G'day friends!
I am writing to you from a land Down Under, having been back in Australia now since September. After my initial South East Asia travel plans and job search unexpectedly changed, I have now been working at a local dive shop for the past month. Just for context and a quick summary: I'm currently located in Newcastle, NSW - a 2 hour drive north of Sydney - and though Asa and I had already dived a few nearby spots here during our family visits over the years, these sites and conditions can vary quite drastically from the Caribbean waters of Utila that we're used to. And while the biodiversity we've discovered on our dives around Nelson Bay blew us away, we weren't exactly jumping at the opportunity to immediately seek out dive jobs in the area when we arrived back. All in all, after a few uninspiring months of working in hospitality, it soon became clear that our personal situation was keeping us in Newcastle so I decided to find work that could provide me with more joy.
In Australia there seems to be more of an even split between shops associated with dive agencies, that being PADI & SSI - something I didn't overly research before moving here. And it just so happened to turn out that the dive shop I contacted about employment was running a crossover course that very next day. Without materials or much preparation at all, there I was less than 12 hours later ready to become an SSI Assistant Instructor Trainer.
Disclaimer - This is where I find myself in a tricky situation as a professional diver who is also striving to be a transparent writer. I want to be as honest and realistic in my storytelling as possible, without sabotaging my position as a role model (PADI's terms - not mine). So, please forgive me for some less-than role model behaviour, and remember that you shouldn't copy my actions just because I did it.
With that being said I have now been an instructor for 6 years, teaching professional diver's for the vast majority of that time - so I did feel more than equipped to take a written exam, perform an in-water fitness test and demonstrate my ability to both give and grade presentations without needing too much preparation in advance. Yet if I had known about this course before 8pm the previous evening, I definitely would have! This crossover course usually takes 3-4 days, but can realistically be completed quicker. Due to me becoming potential staff and scheduling in long hours, I ended up finishing everything in a day and a half. Truthfully I would've preferred a more thorough course, even if it would have taken longer. I felt like I was 'ticking boxes' rather than receiving the consideration that a customer would experience, but I understood the urgency of getting my credentials authorised so I could begin teaching.
Overall, I found crossing over from PADI to SSI fairly smooth. Again, I think that my prior experience in teaching and knowledge of transferable scuba standards helped me significantly, but I have also heard that it's far easier (and considerably cheaper) to become a PADI professional first and then switch agencies later, than it is to be a pro with any other agency and cross over to PADI. So although it shouldn't be the main factor, it's worth bearing that in mind if you're wondering which agency to do your Divemaster or Instructor training with.
In terms of teaching, the biggest distinction between the two agencies is that as an instructor you are given far more flexibility in how you teach. For example with PADI, your students must meet the performance requirements of a confined water training session before proceeding on to the next. Of course there is sound reason to this rule when considering safety etc., but with SSI you have the freedom to teach skills how you best see fit, which can be particularly useful if you need to move on from a skill that your student is struggling with and return to it later without it disrupting the remaining training sessions... if that makes sense.
I do however find some of SSI's approach to teaching certain skills WEIRD. In particular, and arguably the most important: air sharing. PADI (and all I've ever known) teach you to provide your alternate air source to your buddy in the emergency situation that they require air. Obvious - right? It's BRIGHT YELLOW, it's attached to a longer hose for ease of swimming to safety and it's positioned 'in the triangle between your chin and ribcage' for quick and easy access. Not according to SSI. Their preferred method is for you to provide the victim with your PRIMARY air source, and for you to then breathe off of your alternate. For all the reasons I've listed above, this does not make sense to me as a 'preferred' method. I can understand that for someone who is panicked, they would feel safer and more reassured breathing from your functional regulator that they can see in your mouth, but everything I've ever been taught in my dive training was to never put yourself at risk in order to help another diver: that could result in double the victims with half the resources. And I believe that surrendering your air supply first is not the safest option. Anyway, I'm not going to continue venting about this, but I think it's worth dedicating a paragraph to in this blog for anyone else who may share my surprise/ who can offer me a better explanation (please)?
Now moving on to the second part of this blog: teaching in... not Utila.
