I'm a Rescue Diver!! Now what?!

Hurrah, hurrah! Got certified as a rescue diver today...finally I can stop chewing my nails and dreading any of the staff members in the LDS going anywhere near the water, for fear they may jump in and suddenly become a panicked and then unresponsive diver!! :p

So, my next question relates to what now... My Instructor has suggested doing a DM internship: Staggered course fees, free dives and working there at the weekends.

What is the opinion on DM internships like this... am I moving too fast? Not sure whether I'm going to miss out on enjoying the fun dives just for me or to just jump straight in (so to speak);)

Nat
Tower extraordinaire :-)

Save me! I am not underwater and I am drying up!

:D

Congrats!

BTW the dives aren't really free.

You're paying for the DM course + you'll be schelpping tanks and rinsing "previously loved" wetsuits for the next 6 months ;)

Congrats from me too, that is a great accomplishment. A very responsible thing for you to do, taking your rescue certification ... ;)

Yeh, DM Internship = work for free, but then again, if you love the sport and love being around it, it is a great way to learn and be involved. It can be very rewarding too.

Congrats on getting your Rescue cert.

It is a good thing to get rescue certified. I wish we all could be rescue certified.
DM is a good thing to.. If at a minimum the knowledge you will gain by it.
I say go for it.

Thanks everyone:)

Papa Bear, I could not live with myself if I didn't assist you, so I am throwing you a life saving BCD and shouting "Diver, diver, partially inflate your BCD and jump in".

I had an open water student ask me the other day about safety on entering the water. I sat him down and said tell me why, for safety, when entering the water from a boat we hold our masks and regs in place and hold our SPG and touch fastener in the other whilst rolling backwards. He went on to explain all of the reasons for quite some time.... At the end I just shook my head and said "no, no, no...because if you rolled forward you'd hit the deck".

Haha (well, I laughed - he just looked confused)... Maybe I should just stick to diving for fun, but I think I am going to start my DM course.

Thanks for the advice and support!

N

Get some experience! The best teacher is experience. It can not be replaced, or sped up. To enter into a leadership program (and cert.) with minimal experience shortchanges every one, especially yourself.

It would be my advise to seek advanced courses, and not the PADI bouyancy plus crap either. Do the wreck, deep, etc. type courses. They will expose you to different aspects of diving and expand your horizons.

The other thing about leadership courses, they start to take away from the total joy of diving. Dive for fun for a while, before you become a slave to the sport.

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Originally Posted by amtrosie

Get some experience! The best teacher is experience. It can not be replaced, or sped up. To enter into a leadership program (and cert.) with minimal experience shortchanges every one, especially yourself.

It would be my advise to seek advanced courses, and not the PADI bouyancy plus crap either. Do the wreck, deep, etc. type courses. They will expose you to different aspects of diving and expand your horizons.

The other thing about leadership courses, they start to take away from the total joy of diving. Dive for fun for a while, before you become a slave to the sport.

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Very well put! Ditto!

Congrats on getting through Rescue, an accomplishment that should be recognised and applauded by all.

I agree with "amtrosie", no substitute for experience so get in the water as often as possible, in as many ways as possible and as many places as possible. Don't forget to keep having fun along the way!

As for the next step ....... some thoughts to consider. If you intend to work in the dive industry, you will need to take the next rung along the professional ladder and that would, logically, be Divemaster (in PADI terms) or the equivalent through one of the other agencies. If you don't intend to work in diving, just get in the water and enjoy it. Take aother classes to gain experience and become a better diver, but there is no need to go the "Pro" route unless you intend to work in the industry. However, be sure that if you start working classes, go through any sort of internship and take that next step, that your passion does not become a chore. Make sure that you find ways to keep the enthusiasm up, even on those cold mornings when you're chasing students around a parking lot trying to get the geared up and in the water.

Also, there may be some additional costs to be considered, e.g. professional liability insurance. And don't forget the reason you take out that insurance is that you are now facing that potential for professional liability.

Don't want to sound like I'm raining on the parade, I went the DM route a few years ago and don't regret it for a second. I thoroughly enjoy passing on my love for the sport to others and helping them to see a little of what I get out of it. I work classes regularly and enjoy it and feel I get a lot out of it as well. I do sometimes wonder what I'm doing at the bottom of a murky lake in Texas in February, but I keep coming back for more.

Just want to be sure you're doing it because you really want to and not just to get the badge or because someone else is pushing you down that route. That, in my view, would be a waste of your time and money.

If you choose the DM path, I say "good for you" throw yourself into it wholeheartedly.

Congratulations on passing the rescue course, one of my favourites :)

I'd say go with the DM internship course, but don't rush to get the cert, take your time, enjoy it and make the most of it, and the free dives on offer!! (took me three and a half years to get through mine, but that's another story, and possibly a tad too long! :)).

