Charlie found the ideal job in his gap year - teaching PADI courses in Australia.

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Becoming a Divemaster What do you do? Charlie is the name, just 21 and freshly graduated from uni. Like others, I decided to put off joining the real world and travel instead - I mean truly travel, not take short holidays. However, to do so I needed cash. Like everyone else, I scrimped and saved all I could, held firm by the dream of travelling through South East Asia and on to Australia as a backpacker with a one year working visa. Research on the net had highlighted jobs as infamous as fruit picking or telemarketing, but if you met me, you would know I am not cut out for the office world just yet, especially if that involved selling on the phone. I would hate to find myself talking to lonely old ladies who chat for hours and buy nothing. I dismissed fruit picking more quickly! So what is it that allows travel and world-watching on a tropical beach? After much debate I looked to my parents for inspiration. They drive yachts for a living and amongst her many talents the maternal one is a dive instructor. The story so far... Having a mother who is a dive instructor and living on a yacht in the Caribbean could be called unfair advantage, but I started dipping under the crystal clear, warm waters at a very early age and quickly reached rescue diver status. After finishing university I decided to ‘go pro’ by visiting a dive shop in Southampton with plans to study as a divemaster in the UK. A thirty minute ice-cream style headache brought on by diving in the cold waters off the south coast of England quickly dismissed that idea. My brain began to warm up and I remembered hearing about Koh Tao in Thailand. Two weeks later I was on a plane along with my best mate from childhood, heading to Thailand. The PADI Divemaster course involves a healthy mix of theory and practical application over a period of five to six weeks. The course finished and I began work as a professional divemaster for a dive shop on Koh Tao, running the boat and guiding certified divers. Salary was figures that in England you wouldn’t even roll over in bed for, yet in Thailand I was able to live like a king. Visa issues and a strong desire to visit both Cambodia and Vietnam forced me to move on after a few months. After Asia I left the wats, pagodas and temples behind and flew on to the land of Oz, famous for surfing, diving and lager. Arriving in Sydney, like every other traveller fresh from Asia, I was totally shocked at the prices and quickly felt like a student again. I was both hated by the locals and broke, and no longer the rich westerner. After a brief 10 day surfing time at Manly and Bondi beaches, the call to dive moved me up to Cairns. I began to search for jobs as a divemaster, but rejection followed rejection, pointing out the need to become a dive instructor because there simply are not enough jobs for a divemaster who cannot teach diving as well. My student overdraft became maxed out as I found myself on a PADI Instructor Development Course. The 10-day course followed by a three-day instructor examination involved days of theory and confined water work and made me wonder what I was doing. I was working almost as hard as I did for finals. Surely nothing could be worth this? I was wrong, it is worth it! Now I do have the dream job, working on a live aboard dive boat, working four days on and two days off teaching PADI dive courses from Open Water Diver up to Divemaster. Perfect? Nothing is perfect but I would say it’s the closet I have ever been with any job. Pay does not reflect level of responsibility undertaken: it’s not an investment banking salary, in fact its not even McDonald’s wages, but it’s a lifestyle job. We even clean the toilets, and the way I look at it, that’s what I am paid for; I love the diving so I do that for free! So how can you do it? To become a divemaster, the first step in the professional ladder, you have to be over 18 years old and have logged 60 dives but to enroll in the course only 20 dives are required. The course involves observing and assisting instructors on classes and taking eight multiple choice exams. To become an instructor you must first be a divemaster and have 100 dives minimum and have been diving for a period over six months. It is not cheap, but there are options for those without money such as undertaking work offs which involve working for dive shops in exchange for dive courses. This is a popular choice with many backpackers; some shops even offer a small token pay per day as pocket money to help cover the day to day costs. It’s not all that hard to take the step to become a recreational diving professional and I do believe that future employers when looking at my CV will see I gained a great deal and undertook responsibility whilst on my gap year. Click here >> for Australia info Click here >> for Thailand info

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