How to get in the door: Support Diving

[DivePureBliss]

It's actually pretty hard to find jobs where you are paid for diving. Particularly if diving in sewage tanks and other nasty jobs isn't what you are looking for. Even more so if you want to have fairly normal standard of living in the US.

Most dive instructors (not all - but most) in the US are not supporting themselves by instructing, it's a hobby job, not their day job. I know one full time instructor who needed his girlfriend to co-sign a loan for a used car after 5 years of being a full-time instructor at a dive shop. There are instructors who do very well, but they are not at all common.

Apparently commercial diving opportunities are currently very limited for newly qualified commercial divers, and it is not easy for experienced ones.

People do get academic positions where they do diving, (I've met one who National Geographic produced a program about his cave archeology) but there are a lot more people who want to do this and have a PhD in-hand than there are open professor positions to do this.

So if you are looking to do this as an unpaid hobby then there are reasonable possibilities, doing it as a job is hard. But I know that things like the GUE major expeditions fill very fast despite the total lack of pay.

How encouraging lol I had no idea

 

[Akimbo]

How encouraging lol I had no idea

Earning a living underwater has always been a challenge, but learning the cold hard truth is a lot better than following a fantasy into a dead end. The commercial diving industry won't be dead for long in the grand scheme, it follows the price of oil. Being a commercial diver is probably not what most recreational divers are interested in but there may be some opportunity for you as a ROV (Remote Operated Vehicle) operator. That experience would give you a leg up getting aboard a RV (Research Vessel). That in turn might give you a chance to get wet now and then.

Both Woods Hole and Scripps have pretty large fleets with professional crews. Even small marine research operations have ROVs now. I see you live in New Hampshire. Why not take a trip to Wood Hole and see what you can learn? There are lots of jobs that PhDs can't do. As you have learned, scientific diving is not a fulltime career for more than a handful of people with decades of experience. NOBODY pays you to go diving, you are paid to do work that happens to be underwater.

 

[divad]

What does "CDL" mean?

 

[DivePureBliss]

What does "CDL" mean?

Commercial Diver Licence

 

[divad]

Thanks.