As AmtRosie says, the best teacher is experience, but this is what the internship course provides you with, and lots of. You'll be bolstering your diving knowledge with the academics, and gaining broad and general diving experience with the help you provide, both in the store and in the water. And of course, you don't have to take the next step to instructor afterwards.

One thing I would recommend, buy yourself a copy of the PADI Instructors Manual, make sure you are fully conversant with the standards, the tasks you are allowed to perform as a DM in Training. It's your own responsibility to ensure that you don't break PADI standards, you could be taken to task personally if you do.... it's not unknown for instructors to try and bend the rules a bit, if you do get a badun, their methods may also implicate you.

Hey,

Just wanted to say a big thanks for everyone's support and advice. I actually feel very proud :o.

Diving has become a real passion and I'm so eager to learn more skills and gain experience that I'm really drawn to the DM route (and let's face it, the free diving too;) ). I'm looking to have the option at least of working in the industry.

The biggest surprise for me about it all, and especially my friends here, is my new found discipline for not drinking the bar dry and then asking the club bouncer can we all just have one more before they turn the lights off:D ... Think that's when they knew they'd lost me to the sport!!

Do I need insurance as a DMT? I'm with DAN but to be honest I've not had a chance to sit and chat to my Instructor about all of the nitty gritty of it all.

Natalie

Good for you, go for it!
Check with your instructor/shop or PADI to be sure, but I think while you are in training you should be covered by their insurance. DAN is for your own health, we are talking about liability here, very different. If someone has some sort of incident and gets injured or worse, who will they or their family be coming to with law suit in hand? As far as I know, PADI are still using Vincencia & Buckley, but I am sure there are other companies who provide similar coverage. In my case, I do not work as a Divemaster at a resort or on a dive boat, just in the pool and open water training. As such the insurance coverage I have chosen is limited to that and I seem to recall costs $200 or $300 a year. Some dive operations may cover you under their policy or offer to pay your premiums as part of their agreement for you to help with their classes. Its worth asking!
As was said earlier, check with the instructor manual as to what you are allowed to do while in training and then as a certified Divemaster. In some cases, the insurance coverage will only cover you if you can show you kept within the standards.
Enough of the scary stuff, look on the bright side, you are about to undertake an arduous but extremely rewarding journey. Throw yourself in and enjoy it, you'll have a lot of fun and learn a huge amount along the way. It'll make you a better diver and give you potential employment options should you choose to go that route.
Good luck.

[QUOTE=bottlefish;12245]

but this is what the internship course provides you with, and lots of. You'll be bolstering your diving knowledge with the academics, and gaining broad and general diving experience with the help you provide, both in the store and in the water. And of course, you don't have to take the next step to instructor afterwards.

QUOTE]


I disagree with assertion of an internship being the best option. The reason being simply that as interns you will be doing what no one else wants to do. The old "bottom of the totem pole" syndrome. You will never see the varied diving that bottlefish thinks. Virtually all the diving that is done is done at the introductory level, that is where the little bit of money is at. The other avenues of diving that are more interesting are going to be supervised by the more experienced staff. Why? Simple, it is the interesting dives for them too and they will jump at the opportunity to do them. Guess who doesn't get those dive?

So, my advise is to steer clear of the leadership courses and do the advanced diving courses and dives.

Definitely get your own liability insurance in place, it is for your own protection, don't rely on the Dive Centres. If you have insurance with DAN Europe, you can upgrade this to include Professional Liability Insurance, the cost is minimal (DAN Europe differs from DAN USA, it's not just for health).

Amtrose raises a valid point, some Dive Centres and/or instructors use their DMTs as scivvies. It's not always the case, sounds as though you know this centre and staff pretty well, so hopefully you will be OK. But do, bear in mind that you are paying for the course and want to get the most out of it, I'm sure you wont need to be don't be shy of reminding people about that :)

There's certainly no reason why your activities should be constrained to the introductory level though - as a Dive Master Trainee you are not qualified or certfifed to supervise students on your own, there always has to be an instructor present. So you basically get to shadow the instructor and the courses they run.

NAT,
There are both positive and negative aspects to the Internship route. In my experience it has been best to get these kind of arrangements spelled out in a fair amount of detail (so that there are no misunderstandings or hurt feelings later). If you are going through a Dive Center, make sure you establish what type of discount you will receive as a DM Candidate/Intern and exactly what you will be expected to pay out of pocket during training events.

