PADI IDC Koh Tao Thailand

Author: Marcel van den Berg

8 Tips How to Choose the Best Dive School

Choosing the best dive school for you can be a tricky job given the quantity and variety of options around you. There are so many good dive schools in the world, but unfortunately, there are also many bad dive schools. So how do we go about choosing the best dive school? And how can we get the best diving course and the best diving experience? Here are 8 top tips in making the right choice of dive school.

Tip 1: Check Online for the Best Scuba Dive School

The future of choosing the best dive school is online research. Almost every dive school in the world has a website that explains what their dive school is all about, shows pictures of their facilities, what dive trips they offer and all the scuba diving courses they can teach you. The first step for choosing the best dive school is to get a cup of coffee, find a couch or even relax on your break in the office and start surfing the internet for some of the best dive schools out there.

Check online to find the best dive school

Tip 2: Use Google as Your Search Engine to Find the Best Dive School

Many of us use Google to look up and find most of what we seek online. Using Google to find the best dive school is by far one of the best online tools you can use to find the most relevant, active and best dive school website you are looking for.

So, what are the best words to type into the search box to find the best dive school? I recommend typing these (just copy and paste): How to choose the best dive school, best diving school, best Dive Instructor, how to avoid bad Diving Instructors, best dive school on Koh Tao (or any other location), best dive school trip advisor and so many more. You can also replace dive school with other words like: dive centre, dive shop, dive resort.

Tip 3: Read Through the Online Reviews when Choosing the Best Dive School

Checking online reviews is one of the most powerful tools there are these days especially for choosing the best dive school in the world. Online reviews give you the opinion of real people about real dive schools, Divemasters and Diving Instructors. There are many online review sites to choose from, but the top sites for choosing the best dive schools are: TripAdvisor, Facebook, Google+ and Rate Your Dive.

The down side of these, of course is that everyone has their opinion, which means that bad customers can also leave bad reviews out of spite. My tip is to look at the difference between good and bad reviews and if the majority (more then 95%) are good then you are probably looking at one of the best dive schools available there.

Tip 4: How to Choose the Best Dive Location or Site in the World

Choosing the best dive school is very important, but there are so many good dive schools in the world. Before you even try to look for a good dive school it is important to choose the best location in the world to learn how to scuba dive.

Koh Tao – One of the most popular locations in the world to learn how to scuba dive

To find the best location and dive site for you to learn how to scuba dive depends really on how and what you want to learn to get the best out of your scuba diving experience. First you need to ask yourself some questions like: where would I like to scuba dive? Do I want to learn how to scuba dive in fresh or salt water? Do I want to do a short intense diving course or a longer more relaxed diving course? Do I like to be in cold water, temperate water or warm tropical water?

Some people argue it is best to learn how to scuba dive in the hardest conditions possible with scuba diving courses lasting up to 6 weeks in length, while others say that it is much better and easier to first learn how to scuba dive in calm warm tropical waters with the Diving Instructor just focusing on diving so you can easily learn the initial steps of scuba diving in only 4 or 5 days. I think that this depends on the diving student, the teaching capabilities of the Diving Instructor and the dive school in question. Anyway, the best dive schools will always make sure that you will become the best scuba diver possible.

Tip 5: Check Different Websites

With so many great dive schools around, it is very important to check and compare different websites. A couple of the things you want to look for are how the website is structured and how user-friendly it is to navigate. You also want to look for any pictures, a gallery and any YouTube videos that really show their dive school in action. You also want to look for the font they use and the general colours, general quality and any flaws on the website as it usually represents their business and management attitude towards the dive school and your training.

Tip 6: Shop Around to Find the Best Dive School

One of the problems these days is that although a good-looking website often indicates a well-run business (see above), some scuba diving schools’ websites can look artificially great because they just used nice (sometimes fake or “borrowed”) pictures or they hired a Website and Search Engine Optimization guru to not only make their website look fantastic, but also to make it rank high on Google.

