For Hire: Divemaster

[DivemasterZax]

Hi my name is Zax. I am a PADI Dive master with 10 years diving experience in oceans all around the globe. I ran my own dive and sailing charter for a few years in the Caribbean. I had to sell the business and come home to take care of an ailing family member. So I have been out of circuit for about a year now. But I am sincerely seeking to get back into the business as soon as possible. I have all my own professional grade dive equipment and I am Dive Ready! I am willing to go anywhere in the world for the right opportunity. I am also willing to sign long term contracts as this is not a part time lifestyle for me. I am in it for life and willing to stay as long as you need me. I can start immediately and stay indefinitely.

Though I do not have a current USCG Captains License I have both piloted large motor yachts, and sailed large sailing boats, across vast distances across open ocean. More than 10,000 miles on the Caribbean alone. So I am qualified as a boat driver or co-captain as well.

I am VERY interested in the following:
Live a boards
Research Vessels
Exploration Vessels
Preservation Projects
Personal Yacht Dive Master
Small Island Dive Shops

Please understand I do not have a lot of money right now. (I am a Dive master after all we work for very little pay lol) So I cannot afford to "pay you" to be part of your expedition. Trust me I wish I could. However if you offer me a bed to sleep on and food to eat you have yourself a very willing diver that will work his tail off.

I have no misconceptions about dive master pay. I have been in the industry for ten years. So I am not afraid to work for little pay as long as again my food and accommodations are provided. A live a board would be ideal for me as I love living on the water. I have lived on my own boat for years. I am single and have no land ties so I can stay out as long as you need me to. I have no pipe dreams about making a ton of money. I am in this for the lifestyle, for the dive!

I am honestly looking for the longest term assignment you offer. I am very willing to learn new skills, advance, perhaps even into tech diving. To put it very simply the ocean is my home. And this is where I belong. If you have ANY need for a diver with a lot of experience, a dive master or assistant instructor, then please by all means contact me as soon as possible. I am willing to start immediately. You can reply here or send me mail directly. Thanks for any and all considerations. Someone please bring me back home where I belong!

Live to Dive and Dive to live...

Zax

 

[oly5050user]

I would suggest looking at PADI employment board..It will be difficult to find employment with only a DM certification..I would strongly suggest getting a owsi rating at a minimum. As to boat handling skills, experience should count,but, without a piece of paper from USCG you cannot run a boat for hire in US waters/territories.

 

[toddthecat]

Being bilingual helps a lot too. I'd also get more diving experience. 10 years of diving and only 200-500 dives doesn't reflect: "experience in oceans all around the globe. I ran my own dive and sailing charter for a few years in the Caribbean".

Even at 500 dives that's only averaging 50 a year...about once a week.

DM candidates in an internship tend to make pretty good fill-ins for actual DMs. A lot of places the DMs tend to be locals, but I'm sure you already knew that. Oly5050 is right. OWSI at an extreme minimum. MSDT with Nitrox instuctor and speaking 3 languages will help get you higher on the list. If you can link up with 5 Star that needs someone and is willing to take an MSDT (most people finding work at 5 Star are IDCS or MI), then you could get ICDS for free and pretty quickly when you get there. That'd go a long way.

Best of luck!

 

[Aguablanco1]

While I wish the OP good luck in his search, I find it disturbing for someone to seek work and only requiring the bare minimum as regards compensation. This attitude is exactly why no one can make a decent living in this industry. It is the same way in whitewater rafting. All of the younger people think it is a great lifestyle, and basically work for tips and the outfitters never have an obligation to pay a living wage. The old joke in the rafting business, which also seems appropriate in the dive industry is "What do you call a boatman (insert any dive professional title here) without a girlfriend? Homeless!" The pros actually doing the work deserve far more than they are paid IMHO.
RichH

 

[DivemasterZax]

Hey guys thanks for all the advice. Yes I am well aware OWSI is where I need to be. It is an expensive endeavor but I am working on saving for it. As far as your comment todd about not equaling the experience to the number of oceans and years... well to be honest my friend that was kind of condescending. I had little money at all to start down this adventurous path I have taken. I started ten years ago with no money and struggled and worked my tail off to reach those places "around the globe" and yes I have a very full passport to prove it. No I did not always get to dive constantly every week of every year in those ten years. Most of the time I was working my tail off trying to afford the few dives I could. But taking that into consideration... making it very literally all the way around the world and getting to dive in most of the major oceans, yes Id say for a guy that came from very humble beginnings... that wasn't so bad. I am sorry if my post made it sound like I was this super rich guy who could afford hundreds of dives of month. If it came off that way I truly apologize. I struggled for years to buy that boat. And I sailed the heck out of it when I finally got it. I took people on BOTH diving and sailing trips. so not even then was it constant diving every day every week. So please don't ridicule someone for coming from a very meager background and grinding slowly his way into this profession. Yes it took me a LONG time to get this far... but I am quite proud of the fact I have made it this far when I started with nothing.

So yes I will keep plugging away, working any way I can for whatever pay I can to advance my dream of one day becoming an instructor. And I am NOT ashamed of that in the least. Life is what we make it to be. To have come so far on so very little, even if it did take 10 years to get here... I am proud of that. If I had but one dollar in my pocket, I would consider myself a rich man for the things I have been fortunate enough to experience thus far.

Oly yeah I found out my Caracom didn't mean squat here in the states. Only a small portion of it counts towards my USCG credits. Thanks for the solid advice though much appreciated. I fully intend to get both the USCG (at least 100T) and the OWSI at minimum but that may take a while to save for. Hopefully not another ten years lol.

 

[toddthecat]

Sorry to see you took it so hard. I am by no means financially blessed either and my comment had nothing to do with money. It had to do with experience. Not every dive has to be made of a dive boat at the rate of $120 for a two tank dive...

If MY comment was offending to you then I highly doubt you'll like what many of the dive operations will have to say. Then again you could be amazing in the water and have gained in the few hundred dives what some people don't get after a thousand. I have seen people certified at the AOW level who are better than people certified at DM. Certification levels are just words. It's the actual skill level that matters. As they say, "the proof is in the pudding".

That said, I can't judge a person's diving ability by number of dives. Neither can anyone else. The only problem is that if a dive operation in say, the Southern Caribbean were interested in you, they aren't going to readily have the opportunity to see you in the water. They don't have much to go by and unless you travel there and show them what you've got (which is quite expensive), then all they've got to judge you on is your logbook and how knowledgeable you come off as in emails or by phone. Even then, you won't get a job offer until you go there. This is especially true when one of the locals working there gets his DM certification and has been acting as a DM regardless for a while.

I don't mean to stomp on your dreams or anything but it sucks to see people make uninformed decisions. It sucks even more to make them yourself. We've all done it in life.

But yeah, PADI has an employment board as oly said. You can always get an idea of where you want to go and email those dive shops as well. You never know what could come up!