I have been in and around this business for a long time, and as an instructor it is great to have an enthusiastic/energetic DM Candidate. I believe that in your situation (being in UAE) it could be a pretty good deal. During my 5 years on Guam, I had numerous folks go through an internship as diving was one of the few really enjoyable things most people could or wanted to do out side in the tropical climate. You should expect a lot of hard work/physical labor, but someone’s got to do it. What is the cost of the course?


I will have to disagree w/ the other esteemed board member on the insurance issue, IMHO there is really no need to get liability insurance until you are a certified DM. I base that on the fact that you cannot be a professional member of PADI until you are certified as a DM and your instructor is covered for all the instruction he is providing to other students.

Hope this helps.

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Originally Posted by SCUBA411

I will have to disagree w/ the other esteemed board member on the insurance issue, IMHO there is really no need to get liability insurance until you are a certified DM. I base that on the fact that you cannot be a professional member of PADI until you are certified as a DM and your instructor is covered for all the instruction he is providing to other students.

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Who could be held liable and under what circumstances would be defined by local law... however SCUBA has a good point, and worth checking. But if you are not sure, then IMHO I'd suggest getting it anyway - upgrade from basic to basic with liability insurance is £48 through DAN Europe, so it's not going to break the bank.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by amtrosie

It would be my advise to seek advanced courses, and not the PADI bouyancy plus crap either. Do the wreck, deep, etc. type courses. They will expose you to different aspects of diving and expand your horizons.

The other thing about leadership courses, they start to take away from the total joy of diving. Dive for fun for a while, before you become a slave to the sport.

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i dont mean to deviate from the main subject but i think its somewhat related and need some tips.

im planning to do the rescue diver cert. then followed by dm just like NAT and maybe instructor. i'm new to the sport and have about fifty dives.

your advise about advanced course got my attention and was wondering whether its worth doing the wreck, deep, nitrox, night, maybe also go tec. instead of becoming an instructor.

i dont intend to take diving as a profession, whether instructor or tech, but purely for the sake of adventure and knowledge.
although, becoming and instructor could greatly increase my diving skills and confidence, i dont have the patience it takes to teachothers, on the otherhand, i am confident and have the ability to issure that the guys with me stay safe and away from danger.

so, help me out here :)

In my view, getting the rescue certification does make you look at diving, divers and dive operators differently and is well worth the money and effort. Beyond that, to go the dive professional route is entirely a personal decision, but if you don't intend to take it up as a profession, I would suggest going the specialty course and broad experience route first.

Taking classes such as deep, nitrox, wreck, night etc. are all things I believe you should be competent and confident in before considering the professional route anyway. To go further with tech diving is, again, a personal decision but will no doubt expand your diving skill sets even further. I haven't gone the tech route and I know there is some great diving I am missing out on because of that.

I'd get the experience under your weight belt first, if you then like the idea of turning pro, or just taking that route for additional knowledge, you will find the divemaster and instructor process easier based on your experience.

Good luck whichever way you go.

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Originally Posted by kaa005

......i'm new to the sport and have about fifty dives.

...its worth doing the wreck, deep, nitrox, night, maybe also go tec. instead of becoming an instructor.

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I feel and I am sure most will agree that you are planning way too far in advance. Of course you can have goals and dreams, but you should take your diving one step at a time. You really don't have much of a choice anyway, basically after your 1st scuba class the next step will be the Advanced class, then after that the next step is Rescue Diver, and then things start to open up depending on your intended direction. Most of the others you talked about; deep, wreck, night, navigation, etc. are all electives. Basically they are just a small intro into the subject, but not full training in any way. The nitrox training is somewhere in between, as you don't need it to progress from basic scuba to advanced, or to rescue or even DM, but you most likely will want to take it at some point.

Bottom line, by the time you actually have a choice in classes (besides electives) you will already have enough scuba knowledge to make your own educated decision.

As far as the electives, take whatever you are interested in, and remember they are only a small introduction to the subject!

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Originally Posted by acelockco

I feel and I am sure most will agree that you are planning way too far in advance.

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i agree with you too, i've already done the advanced, and although i dont carry much diving experience i feel very comfortable in the water, because ive been around water all my life. ive dived/ snorkelled/ freedived in many different conditions and faced obsticles here and there, but i've made it through. and just like you pointed out, that alone is experience.

Down here in bahrain, sea conditions arent as extreme as some other areas, and the marine life is not as diverse and dangerous, either. the dives i have done are mainly new areas which havent been explored before. ( stupid move i guess, but still very well calculated :D ).

with that in mind, i have diverted to spearfishing. since there's not much to see or do, might as well spearfish!

and that is why i'm planning way ahead. i know there is a lot to see out there, and compared to alot of you, my experience in close to nil. but thats the fun of it, i get to learn from you guys. and the next time i make a move, i have your advice ( and others') to consider.

thanks guys