For this reason I highly recommend you that when you find the right dive school online you also properly check them out when you arrive and allow yourself the opportunity to shop around any other dive schools there. Sadly enough a dive school can look fantastic online, but then when you get there it looks awful – they gave you false information in order to get your booking. Again online reviews are key here and usually their Facebook page will also hold a lot of clues to the real truth.

Some of the best dive schools will have amazing facilities like the best swimming pools, the best diving equipment, the best and nicest looking classrooms and the best looking dive boats. These facilities can cost a lot of money but it usually is a sign of how much they care about their diving customers. Diving and dive resort facilities usually say a lot about the operation of a dive school.

Tip 7: Talk With Your Diving Instructor

Ask to meet your Diving Instructor when you check out the dive school. This is very important to ensure you get the right Diving Instructor for you. The Diving Instructor usually represents the dive school quite well, which means that if you meet one of the best Diving Instructors, then you are usually also at one of the best dive schools. This doesn’t work in all cases as there is still the possible fact that a few bad diving schools employs some of the best Diving Instructors and vice-versa.

A good diving instructor working for a great dive school

When you meet your Diving Instructor make sure you ask the right questions to make sure you are making the right choice. Ask questions like: How long have you been a Diving Instructor? What would happen if I get scared during the course or if I can’t equalise my ears? Tell me more about where we go diving? And why did you become a Diving Instructor?

Tip 8: Compare Different Prices to Find the Best Dive School

Getting the right price is very important as diving can be an expensive activity. But be careful not to go too cheap. Some of the best places in the world to learn how to scuba dive have a lot of dive schools operating there, so the competition can run high. High competition between dive schools sometimes leads to price wars. As much as that sounds like a great thing, it sometimes leads to cutting corners and cutting costs which leads to a much lower quality diving course.

Some of the best dive schools will have the slightly higher prices than the competition to ensure you get the best Diving Instructors and can enjoy some of the best facilities in the dive industry. As the say: “You get what you pay for”.

Conclusion:

Finding the best dive school is not always that easy as there are so many dive schools in the world to choose from. The good news is, however, that there are many good dive schools out there, some with amazing Diving Instructors working for them. Just remember to spend some time researching the best dive school and hopefully this article can help you find that “best dive school” you’re looking for.

Have you already had a fantastic experience with a dive school? Then please share it in the comments below and explain why you thought it was one of the best dive schools out there. This will help others make a more informed decision about where to go for their scuba diving holiday.

October 29, 2017
Bad Diving Instructor – How to Recognise and Avoid Them

Getting a bad Diving Instructor is the worst thing that can happen to a new scuba diver and it can mean people stop diving forever. I always say that getting a good or bad Diving Instructor is a lottery ticket. So, how do we recognise a bad Diving Instructor?

Bad Diving Instructor

You always had this dream, this dream to learn how to scuba dive. You saved money for some time, maybe watched scuba diving and underwater documentaries and then you finally take some holiday and travel to some beautiful place in the world to learn how to scuba dive!

You finally arrive at your diving destination, and now you are looking for a good dive shop with certified and experienced Diving Instructors, after some shopping around and seeing all the differences between the dive shops you find the dive shop you are looking for, one with great facilities and friendly staff. But then, when you meet your Dive Instructor who is going to teach you the Open Water Diver course, something feels off…

I have been in the dive industry now for more then a decade and I have seen some of the best, but also, some of the worst Diving Instructors around. So why, if there are such very high training organisation standards, are there still any bad Dive Instructors out there? The problem does not lay with the mayor diving organisations like PADI, SSI, RAID or other diving training organisations. All these diving organisations have the highest dive training standards to best ensure quality and safety. The biggest problem lies with the individual Dive Instructor as a person. If that Diving Instructor deviates from these high standards and does whatever her or she wants then things start going wrong quickly. Sadly enough there are many Dive Instructors who bend or break the rules and most of them have learned it from each other. Here are my personal tips how to recognise these bad Diving Instructors and hopefully avoid them.

