PADI Dive Master Courses

Doing your divemaster in the Roatan will be one of the best decisions you have made!  It is a training ground which turns out exceptionally good divemasters, shops in the Bay Islands are well known world wide for the quality of their PADI PRO internships and courses.

divemaster is a brilliant course in terms of value for money.  If you are traveling with no particular deadlines, give some serious thought to becoming a divemaster.  Firstly the couple of months it will take will be great fun, but you then have an actual qualification which can get you work in beautiful places all around the world.  For $800 you will get about 100 dives, that's cheap!

Choosing the shop to do your divemaster course needs careful consideration.

1. Train at an IDC center with a resident course director.  Instructor Development Centers have achieved exceptional standards of dive training, they will offer a more complete course which will often include the opportunity to assist on Instructor courses during your training.  When you assist on an Instructor course you will be asked to play the role of a student and have the Instructor  practice problem solving skills on you.  This added aspect of the training, that you can only get when you train at an IDC center will give you a great insight into the Instructor development process, helping you decide if you want to continue your education beyond divemaster level.
2. Look for dive centers who are Scuba equipment dealerships, they can often get you manufacturer subsidized equipment once you become a Pro.
3. Make sure you aren't going to be one of more than 10-12 divemaster trainees.  To many people taking the divemaster course at one time will result in a less personalized experience and fewer opportunities to assist on those unusual courses such as Tec Diving, TRIMIX, Deep, Wreck etc
4. The bigger shops will give you more varied opportunities.  Big shops have lots of courses running and a greater selection of courses.  Every shop is limited to teaching courses their Instructor are qualified to teach.  The more Instructor a shop has, the more courses they are likely to offer.  This translates to more opportunities for their divemaster trainees to become involved in different courses such as Tec training and other specialties.
5. Cost of living.  Since the course tends to be a long one choose a region which has a low cost of living, this is one of the reasons Roatan is so popular, with rent as low as $200/month for a private room, and multiple international flights to the island every week, Roatan is a very economical destination.
6. Don't just shop by price.  The lower the price, the less the Instructor will be paid for teaching you.  Good Instructors don't sell themselves cheap!
7. Check out the dive ops reputation on Scuba forums such as scubaboard.

You need to decide how you want to do the divemaster.  Many shops in both Utila and Roatan will do the divemaster differently to how it is done in the US and Europe. 

Longer Term internship - 1-3 months (generally as long as you want it to take)

With this option it is a real internship, you will be treated more like an employee than a customer, you will be expected to help fill tanks, and do all the same stuff the instructors are doing.  Remember Instructors who work on 'dive islands' like Utila and Roatan are REAL dive professionals working in the water 6-7 days a week.  They are not weekend warriors who have an office job during the week and work as instructors  at the weekend.  This means they tend to have stronger opinions on what a divemaster should be capable of - as a result they interpret the Instructor manual differently to less experienced instructors - they will give you a harder, but better course. As a result you will be a very good divemaster that will fit in to any dive shop that offers you a job.  You should allow two months minimum.  You will also need to be pro-active throughout the course to get the most out of it.  You will do at least 100 dives and be more than ready to do the IDC.  These dive shops tend to take great pride in the divemasters they teach.

10-30 day Divemaster Course (simulated training sessions)

This option is to go to a shop which is a 'divemaster machine'  They do it like any other PADI course, much like it is often done in the US and Europe.  These guys do lots of divemaster courses and run you through it in 3-4 weeks.  These courses should be avoided at all costs, they simply don't give you the breadth of experience you can get from the internship style of course.

Consider doing the academics at home.  If time is going to be a problem you can get a lot of work done while you are still at home.  Buy the divemaster manual, encyclopedia of recreational diving , RDP Wheel and diving knowledge workbook.  If you do all the knowledge reviews in the divemaster manual and work through the workbook you have just reduced the divemaster course length by about a week! DM crewpaks can easily be found on Ebay

If you are thinking of doing you divemaster make sure you meet the instructors you will be working with before signing up.  The course is great if you get on well with your instructors, but not if you don't.

