Tehre Brohanan
Registered
Ahoy Scuba Boarders!
I am in the process of planning a Scuba-oriented journey this year, and hopefully my questions about this plan will entice some of you sages out there to offer some of your wise diving advice.
The Mission: To develop my Scuba skills to the point of becoming a competent diver in most all but the most advanced ocean conditions; and in the process, to develop my videography skills to the point where they would eventually become adequate for gaining employment as a videographer intern with a live-aboard company somewhere(s) with awesome diving.
Personal Background: I have a lot of previous training in traditional stills photography and a fair amount of semi-professional experience in video editing, but have not held too many video cameras before. I currently hold PADI Advanced Open Water and Peak Performance Buoyancy Speciality Certifications.
The Certifications For Achieving this Mission: As sub-goals to completing this mission, I would like to eventually earn the PADI Master Scuba Diver Certification. In order to earn this specific certification, I would need to earn the Rescue Diver certification and four additional PADI Speciality certifications. The Four Proposed PADI Speciality Certifications (along with their rationale in parenthesis):
1) Deep Diver - (Adds an additional 10 metres of depth to diving privileges).
2) Enriched Air Diver - (Add additional air mixture privileges for longer, deeper, and overall healthier dives).
3) Wreck Diver - (Adds permissions to penetrate wrecks, and artificial reefs of all kinds generally interest me).
4) Underwater Videographer Diver – (Foundation training in the skills I hope to eventually master well enough to work as an intern for a liveaboard company somewhere).
*Question 1: If anyone has any suggestions for modifying this list of proposed speciality courses - including the sequential order in which they should be completed - I would be honoured to hear them.
*Question 2: While I realise that a PADI Underwater Videographer Specialty course by itself will not be enough to build up my videography skills up to the point where it would need to be in order to achieve my main goals, I am planning to earn this speciality in conjunction with one of the many underwater videography training programmes I’ve read about that are at least two weeks to six weeks in duration. If anyone has recommendations for specific underwater videography schools with a good teacher(s) and equipment I would also be grateful to hear about them also.
Tentative List of Proposed Locations for Training: This has been the most challenging to figure out and is the main reason I decided to post here for advice. I should point out here that I will very soon not have a homebase anymore to go do this training before I leave, so I am open to going anywhere in the world that might be suggested. Also, since I have been living essentially as a starving student for the past two years in a country where I am not allowed to work, my budget is to be a low as possible for this trip before I start working again fulltime.
I am therefore looking for locations with:
With the exception of whichever location I end up doing the longer videography training and subsequent internship at the end of this itinerary, I am planning to:
The following is the proposed outlined travel/certification plan:
*Question 3: Any comments or suggestions for this list of locations and associated training sessions would be very much appreciated. I know a primary factor to consider is when I will begin this scuba journey. But unfortunately, I will not be sure of a specific date for another 1 to 3 weeks; and by the time I will know, I will not have the time to write this post. All I know for sure is that I may end up having to start this as soon as mid-April, but this would not be my first preference, and would perfer instead to start later around the August/September timeframe if possible.
Any comments or suggestions would be most appreciated!
Hopefully this information will also be helpful to other divers in similar circumstances in the future as well.
I am in the process of planning a Scuba-oriented journey this year, and hopefully my questions about this plan will entice some of you sages out there to offer some of your wise diving advice.
The Mission: To develop my Scuba skills to the point of becoming a competent diver in most all but the most advanced ocean conditions; and in the process, to develop my videography skills to the point where they would eventually become adequate for gaining employment as a videographer intern with a live-aboard company somewhere(s) with awesome diving.
Personal Background: I have a lot of previous training in traditional stills photography and a fair amount of semi-professional experience in video editing, but have not held too many video cameras before. I currently hold PADI Advanced Open Water and Peak Performance Buoyancy Speciality Certifications.
The Certifications For Achieving this Mission: As sub-goals to completing this mission, I would like to eventually earn the PADI Master Scuba Diver Certification. In order to earn this specific certification, I would need to earn the Rescue Diver certification and four additional PADI Speciality certifications. The Four Proposed PADI Speciality Certifications (along with their rationale in parenthesis):
1) Deep Diver - (Adds an additional 10 metres of depth to diving privileges).
2) Enriched Air Diver - (Add additional air mixture privileges for longer, deeper, and overall healthier dives).
3) Wreck Diver - (Adds permissions to penetrate wrecks, and artificial reefs of all kinds generally interest me).
4) Underwater Videographer Diver – (Foundation training in the skills I hope to eventually master well enough to work as an intern for a liveaboard company somewhere).
*Question 1: If anyone has any suggestions for modifying this list of proposed speciality courses - including the sequential order in which they should be completed - I would be honoured to hear them.
*Question 2: While I realise that a PADI Underwater Videographer Specialty course by itself will not be enough to build up my videography skills up to the point where it would need to be in order to achieve my main goals, I am planning to earn this speciality in conjunction with one of the many underwater videography training programmes I’ve read about that are at least two weeks to six weeks in duration. If anyone has recommendations for specific underwater videography schools with a good teacher(s) and equipment I would also be grateful to hear about them also.
Tentative List of Proposed Locations for Training: This has been the most challenging to figure out and is the main reason I decided to post here for advice. I should point out here that I will very soon not have a homebase anymore to go do this training before I leave, so I am open to going anywhere in the world that might be suggested. Also, since I have been living essentially as a starving student for the past two years in a country where I am not allowed to work, my budget is to be a low as possible for this trip before I start working again fulltime.
I am therefore looking for locations with:
- as inexpensive costs of living as possible,
- a nice mixed crowd,
- warm waters,
- and at least “decent” diving.
With the exception of whichever location I end up doing the longer videography training and subsequent internship at the end of this itinerary, I am planning to:
- spend about one week in each location while earning each certification,
- and will additionally purchase a dive package of somewhere between 5 to 10 dives also while earning these certifications.
- The main reason I am doing it this way is because I am also looking for a location that I would like do my Divemaster training and internship next year…
The following is the proposed outlined travel/certification plan:
- Malaysia (Peninsular Islands and/or Borneo) and/or Gillis Islands and/or Nusa Lembongan and/or Sihanoukville/Koh Rong, Cambodia and/or Labuan Bajo (Komodo) locations for the following three certs:
- - Enriched Air Diver Cert (Total 1 Week of Diving with Added Dive Package)
- - Rescue Diver (Total 1 Week of Diving with Added Dive Package)
- - Deep Diver Cert (Total 1 Week of Diving with Added Dive Package)
- Palawan (Coron Bay), Philippines or Pattaya, Thailand
- - Wreck Diver Cert (Total 1 Week of Diving with Added Dive Package)
- Koh Tao
- - Underwater Videographer Cert and Extended Training Programme (Total of 2 to 6 weeks)
- Ranong, Khao Lak, and/or Phuket (Surins, Similans, and Myanmar) and/or Labuan Bajo (Komodo) and/or Malaysia (Borneo)
- - Liveaboard Internship (Months?)
*Question 3: Any comments or suggestions for this list of locations and associated training sessions would be very much appreciated. I know a primary factor to consider is when I will begin this scuba journey. But unfortunately, I will not be sure of a specific date for another 1 to 3 weeks; and by the time I will know, I will not have the time to write this post. All I know for sure is that I may end up having to start this as soon as mid-April, but this would not be my first preference, and would perfer instead to start later around the August/September timeframe if possible.
Any comments or suggestions would be most appreciated!
Hopefully this information will also be helpful to other divers in similar circumstances in the future as well.