Does a Good Dive School Guarantee You Getting a Good Diving Instructor?

A lot of people think that if you choose a good diving school you automatically get a good Diving Instructor or equally, if you choose a bad dive school that you will automatically get a bad Dive Instructor.

Bad Dive School Produces Bad Diving Instructors

It does make sense, but strangely enough there are quite a few really good dive schools that have both great Diving Instructors and also a couple of really bad Diving Instructors. The problem is that even when the dive school looks amazing with amazing facilities, a great website, location and friendly marketing, this doesn’t guarantee that they are well-managed; certainly some might not even have a manager. Even if the dive school makes some great business decisions, it doesn’t necessarily mean that they have good control over their Dive Instructors. The Diving Instructor that works there can do pretty much what they want, so you, the student, is reliant on that individual Diving Instructor’s attitude as to whether they want to be a good or bad Dive Instructor. For you that means it’s a lottery who you get, dependant on what day and time you start your diving course.

Real Smile or Fake Smile?

A lot of Diving Instructors will greet you with a smile and a handshake when you first meet them. Sometimes that is just for the first few minutes until you sign up for the scuba diving course and then the smile and customer service disappears. But even worse are those bad Dive Instructors that only smile and entertain you throughout the course. A bad Diving Instructor like this will make you feel like he or she is fantastic, but what you don’t know is that that person is braking multiple dive organisation standards and jeopardising your safety significantly. So why would a Dive Instructor do that? Only one answer: to make more money…

Greed Makes for a Bad Diving Instructor

Many people complain that the dive industry is too focussed on making more and more money. Well…every industry is trying to make money, there is nothing wrong with selling a great service; it’s how you go about making that money which is important. Training organisations like PADI, SSI, RAID, CMAS and others all like to create new divers for several reasons and one reason is indeed financial. Dive Centres, Dive Shops and Dive Schools would also like to get their investment back and make a profit, and of course individual Diving Instructors also need to make a profit to pay for their lives besides diving. One way of creating a bit more income and salary for a Dive Instructor is to encourage people to buy diving equipment and another would be for the student to continue their diving education by taking the next diving course. In many cases the Diving Instructor will be hoping to get his or her Open Water Divers to take the Advanced Course.

“How much salary does a Diving Instructor make? – Learn more here”

A good Dive Instructor, however, will not focus only on making more money, a good dive Instructor will truly care about his or her diving students. A good Diving Instructor cares first about their safety and enjoyment. Funnily enough this focus will create more success as most of these diving students will want to stay and do more diving courses with that Instructor. A bad Dive Instructor is only focussed on making money and that greed almost always takes over. Most bad Diving Instructors have found out that if they smile and entertain diving students to make them happy they are more likely to get them to do the next diving course when really they should be focussing on safety and comfort and following their industry standards. Most of the time a bad Diving Instructor will oversell and push people to do more, resulting in less continuing education. They forget that nobody wants to spend time listening to a salesperson.

Know Your Own Diving Course Standards

The biggest problem with bad Dive Instructors is them breaking their dive organisation’s “standards”. On all diving courses you need to learn and perform certain tasks and skills in order to receive your diving certification. For example you need complete theory sections from your diving manual, perform certain diving skills in the pool or in confined open water and you will also need to perform diving skills during real open water dives. All training organisations have come up with a list of performance requirements that ensures the highest level of safety whilst you complete these skills happily and within your comfort-zone.

To complete these performance requirements does take time and they are not always fun (usually, but not always). A classic bad Diving Instructor will try to skip some of these standards and performance requirements to save time so they can get to the bar earlier or because they feel you will enjoy the diving course more if they skip the slightly harder bits, maybe thinking that will increase the chances of you doing the next diving course thus making them more money.

My tip is to do some research online or check your training organisation’s manual and make a list of the standards and performance requirements of your diving course and actually check if your Dive Instructor is actually doing them. I know this sounds crazy as you are paying a lot of money, but the dive industry is not perfect and your safety can be at risk if Diving Instructors break those all-important standards.

