Am I dillusional?

[marpacifica]

I was in your situation last year, sitting behind my desk in metropolis and dreaming of the next dive vacation to someplace with white sand beaches, bikinis, coconut trees, and lots of cold beer. I found it, but still kept my day job. I'm still sitting behind my desk as I write this email, but I'm a 10 minute drive from some excellent diving here, and 1-4 hours flight from other tropical dive destinations like Palau, the Philippines, the Marshall Islands, Yap, Australia, and Indonesia.

So if you don't hate your current line of work but it's the NICE aspects of diving (not the *&%# of commercial diving) that you're after, then consider just moving to a nice place with diving but keeping a day job to pay the bills and keep your S.O. happy. It's a nice compromise. I dive 4-6 times a week after work and on the weekends. Life is good.

 

[SeaJay]

DA Aquamaster once bubbled...

So....a delusion would be if you saw a dive instructor in a BMW and thought he actually owned it instead of just working a second job as a valet parking attendant to pay the rent. A hallucination would be if you saw a dive instructor in a BMW with his name on the vanity plates and a supermodel in the passenger side.

Freakin' hilarious... RavenC, my significant other, is a former Mrs. South Carolina, which is close to the "supermodel" accusation... And she looks great sitting in my BMW. My name isn't on my vanity plates (SeaJay was already taken) but I do have VROOOM on my plates.

Of course, I'm not an instructor... So I guess that dream gets popped, eh? Lol...

Hey Wile E... Do I know you from somewhere before?

ScubaScott: I wasn't in that film.

Karl: Yes, it does get old. Surprisingly quick.

You strike me as being relatively sane

Nooooooo! I'll try harder. Just kidding.

maybe just nitrogen withdrawl.

Hard to believe when I'm sucking 79% all the time, but I think you're right.

 

[sjx]

I dunno about commercial divin (sounds completely mad to me, too ) but Im workin as a lowly PADI DM at the mo and after 6 months still lovin it! Like the people, the place, the diving... Even workin with the "once a year" and "discover scuba" divers can give u a buzz - hey, its a chance to get others enthusiastic about what we all love (tho must admit I could do without the whingey ones that complain about everything and are petrified of sharks/ octopus/ cuttlefish/ rocks/ seaweed/ fish/ germs on regulators...!). To be honest it wasn't all that long ago since I was a DS myself - Im still relatively new to diving so possibly still wearing them pink-shaded specs :mean:
Besides, its the people u work with that count as much as the job itself - and in this business there's always somewhere else to move on to if u want. And as said before, it doesn't have to be a life decision. I don't plan to be doin this forever, either - can't afford to on my pay! I figure give it a couple of years and ill go back to a "proper" job... but then, I wasn't planning to work as a DM in the first place, I just got bitten by the bug!
OTOH, a certain instructor tells me that given a few more months ill hate it as much as he does (but that didn't stop him from recently starting up his own dive centre, I notice). Recommend against that if u actually want to dive, tho, unless u got a really good buddy to partner u in business - most owners do seem to be stuck behind the desk full-time...

 

[Jersey]

BTW - quite an interesting question you pose. And from this post commerical diving does not sound fun.

Doole - too funny - "For my own part, I''ve known any number of folks who have taken a perfectly rewarding hobby and turned it into a money-losing business. " You know what they told me when I wanted to get into Aviation - the best way to have a million dollars in Aviation is to start w/ 2 million.

Couple thoughts - -Get some career testing to help you determine your best areas of interest. I've been through a couple & they do shed some insight into areas that would be attractive before you go & throw it all away, only to discover the grass ain't so green. Sounds like you may have an entrapaneurial (sp?) side..

-You seem like a rational, intelligent type, so sit down & plan out the goal. Don't just say 'to dive every waking moment' there is a difference between a dream & a goal. See if you can take a sabbatical to pursue the lifestyle. One DM friend took a 6 month unpaid position w/ a shop to test his mettle.

-Start a part time business - same guy above, after the 6 month stint, founded a travel specialty company. Called, I think, Adventures for Life. He has a website, name escapes me. Does sail-scuba liveaboards, Grand Canyon Hikes and he gets to lead the small groups.

-Investigate good sources of passive income. No day-to-day work worries, more time to dive, but you still are generating income. (Unless you are in a position that income is not a source of concern.)

-Talk to those who have chucked it all. Somewhere here in sb is a thread on "A year without shoes...' or something like that, really insightful. Some days when the pressure builds, I re-read that....

- We've all thought about doing it. When I do, I remember this from one who gave it all up & is now a DM on one really small island. While talking during a SI about what we did, professionally, & liked to do recreationaly, one couple (both dentists from Long Island) talked about how they 'loved to dive'. He proceeded to tell us that we didn't love to dive, in fact if we did, we would be sitting in HIS seat right now, an ex-military, ex-pat American who gave it all up to live in unspoiled paradise & dive, dive, dive. No computer, no phone, no TV.

I like the idea a couple pages ago to buy a dive boat, charter it out, invest in gear.... For all the Mel Fishers & Clive Cusslers out there, a ton more tried & failed, 10 tons more just talk about it.

I have my 10 year plan!! Good luck.

 

[SeaJay]

Really great advice.

BTW, I used to live in Indian Mills, which is now "Shamong." That's on the shore-side of Medford, which is on the shore-side of Cherry Hill.

I know Avalon well.

 

[DFC5343]

I am 44 and still Navy diving. Best thing out there really. You guys pay for me to dive. Good times and plenty of adventure. Its a pirates life for me.

CJ...its all about tenacity and connections. You can't have one without the other. Anything underwater is hard to break into. And your longevity doing it depends on common sense and Murphy's Law. The more wtaerwork you do the less you enjoy it. The "fun" stops after the first 6 months or so. Unless the hookup is golden you might make it for a year or two and be back where you are now. I say get a boring ass mundane job that you hate so that every chance you get to hit the water it will feel like a million bucks!

