Anyone who has fallen in love with the excitement and serenity of the underwater world has probably entertained dreams of leaving their typical 9 to 5 and pursuing a career in scuba diving. However, the reality is that it’s not that easy to pursue a career in scuba diving. Plus, becoming a diving instructor may not be for everyone.

Still, if you are tired of your cubicle, sick of your boss, or just yearning to reconnect with the great outdoors, a career in scuba diving can sound appealing. Factors like the allure of amazing destinations, interesting people, and exploring the unknown are great temptations.

Testing Out the Water for a Career in Scuba Diving

The first step on the path to a career in scuba diving is to complete an open watercourse and an advanced course.  These classes will ensure that students know that the world beneath the water is rather unpredictable and unknown. Hours of experience and training are necessary in order to fully comprehend the dangers inherent and responsibilities of pursuing a career in scuba diving. This is especially the case if your goals include becoming a diving instructor. The diving instructor is responsible for lives and safety other people. He or she needs to ensure that students are well informed and prepared for their underwater expeditions. Finally, a diving instructor needs to be comfortable with people and able to stay calm in a crisis.

What Steps to Take for a Career in Scuba Diving

The career in scuba diving requires diving experiences in numerous locations and at different times of the year. You will also need to have knowledge regarding the equipment used and how to train people with different levels of experience. All these variables require a high degree of expertise and a great sense of responsibility. Pursuing a career in scuba diving can be very rewarding when you see that first successful student excel with his new skills.

Pursuing a career in scuba diving requires a lot of thought and a serious commitment. Many tools and advice are necessary to obtain certification. Your first step is to become a Dive Master.  Then you will be ready to become a Diving Instructor. To do this you will complete the Instructor Development Course, sometimes called PADI IDC. This is a very complex course and is a ceaseless bombardment of information pertaining to standards, safety, students, the PADI system, law, as well as marketing and sales. If all the effort, time and energy required sounds reasonable to you, you may be well suited for a career in scuba diving.

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If the idea of underwater adventure, being in the great outdoors, and spending your time with interesting people is your idea of a great job, then a scuba diving career may be a great fit. Before pursuing a scuba diving career you should ask your self the following questions: Am I a risk taker? This is not a sport for everyone as scuba diving does have serious risks involved. Am I detail oriented? For safety reasons scuba divers must always be aware of their position and equipment.  Am I willing to have a non-traditional job? If the comfort of a 9 to 5 with an office is your biggest concern, a scuba diving career may not be for you. If you still think it sounds good read on.

* Scuba Diving Careers in Commercial Diving

There are many options within commercial diving. The most popular is probably the diving instructor or guide.  This requires certification, hours of experience, expertise, patience and the ability to work with diverse learners with a wide range of abilities. Instructing combines the same stresses of any kind of teaching with the additional element of a potentially dangerous learning environment.  Teachers and guides take responsibility for new diver’s safety – a big job.

Salvaging and engineering are also scuba diving career options. Shipwrecks and other debris often need to be removed from the ocean floor. A scuba diving career in salvaging may involve raising shipwrecks.  They may be modern shipwrecks that are in a shipping path, or they may be old wrecks.  There are also salvage companies that just prospect old shipwrecks looking for whatever treasure they can.

Engineering companies need divers to help build and maintain underwater structures like bridge pilings and dams. This can be a great career that combines the mechanics of math and science with adventure.

* Scuba Diving Careers in the Public Sector

Police and rescue divers, environmental organizations and scientific research vessels all require the skills of professional divers. Police and rescue personnel use divers to search for evidence underwater and then help them to fish it out.

Environmental organizations and non-profits often utilize divers for research projects.  Scientists themselves dive as well as hiring other divers to help keep track of an ecosystem.  The National Oceanographic Institute (NOA) is a scientific research organization that is always out to sea. Divers can help catalog corals and fish, as well as testing for pollution, removing debris, and even creating man-made reefs.

* Where to Start a Scuba Diving Career

Depending on your goals, the most obvious first step to a scuba diving career is to obtain certification and get as many diving hours in various environments as possible. If your goals require math or science education you will need to pursue the appropriate advanced degree. If not, seek out others doing what you want to do and ask them for advice. There are many scuba diving careers out there. If this sound like a fit for you dive in by getting your certification and go from there.

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In one word: YES. Women enjoying going scuba diving. Do many women scuba dive? Well, not as many as men, but more and more are joining the sport.

Sometimes, people think that women don’t scuba dive. I found this an odd question because both me and my sweetie have gone scuba diving together many times. But, I must admit there were some problems to begin with — that were easily overcome. Here are some solutions:

• Scuba Equipment is Heavy
  • Get in physical shape first. You want to minimally be doing regular exercise every day, even if that is walking a mile a day. That will build the stamina you need. I would suggest augmenting that with other activities such as swimming, pilates, or ideally weight lifting.
  • Be smart on how you carry equipment, if there is a wagon or sled, use it. You will find that there are often easy workarounds if you look for them.
• Wet Suits are Made for Men
  • Well, most wet suits are made for men. You need to avoid any suit that says “unisex” if you have a large chest or wide hips.
  • Alternatively, you may wish to choose a drysuit (which does need extra diving certification) as these often seem to work much better.
• Scuba Needs Too Much Calculations
  • With more and more Wrist Dive Computers and Dive Watches on the market, the amount of calculations needing to be done in ones head is much smaller than 20 years ago. And know, most divers – men and women – take advantage of this technology for safety reasons as well.

So yes, Virginia, women dive and have a blast. Often they even become better divers than their male counterparts!

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