A Bad Diving Instructor is a Bad Leader

There are many ways to lead, some positive, some negative. For example you can be a good leader that leads by example or a bad leader that leads by creating fear. You can quickly recognise a good or bad Diving Instructor by how he or she treats and leads their Divemasters and Dive Instructor Interns (people who are assisting on the course). Most Diving Instructors will have an assistant during your diving course and seeing how your Dive Instructor treats them says a lot about if him or her.

Some scuba Instructors will be very nice to you as a diving student, but will treat their Divemaster(s) really badly. We seen many bad Diving Instructors treat their Divemasters like slaves by making them carry all the scuba tanks, wash all the dive equipment, pack all the diving bags and do any other crappy job that the bad Diving Instructor thinks they are “too good” to do. Now I am not saying that Divemasters should not carry tanks or wash and pack bags, I am saying that a good Diving Instructor will help the Divemaster with those jobs to save time and reduce workload. Bad Diving Instructors are usually very bad leaders.

Bad Diving Skills and Fast Swimming

Some Dive Instructors are great on land but really bad underwater. Usually bad Diving Instructors do not have bad diving skills because of ability; they usually have bad diving skills because they just don’t care about becoming better, the environment or their diving students.

A bad Dive Instructor will have their students perform their diving skills in inappropriate and sometimes dangerous areas just to save time, areas that are too deep, have no clear ascent and have potentially dangerous aquatic life nearby. A bad Diving Instructor will often stir up sand and damage coral and marine life, as he or she does not care about the underwater world. But one of the most frustrating things for dive students is a Diving Instructor that swims too fast. This can cause overexertion and even hypercapnia (too much CO2) and certainly will mean you miss out of seeing all the beautiful marine life on the way. Even if a Diving Instructor does care about showing marine life they will often swim fast in order to find a turtle or shark, whilst forgetting that it is a completely new world for you as a diving student and there are hundreds of fantastic marine species all around you. I can already tell you that some micro (small) stuff can be even cooler than a turtle if you just go slowly and look for details. Bad Dive Instructors lack knowledge of this or, again, just don’t care.

Bad Diving Instructor leading students in Swim thoughts, caverns and caves

How to Avoid a Bad Diving Instructor?

Research is key and these days you can find tons or reviews online. I recommend TripAdvisor, the dive shop’s Facebook business page and of course YouTube. Chat with the Dive Instructor on arrival and ask him or her what would happen if you got nervous during the diving course. Look for how the Diving Instructor is dressed and evaluate their attitude. We can all easily recognise if a smile is real or fake. Look for how the Diving Instructor behaves whilst doing the paper work, especially the medical statement. Check the standards and performance requirements of your course and see if they are doing them all.

Conclusion

The Dive Industry (like any other industry) is not perfect and there are many great but also some not so good Diving Instructors out there. Hopefully this article will help you with what to look for so you can recognise if you’ve got a bad Diving Instructor on your hands. And most importantly, don’t forget to write a review after the completion of your diving course to give compliments to good Diving Instructors and to make sure that the bad Diving Instructors will either change or not get work in future. In the worst cases you can also report them to the dive-training organisation they represent.

Are you a recreational diver or a Divemaster that is looking to become a Diving Instructor and you want to learn how to become not only a good Diving Instructor, but a fantastic Diving Instructor? Then why don’t you contact Sairee Cottage Diving PADI 5 Star IDC Centre and ask about our high quality PADI Instructor Development Course (IDC) we teach on Koh Tao, Thailand.

October 22, 2017
Becoming a Master Scuba Diving Instructor turned my life upside down

I grew up in a little town in the western part of Austria surrounded by mountains and snow. Never did I dream of becoming a Master Scuba Diving Instructor! After completing my law degree and working in that field I needed some time out so I decided to go on a round the world trip and, like most people became mesmerised by the lifestyle people were leading.