 

[etype]

I’ve just come back from 5 weeks of aquaculture farms and outfall cleaning...pop in here and read Seajay wants maybe, possibley, ‘just an idea’ to be a commercial diver. Thank god I'm back in time to nip this in the bud!

I think the glory days of being a commercial diver are over. When i started commercial diving there was a great shortage of trained professional divers....90% of the divers I worked with were military trained...and positions sat empty for weeks. Now there are so many commercial schools, and no shortage of new and skilled commercially rated divers...and a rationalization of technique that requires fewer expensive commercial divers. The money isn’t a fraction of what it used to be, (not even close.) and they expect you to be disciplined and work for ‘them’ and not yourself...I still can’t adjust to that idea.
Most of my career I contracted for submarine cable communications companies along the Asian seaboard. I could go anywhere and start work when I felt like it with a phonecall. You could literally show up and put your logs on the table, give them your papers and they would ask you to start tomorrow. This is not the way things are done anymore.

Also, if I can wax nostalgic....it used to be the divers where the aristocracy of the operation, thats why I gravitated towards it instinctively, no one could tell you what to do, you only did what you wanted to do, no one dared look sideways at divers because they were unpredictable characters.... you got paid for a day what the skipper made in a week...all you’d do was stand around drinking tea and reading the papers until it was time to set up a dive. It was a good experience to be a commercial diver, especially on inshore saltwater operations-during the 80’s. I didn’t work for the drilling companies because I didn’t want the isolation, but the pay was reported as very huge....no longer, and the regulatory overhead has increased a thousand percent.
Now in the same operations divers only make a base wage with an extra for dives, tendering, choking...no one makes the money they used to no matter how broad their certification or experience.
I wouldn’t do it again today.

I think you may be confusing ‘commercial’ diving with industrial diving. For good reason, because industrial diving is called ‘commercial’ diving (it’s a funny world...).
But seeing as how you are a entrepeneur, you may be thinking ‘commercial’ diving in the Nestorian sense of the word... as in doing it daily...and cash is generated from the activity to the degree whereby one must consider the looming threat of paying taxes on the generated lucre...and whereby the cash generated is abundant enough that you might respectively state that this is your occupation (if asked).

But regardless all that, the question is Seajay, as an entrepeneur considering a career as a commercial diver; what would you rather do: attend to pedestrian trivialities as a cog in a industrial machine, or apply your knowledge and inclinations to the expanding market in recreational and other types of paid professional diving? Nowadays a Padi type divemaster or instructor with a occupational ticket has as much access to research and ndt type work as commercially rated divers.

Lets be clear, people will talk about how a career in recreational or charter diving is the luge track to financial marginalia...examples abound...But then obviously these people can’t expect to make huge filthy wads of cash for doing what they would be doing for free anyway, thats the idea propounded anyhoo. The market is expanding yearly, the competition is also expanding...but there is no rule that if you pursue a venture into rec diving your entrepreneurial skills will atrophy instanteously.. Just because you are daily working outdoors with boats, divegear, foreign tourists, women in skintight rubber, oceans and lakes instead of with accountants, offices, watercoolers and flourescent lighting doesn’t mean one automatically becomes an underachiever.

I mean you get a charter equipped boat, maybe a shop, a few customers and give a few lessons and then what? Two boats and two shops? More lessons?
Sure...maybe a bar or a donut shop, who knows? You have to sniff out the possiblitities that are not obvious. Around here there are quite a few charter operations...one I particularly want to learn about...they have a few boats and a bed & breakfast. Whats interesting about them is they are booked 6 months in advance and they are booked ‘internationally’. If you phone them, as I did, there is no room on their charters now or into the forseeable future under any circumstances (And they are legitimate, I see their boats at the dock all the time filled to capacity with divers). How did they manage to operate at 100% capacity and under reservation 6 months into the future? And it’s not because they are cheap, they are in fact expensive. And curiously, they are not advertised, as they are fully reserved and booked. I’d like to know how they managed that.
The charter business is not very complicated, the equipment is not expensive compared to a lot of other similar fields...nor is hiring instructors and divemasters (quite cheap to hire, try putting journeymen carpenters or tradesmen on the payroll...much more expensive.) and they are not hard to find. If one had a shop like that...there would be sufficient time to pursue other avenues.....and ect...i’m just thinking outloud here.
What i’m saying, as in considering the possiblities ....a) commercial diver: score / one lunchbucket.

b) a venture into rec diving market keeping an eye on various opportunities: score / limitless possibilities.

Again people say, and quite reasonably, that a venture into the rec diving market is a ticket to marginalia...and for many it is, i’ve seen it myself. However if you are an entrepenuer... you could do all kinds of things in either commercial diving or the sport diving market...But looking at it as an entrepenuer...which has more possibilities? I would say the sport market overwhelmingly.
Now you could just get a 33’ bayliner and a small shop and find yourself making OK cash and be happy with that...but the possibilities are there for all kinds of things. So, my question is; as an Entrepreneur...why would you want to be a commercial diver?

 

[DFC5343]

Beautiful...I'm all teary and ****...LMAO

 

[WileEDiver]

SeaJay once bubbled...
Hey Wile E... Do I know you from somewhere before?

Gee, was that you on the set?

 

[SeaJay]

WileEDiver once bubbled...

Gee, was that you on the set?

Lol... Dunno. Were you the towel boy or were you on one of the sides of the camera?

Etype... I didn't know you were a commercial diver. You certainly do give a lot to think about.

As always, I sincerely enjoy reading your work.

That's certainly a lot to think about...