I graduating in December and seriously thinking about moving down to the Caymans to dive. I just have my open water certification. Will anyone hire me or do I need an instructors liscense? I will most likely be there for only 4 months or so. I would need help trying to find a place to live and a place to work? I have experience driving a 47 foot bayliner and a 75foot house boat since I was a little guy. I've only dove probably about 30 times none of which were logged. I have dove just for fun with my old man and never really paid attention to logging them. What kind of experience do these places look for other than certifications? ANY HELP would be great. I just want to get out and do something while I'm young before MBA school in July of 08!
Work in the Caymans
- Thread starter t2mchHP
- Start date
Please register or login
Welcome to ScubaBoard, the world's largest scuba diving community. Registration is not required to read the forums, but we encourage you to join. Joining has its benefits and enables you to participate in the discussions.
Benefits of registering include
- Ability to post and comment on topics and discussions.
- A Free photo gallery to share your dive photos with the world.
- You can make this box go away
t2mchhp,
welcome to this board.
welcome to this board.
-hh
Contributor
- Messages
- 1,020
- Reaction score
- 245
t2mchHP:
Do you hold Caymanian citizenship?
If not, then its not going to be easy for you to find a job, any job. Reason being that they have a "hire local first" policy that requires that any job that isn't to be given to a Caymanian to be announced (here's a newspaper publication example) with the required job qualifications. Even if you win this competition, there will be a Government Fee for your Work Permit has to then be paid by someone.
As a general rule of thumb, an outfit looking at hiring an Expatriot for a job finds that it is most easy to get through this paperwork by requiring a qualification that is lacking within the local labor pool. Thus, their justification to the Government for the permit is that no qualified Caymanians existed to apply.
Having your Dive Instructor certification is a good start. However, in order to narrow these job announcements to only the person that the employer wants, I've heard of job announcements that called for: Dive Instructor, including 3-4 specific Spectialties; *and* Marine Diesel Mechanic; *and* Computer Repair Technician, etc.
Which island? Plus, ~4 months sounds like it exceeds the max allowed visit that someone without a work permit is allowed to stay on island. You'll need to check this out too.
In general, all of your qualifications need to be formally recognized - - ie, US Coast Guard Captain's Licence, etc. You can find some newspapers online to start to read their classifieds to get an idea of where there's jobs. Slim pickings, but happy hunting.
-hh
Yes, I would recommend you have your instructor certification. You might get a part time job at a dive store near your home in Arizona to get some experience and can work off your courses. You have several to take before you get to the instructor course.
There are some folks on Scubaboard who are living and/or working in the Cayman Islands that may also jump in and give you some advice as to living and working in the Cayman Islands.
There are some folks on Scubaboard who are living and/or working in the Cayman Islands that may also jump in and give you some advice as to living and working in the Cayman Islands.
I do not know the Caymans, but I'd be surprised if you got a job in the dive industry without a few more qualifications. To guide, you'd need to be at least a DM. Some dive shops will hire people to work in the shop without being a DM, but it's not the norm.
To be certified as a DM you need 60 logged dives, amongst other things. Before you can start the Dm course you also need to do the Advanced Open Water coures and the Rescue course. You'd also need proof of CPR/First Aid training and 20 logged dives to start the course. Don't want to put you off, just giving you a heads up - look into it and go for it !!
To be certified as a DM you need 60 logged dives, amongst other things. Before you can start the Dm course you also need to do the Advanced Open Water coures and the Rescue course. You'd also need proof of CPR/First Aid training and 20 logged dives to start the course. Don't want to put you off, just giving you a heads up - look into it and go for it !!
- Messages
- 26,281
- Reaction score
- 5,875
- # of dives
- I'm a Fish!
That will take years. You know there's 3 islands right?
t2mchHP:
Longer than you've got most likely...Since you're PADI don't you need at least 100 logged dives to attend an IDC? Not to mention AOW and a bunch of specialties. I'm not PADI so I don't know their exact requirements.
I met two DM's down there. One told me he waited about two years for an opening then was called up one week and told to be there the next if he wanted the job. He said he mostly lived on happy hour buffets for about the 1st six months or so - literally...
Don't know if you've noticed but everything is wicked expensive there. The CI$ is negative to the U.S. dollar so everything costs more there than here. And being a small island, a lot of stuff is imported from the U.S. and elsewhere.
The other DM I met and talked to shared a 2br apt. with 3 other people. None of them are even considering getting a better place till they move elsewhere.
Most expensive place I've ever been...
later edit: re: CJ's post below, I just assumed both were DM's since that's what they did on our trip. But they could've been instructors.
So I need to be a DM before I can become an instructor? Also, the dives I have done before mean nothing really if I have not logged them? Well this sucks ahah I may be looking into being a skipper on a fishing boat down there hahahaha! You got to do what you got to do inorder to do what you want to do.
CJ's
Contributor
You will not get a job diving here in the Cayman islands without being at the minimum a Divemaster. There are several good reasons for this, some of which have been touched upon already in this thread.
Firstly, the nature of the business here in Cayman means that the dive staff need to able and qualified to do anything at the drop of a hat...from filling tanks to teaching Discover Scuba courses to general maintenance.
Secondly, most dive operations are members of the Cayman Islands Tourism Association Watersports committee which has stringent safety requirements for all it's members. All staff in the water or on boats with customers must be properly qualified. For these 2 reasons it unusual for even a Divemaster to get a job here...over 99% of dive staff here are Instructors.
Third, there is the immigration issue whereby all jobs must be advertised to see if there are any Caymanians who want and are qualified for the job to be filled. If there are no local applicants then a work permit can be obtained for a non-caymanian. If the job required no qualifications then it would be hard to justify a work permit!!
Finally, and in my opinion most importantly, the Dive Industry here in Cayman is a very mature one which prides itself on it's safety records and highly qualified and knowledgeable staff. I don't think there are many (if any) other places in the world where pretty much every member of staff in every dive company is a qualified divemaster or instructor...from the boat captain to the shop attendant.
Basically if you are very lucky you may get a job selling t-shirts for a dive outfit but don't expect to be entrusted in the water with paying customers lives until you are suitably qualified!
There are plenty of bar jobs available which can earn you far more money with few qualifications though!
Take care and get some more dives in!!
CJ
P.S. The locals pretty much have the fishing thing sewn up!
Firstly, the nature of the business here in Cayman means that the dive staff need to able and qualified to do anything at the drop of a hat...from filling tanks to teaching Discover Scuba courses to general maintenance.
Secondly, most dive operations are members of the Cayman Islands Tourism Association Watersports committee which has stringent safety requirements for all it's members. All staff in the water or on boats with customers must be properly qualified. For these 2 reasons it unusual for even a Divemaster to get a job here...over 99% of dive staff here are Instructors.
Third, there is the immigration issue whereby all jobs must be advertised to see if there are any Caymanians who want and are qualified for the job to be filled. If there are no local applicants then a work permit can be obtained for a non-caymanian. If the job required no qualifications then it would be hard to justify a work permit!!
Finally, and in my opinion most importantly, the Dive Industry here in Cayman is a very mature one which prides itself on it's safety records and highly qualified and knowledgeable staff. I don't think there are many (if any) other places in the world where pretty much every member of staff in every dive company is a qualified divemaster or instructor...from the boat captain to the shop attendant.
Basically if you are very lucky you may get a job selling t-shirts for a dive outfit but don't expect to be entrusted in the water with paying customers lives until you are suitably qualified!
There are plenty of bar jobs available which can earn you far more money with few qualifications though!
Take care and get some more dives in!!
CJ
P.S. The locals pretty much have the fishing thing sewn up!
Similar threads