Like many backpackers I did my open water course during my travels around Southeast Asia (for me it was the start of an around the world trip). Koh Tao was the place to do it I was told, so I ended up spending a few days in this little Thai Paradise before I moved on with my certification card. Only after a few weeks when people were asking me what I had done so far during my travels I realised what an important role this diving course played for me.

As time went by I forgot about my underwater experience and ended up teaching in a bilingual school in Honduras far away from the coast for some time before moving to Australia where I was surrounded by water again. After some fun diving in Indonesia I knew I had to go back to Ko Tao to continue my education during the next holiday. The place I chose was Sairee Cottage Diving as I heard from many friends that it was by far the most professional run dive company on the island. So I finished my Advanced and Rescue Course there with two very passionate instructors (Gordon and Bobby).

When I came back home I was determined to take the big step into an unknown future by becoming a professional Diver. So I saved some money, put my life into a box and booked my one way ticket to Ko Tao.

My Divemaster Course at Sairee Cottage started off with forty fun-dives followed by many course assists, interesting theory and pool training sessions with my Divemaster Candidate Mentors Jessie and Gaz. Sairee Cottage expects a lot more training from you than other schools therefore I was very well prepared to get into my Instructor Development Course straight after becoming a Divemaster.

My IDC was conducted by PADI Platinum Course Director Marcel van den Berg and two Staff Instructors (Flavius Sleutelaar and Shannon Durrant). My Course colleagues and I couldn’t have been in better hands with this dream team. They went way beyond what was expected of them and looked like proud parents saying goodbye to their children when we went to our Instructor Exams.

Becoming a Master Scuba Diving Instructor

My Divemaster, IDC and MSDT Course at Sairee Cottage on Koh Tao were influenced by beautiful friends I met along the way. I will also never forget my mentors. It was the little things that made me feel so comfortable and welcome there. Being in the water for me is like being free; it is pure happiness and joy and I will make it my mission to show others.

When people tell me how brave I am I often laugh. Whoever raises a family and pays off a mortgage is brave in my eyes. I swapped my courtroom for a long tail boat my suit for a bikini and my car for my little motorbike that gets up any steep hill. I am doing what I love and want to prove that everyone can do that.

If you have any questions on becoming a Master Scuba Diving Instructor then don’t hesitate to leave a reply here or contact me (feel free to write it in German if that’s easier for you) on sprenger.maria@gmail.com

Become a Dive Instructor in Thailand at one of the best dive schools in Asia and get your PADI Instructor certification after completing your PADI IDC program. Thinking of becoming a Master Scuba Diving Instructor? Take the MSDT Internship at Sairee Cottage Diving. This is an eco friendly IDC program including free environmental lectures on topics such as ProjectAWARE and CoralWatch. Watch dive instructor videos on our YouTube channel.

May 4, 2016
PADI MSDT Another Level!

Diving has always been a passion of mine. I first started diving in 2003 when I did my open water course on Great Keppel Island in Queensland. Back then it was just a hobby, it wasn’t until 8 years later that I decided this was to be more than just a hobby, and it was something I wanted to make a career out of. The PADI MSDT program at Sairee Cottage Diving prepared me for the real world in dive instructing.

I did my IDC in Perth in 2011 and that is where my Diving Instructor career began. As soon as I finished my IDC, I was hired straight away by a live aboard dive charter over in the beautiful Whitsundays, Queensland. I spent a few years working on the live aboards, as much as I loved my job, I was only teaching DSDs and leading certified divers, as opposed to teaching courses, which was what I really wanted to do. After a while and a bit of a break to complete a university degree, it was time to pack my bags and travel. I ended up in Thailand in Koh Samui as this is where my mother lives, and my sister came over too to have her wedding on Koh Samui.

PADI MSDT course taken to another level!

After a few months, as much as I was enjoying the family time, I knew it was time to get back in the water. I really wanted to get back to teaching, but even though I had been a Diving Instructor for 4 years, I never had the opportunity to teach full courses. So I decided that the best thing for me to do would be to do my PADI Master Scuba Diver Trainer (PADI MSDT) and an internship to refresh old skills and learn some new ones. I knew my destination was to be the beautiful Koh Tao. At first it was over whelming as there are so many dive schools on Koh Tao, but I got onto Google and started researching. After about a week of research and phone calls, I found the spot that looked perfect for me, Sairee Cottage Diving.

