Making Diving a career

[Paul Vining]

Greetings of the day. I am an Ocean diver currently training to be a sport diver, looking to go up the food chain, to instruct or do speciallity courses or both. I would like to make diving a career, but have often seen messages from divers all over the world seeking work. Is there a way of making this a viable career with a stable outlook ? Are there any ways for me to do this now at this stage of my diving life ?

Any advice and guidance would be greatfully recieved...

[Chris Cherrington]

Greetings of the day. I am an Ocean diver currently training to be a sport diver, looking to go up the food chain, to instruct or do speciallity courses or both. I would like to make diving a career, but have often seen messages from divers all over the world seeking work. Is there a way of making this a viable career with a stable outlook ? Are there any ways for me to do this now at this stage of my diving life ?

Any advice and guidance would be greatfully recieved...

There is a old saying of walking before running.... Most of us think of this at some time. If you want to make money from diving you need to run a shop. There are fewer opportunities in BSAC - it is a club after all - and PADI OWSI will set you back a couple of grand..

If you have a lot of capital and business acumen you might make a go of it. My advice would be to look into buying Bovisand if you can get it. It is a business opportunity in the UK. At the minute its gone back to the MOD I think. Maybe a million or so would loosen their grip..

Working for nowt you are welcome in your local dive shop or at your branch..

Best wishes with your existing career!
Chris.

[Tom Brookes]

Ive got one question.

Do you enjoy diving, looking around wrecks & reefs etc. the thrill of being weightless & carefree under water.

If the answer is yes, then just dive for pleasure & do not even go down the earning money or teaching diving.
You will spend most of your time leading groups of divers around the same rocks day in day out which is great for the first 300 times (ask yourself if every day all you did was to lead say 4 people on a walk from your house and around the block 4 times a day, would you be happy with that.) and the rest of the time you will be teaching in a swiming pool.

We had a chap at our club who loved diving so much he trained to be a commercial diver, after working in sewers & dirty rivers for six months he packed in diving altogether.

My advice would be think hard and long because if you love diving, doing it for a living is something totally different.

[derek perry]

Paul
Having been diving for 35 years I concur with what Tom has said. I have friends who have gone into diving as a living and every one of them has ended up giving up diving for pleasure. Not one is still in our club or dives for pleasure. When I speak to them about coming out for a dive they say things like 'I can't be bothered', 'I want a rest from diving', 'I'm in the water every day.'

However, I believe there are a couple of ways of doing this if you think about it first.

1/ Become an instructor and work your way around the world, training at a different location, say every 6 months. However don't expect to be paid a fortune.
(This is something I wish I had done at 18years old, but then there weren't that many places around the world, when I started diving, to do this.
At the end of it I don't think I would have continued diving as work.)

or

2/ Find yourself on one of the discovery type trips where you are looking for wrecks or some other research. But to get on these you really need to be at the top of your profession.

If you do go for it then good luck, but don't expect to be diving for pleasure in the future as few actually do


Derek



Ive got one question.

Do you enjoy diving, looking around wrecks & reefs etc. the thrill of being weightless & carefree under water.

If the answer is yes, then just dive for pleasure & do not even go down the earning money or teaching diving.
You will spend most of your time leading groups of divers around the same rocks day in day out which is great for the first 300 times (ask yourself if every day all you did was to lead say 4 people on a walk from your house and around the block 4 times a day, would you be happy with that.) and the rest of the time you will be teaching in a swiming pool.

We had a chap at our club who loved diving so much he trained to be a commercial diver, after working in sewers & dirty rivers for six months he packed in diving altogether.

My advice would be think hard and long because if you love diving, doing it for a living is something totally different.

[Paul Vining]

Greetings of the day. I am an Ocean diver currently training to be a sport diver, looking to go up the food chain, to instruct or do speciallity courses or both. I would like to make diving a career, but have often seen messages from divers all over the world seeking work. Is there a way of making this a viable career with a stable outlook ? Are there any ways for me to do this now at this stage of my diving life ?

Any advice and guidance would be greatfully recieved...

Thanks for the advice everyone... Looks like I will have to find another way to make a life changing move !!!