roatan.

If you choose Belize, I'd probably choose an Ambergris Cay operation. The southern Belize operations - while good, are long boat rides (60 mins. or more) out daily to the barrier reef - that could impact your training schedule.

 

[diversteve]

The cruise tourists on Roatan are mostly in 3 areas - around Mahnogany Bay - the Carnival lines cruise port, downtown in Coxen Hole and on West Bay Beach since one of the resorts promotes it. We spent a week in the West End and the only days I knew there were cruisers in port was when a diver on our boat was off one. happened twice. Also AKR is the cruise operator for many of the ships and Subway and Barefoot also offer programs. From your perspective it's useful experience guiding them. I saw them once at AKR - they had their own boat, did two dives and were shuttling back to the ship by noon.

I don't think there's many tourists on Utila ever. It's pretty small, hard to get to, there's no resorts over about 20? rooms anywhere and Utopia Village is really the only active AI dive resort left, Deep Blue is a smaller property having financial problems and Laguna Beach resort closed a few years ago. There's not really any good beaches, about 1/2 the island is jungle and there's no roads - locals get around on ATV's. The trainees in town take a lot of the cheaper rooms in town during their classes.

 

[Pierre Dive]

Thank you diversteve for all these informations ! Really clear.