I spoke to PADI Course Director Marcel Van Den Berg on the phone and he was extremely helpful and friendly, and I knew I made the right choice. The PADI MSDT program was a lot of fun. It consisted of 6 days of learning all the specialties, Marcel even gives you the option to select up to 10 specialties! We had a day dedicated to Eco awareness and did a massive beach clean-up. The final day was dedicated to job placement as well as resume building, to ensure we would all be ready to work on completion.

Marcel was very supportive and a lot of fun to learn from. Once I completed the 6 day program, I went straight into the 6 week dive internship. The dive instructor internship was extremely helpful as it let me team teach and assist senior dive instructors on a number of courses. This was excellent to learn and to build my certifications. I have had a lot of fun on my PADI MSDT on Koh Tao and on the MSDT internship on Koh Tao, I have learned a lot and made lots of new friends, plus the diving has been amazing on Koh Tao!

Krisztina Balazs
PADI Master Scuba Diver Trainer

At Sairee Cottage Diving we take the MSDT course to another level, adding extra dives, lectures and real life experiences. At Sairee Cottage Diving we also truly care about your future and we will do anything to help you get a job in diving as a PADI Dive Instructor during our Diving Job Placement day. Please leave your comments here with questions about our MSDT program in Thailand with Sairee Cottage Diving or if you want to share your experience with your MSDT program.

Become a Dive Instructor in Thailand at one of the best dive schools in Asia and get your PADI Instructor certification after completing your PADI IDC program. Prepare for the real world by taking the MSDT Internship at Sairee Cottage Diving. This is an eco friendly IDC program including free environmental lectures on topics such as ProjectAWARE and CoralWatch. Watch dive instructor videos on our YouTube channel.

March 10, 2016
Eco Education on Koh Tao – Taking it to the next level

Marine eco education should be a part of any professional dive training. Before coming to Sairee Cottage Diving, during my PADI Divemaster and IDC Course, I was blown away by the lack of ProjectAWARE promotion in other dive centers. This was not because PADI didn’t promote it, but more due to the amount of working Divemasters and Instructors that didn’t care about putting effort into eco education. This resulted in students not caring about the marine environment.

A few PADI Instructors inspired me during all my dive training from PADI Open Water Diver to PADI Dive Instructor. These PADI Dive professionals on Koh Tao went above and beyond. They taught me how to dive safely. They had a passion for eco education and marine conservation. They inspired others to care for our oceans.

This is why we have created a unique ProjectAWARE eco lecture to teach the Sairee Cottage Diving Divemasters and IDC Candidates about ProjectAWARE, Shark Conservation and Marine Debris. We teach them how to inspire fun divers and students How can they be a part in protecting our oceans.

Marine Eco Education at Sairee Cottage Diving

This ProjectAWARE eco lecture was such a huge success that we realised a follow up was needed. We needed to explain how to organize ProjectAWARE eco projects in an easy way. How to use social networking, the ProjectAWARE website, and the CoralWatch website in an effective way. This is why we created a “How to organize an Eco Day” during the MSDT course at Sairee Cottage Diving. This environmental day is not only for our Master Scuba Diver Trainer candidates, but open to all staff and DMTs.

The first part of the Day starts with a lecture in the classroom. In the afternoon, we schedule different practical ProjectAWARE eco projects. The lecture covers how to use the power of social media to promote your eco projects. There are many different social network pages we can use. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and My Ocean from ProjectAWARE for example. Sharing and supporting marine conservation related material allows anyone to help with marine conservation and education.

We also teach our Divemasters and Dive Instructors on Koh Tao about how to use the ProjectAWARE website effectively. Especially with the rise of smartphones and tablets it is much easier now to show students these tools without wasting time.

