DeepSea5,
As someone who is also trying to carve out some sort of retirement career involving diving, boat driving, and scuba instruction, let me offer a few thoughts about starting a job when you’re older than the age at which most people retire from it.
Although it’s pretty easy to clear the first licensing hurdle to sit for the OUPV, the only realistic way to a) accumulate the sea time to upgrade your license to allow you to drive a smal passenger vessel (>12 passengers) or to b) convince the owner of a 6-pack dive boat to trust you to captain his or her boat is to log a lot of hard time as a divemaster.
And dive boat divemaster is a job that is specifically designed to be performed by young, agile bodies.
No specific task is all that demanding, but there is an exhausting cumulative effect of all the gear you haul, set up, break down, wash off, put away; the sheer number of times you climb in or out of the boat from the dock or the water; rigging and unrigging lines and hauling the anchor on boats that don’t have windlasses; helping, coaxing, dragging, and encouraging divers; cleaning the boat afterward; and the other tasks a DM has to perform, many of which involve grappling with wet, heavy stuff.
I’m pretty fit and strong for a guy my age, but I need a recovery day after working a couple days in a row on a boat.
Once you get your OUPV and start working as a captain, you’ll find that the captain works just as hard as the DM and has the extra responsibilities of safe vessel operation, superintending every aspect of the dive operation, and doing any other work needing to be done because the DM can be in only one place in a time.
I already have the sea time I need for the 100 ton license, and I’m still having second thoughts. I can’t imagine trying to accumulate 720 days as a boat DM at my age. Driving an excursion boat whose operation is less complex and whose passengers don’t require so much help and supervision may be a better answer, especially as I get a bit older. Then I could do a little teaching, an occasional DM gig, and an occasional milk run harbor tour. Enough variety to stay interested, enough money to pay for a vacation once in a while, not enough physical work to wear me out.
Best wishes,