For 100% of my teaching career I've worked in perfect conditions: crystal clear visibility, tropical temperatures, no current, vibrant reefs and healthy students. As much as I absolutely adore the prior, I have always been curious about learning to not only dive in challenging conditions, but teach in them too. Keeping my diver's safe and being in control of the dive is of the upmost importance to me - it will always trump seeing cool marine life and finishing the course quicker. So far I've only guided a few dives and taught a few Open Water courses here in NSW - and this is what I've taken from my experiences thus far.
Again, some context: the conditions locally here have been pretty terrible for the past 2 years due to unpredictable weather. This has greatly impacted the dive industry and therefore has put a lot of financial pressure on dive businesses to try and keep running courses. This time of year around Christmas is not surprisingly the busiest, and the demand of people wanting to learn to dive on their holidays is still high. From my experience, this demand combined with the current conditions makes it incredibly tough on instructors. Business owners want to fully book courses, with standards allowing a maximum instructor to student ratio of 1:8. Unlike the thriving CDC I was used to working at in Utila, there are no DMT's or MSDT's here to assist; and it's too busy in the season for a secondary staff member to be scheduled to help. Now, ultimately it will always come down to the instructor's judgement on how many students they can safely supervise underwater on any given dive, but that doesn't stop the courses from getting fully booked. For example, last week I had a group of 6 uncertified divers who I needed to take on 2 dives per day to complete their Open Water course. After attempting to take them all on a dive in conditions that I initially deemed to be safe and controlled, we swam into an unexpected current which reduced the vis to 2-3m and I aborted the training dive. The next day, I tried again at a different dive site and split the groups, only diving with 3 students at a time. This meant that I did 4 dives with 3 students rather than 2 dives with 6 students. This came down to my personal choice in order to keep all diver's safe and to not break any standard regulations, but it was taxing. These are also all shore dives over an hour's drive away, with steel tanks, extra weights and thick exposure protection.
During this course there were many times when I thought "what's the point in this?". It's so much effort for fairly poor dives. Regardless, bless my students because they were all so optimistic throughout the course, despite the setbacks and a few hairy situations. They took it all in their stride and genuinely enjoyed the course. I kept telling them that when they dive further up North in Cairns or abroad in Bali, they'll be laughing at how well-equipped they are to dive in such luxurious conditions. I also completely recognise that I may sound like a spoilt fair-weather diver who is moaning about not getting perfect teaching conditions. And this is an intrusive thought that I am constantly getting around my new fellow staff members who tell me "you're just not used to it" or "trust me, THAT's not a current". But I remain unapologetically firm about how I choose to operate my courses. Half of the sites I've taught at I've never even dived before. So I am still learning to become comfortable here, therefore I'm exercising more caution when I am responsible for others - especially uncertified divers.
As a further reality check, in the one month I've been teaching here I've already responded to a dive emergency out the front of the shop (not one of our diver's, but I was asked by the public to help), and just 3 days ago there was a scuba diving fatality at the dive site directly in front of where I work (again, not one of our diver's but I was working that day and witnessed the commotion). This reinforces why I don't think I'm being soft, or lazy. I'm not in Utila anymore, and this is another reality of the dive industry.
To conclude this somewhat chaotic blog (I've been writing this continuously for the past hour without much proof-reading to get it published between my work schedule and New Year's Eve), I've found the past few months here in Australia to be an internal struggle. Going from my dive home in Utila where I felt so supported, valued and content, to an environment where I'm questioning my ability, my passion and my purpose. It's only early days, and soon I'll be moving to fairer conditions, but this hasn't been the 'badass instructor' transition I was naively expecting. It's humbled me, yet I'm quietly proud of sticking to my guns. I actually struggle to find the words to eloquently describe it all, believe it or not after this lengthy blog. I think ultimately this experience has caused me to question some of the bigger, more confronting questions about my longevity in the dive industry.
Anywho, I'll let those feelings settle for another time when I've made sense of them, before attempting to blurt out muddled thoughts.
Thanks for reading this far, and another thank you for accepting my bluntness as you may have noticed already, I've not applied a filter to this blog.
[I'm waiting in anticipation for all the Scuba Bro's who will blindly critique my take on anything to do with scuba regulations and teaching. Cant wait :) ]
A.
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