These tips may be for Divemasters in certain places where all they are doing is helping Instructors with courses, but I've thought of a few for guiding/ leading dives. I'm sure i'll think of more later, but here they are: 1) When leading dives don't go too fast, take your time. (2) Give a detailed brief before each dive with your customers (in dive order from buddy check to getting back on the boat) using fish ID slates & dive maps (3) Make it fun for your divers throughout the day (4) Give a brief after your dive when filling in log books using fish ID slates (5) Check air every ten minutes on 1st dive (6) Compliment customers' diving skills where deserved as it is always nice to hear from a professional (7) Give customers tips for improvement where you feel it is necessary, quietly and away from others (8) Dive heavy so that you can give away weights if necessary (9) Perform a buoyancy check before the first dive if customers are unsure of their correct amount of weight (10) Let the customer's know exactly why you love diving & why you want to conserve & protect all marine life.
It's also important to remember as divemasters, we are rolemodels, and new divers are looking to us for guidance through example. Always be safe and put your best fin forward!
The thing with Divemaster students is that they come in all shap and sizes. Some of them are very cute blondies who just wanna party and dive. Those ones make amazing honeypots in the hamak to attract new party animals in your diveshop... But will barely survive the next morning dive or not show up at all when they are on an hangover. At the other end of the spectrum, you have the middle life crisis guys who can't stand a white collar job no more and want to switch to a more tranquillo job. Those one are a little more of an handfull for the young instructors since they come with more life background then them and might be more critical of their work since they might have clocked 200 000 airmills and have leadership and work safety inforcement experience. At this point the student-teacher relation might switch back and forth when the D.M.T. make sure that there's an healty balance between work and party in the shop that they've invested 5000 USD to do their course.
Spot on A.J. Just finished my Divemaster Friday after diving for 30 years recreationally. Leading up to and during the training I lost 40 pounds, can run and swim distances I wouldn't have considered a year ago, and hit the gym regularly now. It has come in handy twice already saving people from themselves. As long as I am doing this I will never let that slide again.
My cousin suggests; if you want to skip all the in between courses to become a dive instructor; be like him and become a navy seal. Then become a phase two bud/s instructor. When he retired from the Navy, the dive shop he started working for saw his dd214 and told he's hired as a fully qualified dive instructor.
"Just become a SEAL" doesn't seem like the shortcut route to what is honestly not that complex of a professional field. Seems like deciding to become a space shuttle captain so that you can speed through the single-engine charter pilot pipeline. But maybe that's just me.
Im not sure if its worth it to become a divemaster. I made my rescue diver 6 months ago and my main thrive to become one is my Girlfriend. I intruduced her to the wunderfull world of diving and i want ro be the best buddy possible for her and since im already a rescue diver i want to know weather it would help me becoming a better dive buddy for her. Do i learn about other divers in this course as well?
Becoming a Divemaster adds another level of ability and awareness to diving, You expand your rescue capabilities, problem solving and over all situational awareness. You are also trained to deal with stress underwater during the underwater equipment exchange while buddy breathing. You will be expected to have polished dive skills and be able to take care of multiple divers at one time. So in short, yes it will increase your skills as a diver and buddy, but if you aren't going to be a divemaster for a shop I'm not sure it would be worth the cost.
A Divemaster is the first step in being a commercial diver. Divemasters can take a group of qualified divers and get paid, but they aren't allowed to take students and teach them. It's the first step needed to becoming a dive instructor. A Master Diver is the last step in the recreational diving line (Open Water -> Advanced Open Water -> Rescue -> Master Diver). To be a Master Diver you need to fully specialise in a minimum of 5 specialities (Deep Diver, search and recovery, naturalist, wreck diving etc). A Master Diver can certainly go out on their own with a group of divers, but they are not qualified to lead a group and they can't be paid for it.
