Did you leave a career to work in scuba?

I do this every single time I get back to this damn office after a dive trip (this time, down Key Largo, Islamorada, and Key West). I think about how cool it would be to junk my career and become a full-time scuba __________ (fill-in the blank). It's not only impractical, it's impossible at least at this point in my life.

But I love hearing stories of people who did just that. Said, "To hell with this, I'm outta here," packed up and became full-time scuba instructors, dive shop owners, DMs, operators, etc. One friend ditched his job and now has a nice business of hull-cleaning- hey, he's in the water whenever he wants and lives in Florida. Even the ass-busting commercial divers are still getting wet and breathing gas though they really make some big sacrifices.

Anyone got a personal story? I'm staring at the walls and need some uplifting tale of hope.

Made 6 figures working for a large government contractor cleaning up the mess the military had made of many small south Pacific islands. When my contract ended on Johnston Atoll, I headed for Hawaii for my IDC. While waiting for my wife to finish massage school in Santa Fe, I decided to sit the test for my captain's license. That was in 1996. I got a job as an instructor in St. Lucia, then to St. Maartin to work on a liveaboard as chief engineer. I went to the oilfield to get a little more captaining experience, and that lasted all of a week. I went to work on a liveaboard in Texas and 5 years later I bought it. I'm still waiting for the government to call me, but I guess that phase of my live is over.

Actually I am considering working my way up to the instructor level, but think it will be weekends only for extra cash... I do have an advantage over most people... I am retired from the US Army and get a decent check for disability and retirement. I read on this board somewhere that most instructors have a regular job.

I had worked for thirty years in automotive and had left it to be a Network Consultant in 1999. Y2K was an awesome time to do this and the money was great, and I worked about half of what I used to in automotive. Then I happened across this forum called "ScubaBoard" while waiting for a download on a lame PC in a church school. I was a newly minted dive master with delusions of becoming an instructor and this forum provided a lot of information that I lacked. After about a week of playing here, the infamous Warhammer Maneuver thread started and I made some offhand remark (Talk about your off gassing) about it. The owner at the time thought it was hilarious and asked me to be a moderator. Then he found out what I did for a living (NetDoc Inc: The doctor for your network is "In".) and made me an admin. Time passed and he kind of lost interest and had other things happen. So one thing led to another and about Thanksgiving of 2003 I became the second owner of ScubaBoard.com. As the forum really started to grow, I found I had less time to actually run NetDoc Inc. Soon, I had let NetDoc Inc slide into the past and incorporated InterMedia Publications to handle the marketing side of ScubaBoard. We are still a small operation with an unusually large clout! Volunteers still manage the community and there are only a couple of us who make a living here.

As a caveat, our first DEMA was in Houston. TedS and I had a "Sneaker Booth"... we walked from booth to booth introducing ourselves and trying to sell some advertising. I kept introducing myself as the owner of the world's largest website for divers, which was true even back in 2004. People would look at me for a nano-second and simply turn away. It was an incredibly humbling experience. Now some of those same people refer to me as a pioneer for scuba on the internet. While we all know that this isn't true, I have learned a few things about social media along the way and I do enjoy imparting that knowledge whenever the situation allows it. I will be doing a number of presentations on that for at least three entities at DEMA: Aqualung, SDI/TDI and Hollis. If you're at DEMA this year, you're invited!

Quit my cubicle areospace engineering job,moved to Belize & started working my way into the diving arena. Ten years later I have dive guided,boat captain,marine repair,property management,& personal security on over 50 islands. Currently retired on Panglao Island Bohol sea but still diving. Life is just alittle better than good!

"Living life without a hard bottom"
KT

According to my mom, I left several perfectly good careers to be this "glorified beach bum".

I left the career by retiring. NEVER would have gotten into scuba (had I lived in a place condusive to it) while working--just too busy. Needed to relax on weekends (yes, scuba is fun and relaxing, but it also involes work and THINKING). Hope to eventually get some DM gigs, HOPEFULLY not because I need money.

Yes i just did actually. I did security contracting overseas and quit last month and plan on heading to Utila around March to start. I would go now but decided to go to Colombia first for a bit and take some spanish courses. I hope to go all the way up to staff instructor then im thinking of doing a holiday work visa in Australia and going there for a year to hopefully work at a dive shop in Cairns. After that i'll return to Miami unless something else comes up...

I doubt i will make it a full time career this is more of a life vacation for me since i've done nothing but live and work in Iraq and Afghanistan since i was 18 and dont want to have spent my entire 20s in the desert. But who knows.

I was in Grad School and we got a new Director of Technical Facilities, he'd come over from North American Rockwell where he'd been TDY to NASA at Manager of the Thor Agena Booster Program. I walked into his office and said, "Jim, you a problem, there's a lot of diving going on and there is no safety program." He said, "I don't have a problem ... you do. Write me a proposal." I did.

Great stuff, folks. I have a while until retirement and a much-too-lucrative job to simply walk out. But it's reassuring to know some people out there get to live the dream.