Before you do your DM you need to have done some other courses.

PADI Courses

The first course for total beginners is the 'Open Water' course.  This involves watching a few hours of DVDs, a couple of hours classroom work including a few quizzes, a couple of hours in shallow water and four boat dives.  It is spread over three to four days.  Choose a dive school with a comfortable classroom!  It focuses on making you a 'SAFE' diver.

The second course is Advanced Open Water.  Many people are put off by the name of the course.  You DON'T have to be experienced to take the course.  If you really enjoy open water then you may as well do advanced - you'll get a good deal for doing the two together, you already know the instructor and the advanced dives are a lot of fun, the last course taught you to be 'SAFE' advanced tries to make you aware of the different underwater activities available. It is task focused.

Rescue - This course starts you focusing on other divers well being as well as your own.  The focus is on prevention of incidents through observation. It then moves on to deal with incident management It is a great course one of the most fun to do and to teach, but it is where things start to get more serious.  There is more academic stuff to do and it takes a degree of physical fitness.

Divemaster - This is a brilliant course in terms of value for money.  If you are traveling with no particular deadlines, give some serious thought to becoming a divemaster.  Firstly the couple of months it will take will be great fun, but you then have an actual qualification which can get you work in beautiful places all around the world.  For $700 you will get about 100 dives, that's cheap!

If you can afford it you will really appreciate having a dive computer, it doesn't have to be a great one as long as it works.

You need to decide how you want to do the divemaster.  Many shops in both Utila and Roatan will do the divemaster differently to how it is done in the US and Europe.

Longer Term Apprenticeship - 2-3 months
(generally as long as you want it to take)

With this option it is a real apprenticeship, you will be treated more like an employee than a customer, you will be expected to help fill tanks, and do all the same stuff the instructors are doing.  Remember Instructors who work on 'dive islands' like Utila and Roatan are REAL dive professionals working in the water 6-7 days a week.  They are not weekend warriors who have an office job during the week and work as instructors at the weekend.  This means they tend to have stronger opinions on what a divemaster should be capable of - as a result they interpret the Instructor manual differently to less experienced instructors - they will give you a harder, but better course. As a result you will be a very good divemaster that will fit in to any dive shop that offers you a job.  You should allow two months minimum.  You will also need to be pro-active throughout the course to get the most out of it.  You will do at least 100 dives and be more than ready to do the IDC.  These dive shops tend to take great pride in the divemasters they teach.  Make sure you will get unlimited diving. Smaller shops tend to do it this way.

Fast Divemaster Course
(doing the bare minimum)

This option is to go to a shop which is a 'divemaster machine'  They do it like any other PADI course, much like it is often done in the US and Europe.  These guys do lots of divemaster courses and run you through it in 3-4 weeks.  It is more of a business to them and they often take less personal pride in your development.  You will often pay more as you are taking more of the instructors time, you will also tend to learn less simply because you are not immersed in diving 24/7 for 2 months!  These shops will often only include 40-60 dives in the course and make you pay for any extra you need to do.  They are able to do it much faster because they do the bare minimum according to the PADI Divemaster Course Instructor Guide.

Consider doing the academics at home.  If time is going to be a problem you can get a lot of work done while you are still at home.  Buy the divemaster manual, encyclopedia of recreational diving , RDP Wheel and diving knowledge workbook.  If you do all the knowledge reviews in the divemaster manual and work through the workbook you have just reduced the divemaster course length by about a week!

To sum up - if you want to do the course to become a really good diver and have a lot of fun - do it over two months.

If you want to do the course to get another PADI certification do it with someone who offers it in a 3-6 week course.  No-one should offer it to you in less than three weeks.

Another way to look at it is- do you want to be part of the team or just another customer.

If you are thinking of doing you divemaster make sure you meet the instructors you will be working with before signing up.  The course is great if you get on well with your instructors, but not if you don't.