Considering moving to Cook Islands for dive instructor job - anyone have insights?

[Topper1972]

Hi,

I'm a multilingual Scandinavian newbie dive instructor planning to go work somewhere outside Europe this coming year.

I have good connections in Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt. But tourism is down 50% there...and I fear it will get worse with the coming elections there.

So I am trying to broaden my options...was at first thinking maybe Thailand would be a good option...lotsa Scandi and German customers.
But then a few days ago I stumbled across a dive centre in the Cook Islands (Rarotonga) looking for a multilingual dive instructor.
I took a chance and sent an application...and they might actually be interested in me.

Now...I have dived heaps in the Red Sea, Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia, Australia.
Now I don't know much about the Pacific region. The dive op looks very good and that is the most important thing to me.
But how will I find living and working there? Living costs seem rather expensive compared to Egypt and Asia.
Am I right that it is even more expensive than NZ or Australia? Everything has to imported from NZ, etc?
And how about the diving in the Cook Islands...I am going there to work...but some nice diving would be good.
I think that good diving and loads of pelagics would make somewhat up for high living costs.
I am quite enchanted by the idea of actually getting the chance to go work and live on a pacific island...compared to go work in Egypt it seems rather exotic for a bloke from my northern latitudes.
So...any insigts would be most welcome...is this a chance too good to pass on for me?

 

[deepstops]

I wasn't overly impressed with the diving in Rarotonga. You can read my report from 2009 here: http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/pacific-islands/287192-cook-islands-info-please.html#post4450812

It's merely a two-tank snapshot as I passed through but there are other websites that confirm what I saw in my report.

This is a key piece to the puzzle:

No one really seems to know exactly what happened to the Rarotonga reef. All sources agree that the reef used to be alive and beautiful and that it died relatively quickly in the 1960's and 1970's. Contributing factors to its decay have been the use of chemicals in the agricultural processes on the land which have run off onto the reef, sewage runoff and high numbers of crown of thorns. The numbers of crown of thorns appear to be decreasing and there is a significant amount of new coral growth along the reef. There is a good chance that the reef will recover over time.

 

[Topper1972]

Thanks for the excellent reply! Sorry to hear that the reef apparently is in such a bad state.

But how about pelagics? Is there a good chance of seeing big fish (mantas/sharks)?
And I hear that they even got whales passing by...what is the season for those?

On a different note...I couldn't find data on the weather in the Cook Islands (rainy season/stormy season).
But I found good data on Tahiti which I guess would be representative (rainy season seems to be Nov-Mar there)?

 

[TSandM]

I had the same experience as deepstops, in 2008. We just did a two tank dive off a cruise boat, but the reef was like most of what we saw in French Polynesia -- very damaged and bleak. On the other hand, I thought the little I saw of the island was delightful. The people were very friendly. The shops were nice and not pushy at all. The area is very beautiful. It's quite sad that the diving is as poor as it is.

 

[Frosty]

Hi Topper. I just got back from 10 days diving in Rarotonga. I was quite happy with what I saw and did over there.
I guess like everywhere in the world tourist numbers are down a fair bit and if you want to do well financially instructing in the cooks isn't going to make you rich. Please feel free to PM me and I can pass on what I have experienced with different dive ops over there