We finished the lecture by teaching them about coral bleaching and how to use CoralWatch. CoralWatch is a simple, non-invasive method to assess and monitor coral reef health with respect to coral bleaching. The CoralWatch method uses a Coral Health Chart with a series of colors that volunteers match with actual coral color to determine different stages of coral bleaching and recovery. Coral bleaching is the whitening of coral due to a loss of symbiotic algae living within the coral tissue. In healthy coral, algae supplies energy and provide color. During bleaching events, coral expels the algae from their tissue which changes the color of the coral. As coral expels more algae the coral becomes lighter in color. Monitoring is most effective over months and even years. With divers and snorkelers regularly visiting sites, scientists at the University of Queensland, Australia, will be able to answer questions such as how long it takes for reefs to recover from bleaching and if the health of the reef declines over a certain number of bleaching events?

During the second part of the day we like to concentrate on organizing the practical eco projects. One team performs a CoralWatch analysis. One team does beach clean ups around the Island. This shows our Divemaster and Instructor candidates that it is important to perform these projects besides organising them.

This is only a start. The more eco friendly projects we create the more ideas can form. Please comment on this post if you have eco ideas to share. We would love to add them to our eco programs at Sairee Cottage Diving on Koh Tao in Thailand.

March 1, 2016
I never liked water, now I’m a working Diving Instructor

I’ve never liked the water. I’ve never really liked the beach, or the sun. It was messy, wet, and just too hot. Can you believe I am now a working Diving Instructor? Coming from Melbourne I wore black all day, every day, and rode my black vintage bike to and from my advertising job in the city. It was a good life; I had a good job, a nice apartment, and Melbourne is a place where there is something happening all the time.

After a while however, I felt like I wanted to experience more than just the standard grind of working weekdays (and weekends!) with only four weeks of annual leave a year to explore places outside of Melbourne! I never in a million years thought that I would ever be a working Diving Instructor though. That was when I decided to quit, sell everything (except for a small box I left with my parents), and move to London to further expand on my advertising career. I also had this small plan of traveling around South-East Asia for a few months before embarking on this new adventure in this new and exciting city.

Can you believe I am now a working Diving Instructor?

That small, tiny, minute idea of exploring SE Asia before moving to London became a whole lot more very quickly. Two weeks in each country became four weeks, and then two months, quickly making my initial three month South East Asian journey into a year saga. I also randomly stumbled upon a small island called Koh Tao, off the east coast of Thailand. My boyfriend convinced me to try scuba diving, despite my fear of water, and my hatred of sandy bottoms, and we walked around Koh Tao with the intention to find out more information about diving. We got some great information from a certain dive shop and tentatively said we might be back, and then we came across Sairee Cottage Diving. That unfortunately, and fortunately, changed everything. We were so taken in with the staff who greeted us, that we signed up there and then for our Open Water Course. It was an amazing experience, and my greatest personal achievement up to that point considering my fear of water, and the open ocean. I will confess that I panicked the first time I went underwater doing skills in the shallow end, but the Divemaster (thanks Shaun Cleary!) who was assisting the instructor stared into my eyes intensely and calmed me down completely just using his eyes. After that experience I was completely sold. From Open Water, I went straight into the Advanced Open Water Course (reasoning that I would be a better, more experienced diver), and then continued traveling for a few months. After our visas were expired, and we were done with living out of a 25L backpack, my boyfriend and I had to make a decision of whether we wanted to continue on with our plan of moving to this big, busy city, or *shock horror* maybe, just maybe, pursue this new thing we had both really enjoyed which involved strapping ourselves into this jacket contraption, breathing compressed air, and wearing flippers on our feet. We chose the flippers.

We went back to Thailand, back to Koh Tao, and back to Sairee Cottage Diving, and proceeded to complete our Dive Master Training (DMT) over a few months. Never did I think I would become a working Diving Instructor in Thailand! In that time we met some people who have become very firm friends and mentors. After completing the DMT program (another record personal achievement!), I worked for a few months as a DiveMaster for Sairee Cottage Diving, before starting work as their Videographer. I loved this job, diving on the morning boat (the best time to dive in my opinion!), filming Open Water students, and editing in the afternoon. The evenings were fun too, where I would screen the film of the students, hope they would buy a copy or two, and have some drinks and dinner with the newly certified students!

Video work was very fun as I was able to witness and record the students as they came out of the water as a certified diver. As cheesy as it sounds, it would bring me back to the time when I came out of the water as a certified diver and how happy I felt at the time. After a year and a half however, I did start to feel envious of the instructors who would actually be able to teach, and see the progression of their students from being non-divers to certified Open Water divers. That was when I decided to do one more thing. My Instructor Development Course (IDC).

I signed up for my IDC with Sairee Cottage Diving, and it was a nice group of five people. It was two weeks of skills circuits, lectures, exams, and practical exercises (all of which are more exciting than it sounds!), but I wanted to do all of this and more as I wanted to become a great instructor, and not just someone who passed the Instructor Exam. The program was a great mix of exam related exercises, and real life examples that Course Director, Marcel van den Berg brought from his experience as a senior instructor. We also had great input from Flavius Sleutelaar, an instructor who paved the way for many Koh Taoians with over 20 years experience, and Shannon Durrant, a newly minted instructor with experience in technical diving.

Long story short, I’ve now passed my Instructor Exam (IE), am a specialty instructor, and about to start my internship with Sairee Cottage Diving. And I can’t wait!

February 12, 2016
Eco Day Clean Up on Koh Tao with IDC and Divemaster Candidates

Eco Day Clean Up on Koh Tao with IDC and Divemaster candidates from Sairee Cottage Diving and Roctopus Dive centers – It’s all about working together!

Sairee Cottage Diving, together with Roctopus dive center, had a successful Eco Conversation day on Koh Tao, Thailand. In support of both ProjectAWARE and Mission Deep Blue, the two dive centers spearheaded three Eco Day projects on the island so far. With a lot of Dive Instructors and Divemasters on Koh Tao we tackled a beach clean up, Coral Watch survey, and a reef clean up. Koh Tao, which means Turtle Island in Thai, is home to some of the most vibrant marine life in Thailand. As divers we believe we have an obligation to keep our oceans clean from plastics and other waste. The teams consisted of IDC and MSDT candidates, Dive Instructors, and many other divers who have a passion for ECO Conservation on Koh Tao.

Eco Day – Successful Reef Clean Up

Project AWARE is a nonprofit organization that works with millions of volunteer scuba divers around the globe to mobilize efforts in beach and reef cleaning, coral monitoring, and other eco conservation activities. In 2011, Project AWARE turned its focus on actively removing marine debris that encourages divers to remove trash from waterways globally.

Both dive centers were split into three teams. Beach cleanup had several members walk along Sairee Beach picking up plastic bottles, straws, bags, and other waste that is detrimental to marine and local life on the island. They used eco friendly waste bags while sporting their green Eco Day T-shirts that created a buzz about eco conservation among the locals and tourists on the island. The second group worked with Coral Watch, a global system to monitor coral reefs by recording coral bleaching in the area. The Coral Health Chart was used in order to record the health of the coral in Hin Wong Bay. This chart is widely used by dive centers, scientists, school groups, and tourists globally to help scientists in their research on global patterns. The final part of the eco conservation day was the reef clean up. Both Sairee Cottage Diving and Roctopus divers split into teams and cleaned Hin Wong Bay. We used mesh bags to collect trash. Debris we found included tires, a spear gun, hundreds of plastic bags, bottles, even high heels! Some divers got to see a turtle on their eco day clean up dive!

By the end of the day Sairee Cottage Diving and Roctopus dive center had collected several dozen garbage bags. We left Koh Tao looking better than ever and celebrated with a dip in the pool. To find out more on eco conservation on Koh Tao, please visit Sairee Cottage Diving or Roctopus dive center.

December 22, 2015