Northwest Dive Club

I'm looking to logged as many dives in the next several months to work towards becoming a dive master and eventually an instructor. I have about thirty dives although I haven't been logging my dives until I decided to attempt becoming a professional diver. My log book only has 12 dives listed.

Recently, I completed a PADI advance open water course and will complete a Rescue diver course in June.

I'm looking for divers who can dive regularly during the week anytime between 9am-2pm. I can go as far South as Tacoma and as far North as Mukilteo but would like to stay close to Seattle since I often have work in the evenings. I have 2 steel 130 tanks that I use.

Francis

I often have time available during those hours. It's not real easy for me to get to Seattle at 9am, but Edmonds is easy, and Alki is easy later in the morning. Let's talk.

I can do one tank dives most weekday's. 9am would work well for me as I have to be at work in seattle by 1pm.

Feel free to come drop in on the weekly west seattle dive at Cove2

You will get LOTS of fun diving opportunity and if you ask for it, we will provide solicited tips and pointers to help improve your skills.

drop me a PM and get in touch and come splash!!

OP -- congratulations on getting hooked.

Even though you didn't ask, I'm going to comment on your desire to become a "professional" in the scuba world. I made that decision about a year after getting back into diving at about dive number 100. In my wondering/wandering path to becoming a DM and then an Instructor, I think I learned several important lessons:

1. Take a lot of DIFFERENT classes from a number of DIFFERENT instructors. By different instructors, I really mean instructors who have different training backgrounds and different diving philosophies. Don't let yourself get into a "track" with one set of instructors.

2. Do a lot of DIFFERENT dives -- boat dives, wall dives, scooter dives, drift dives, warm water dives, critter dives, skills dives, current sensitive sites, night dives, etc.

The theme is to not only get a lot of diving experience but also a lot of diving experiences (which are two different things).

Good luck on getting to your goal.

This is some awesome advice from Peter!

I've seen people dive the same spot for years and never do boat or wall or drift dives and jump into Technical classes or go for becoming instructors, but yet have never done anything except the same site over and over..

There is a great saying I once heard that a diver with hundred dives in different places in the world is far more experienced than a diver with a thousand dives in the same place.

variety is the spice of life and what will keep you enjoying the sport!

Yes to what Peter said.

When I became a DM, my course director told me that before I became an instructor take at least a year and work with as many different instructors in as many different situations as possible. Been teaching for nine years now, and it's still the best advice I ever got ...

... Bob (Grateful Dive)

One more voice to "Amen" what Peter said.

Training exclusively from one Instructor and Agency tends to have a healthy amount of Kool-Aid mixed - regardless of the agency. The agency has a financial incentive to get you to follow their career path, through their store and their professionals.

And while many good instructors are turned out that way, there are also some not very good instructors turned out that way as well - mostly with huge blind spots because they haven't been exposed to other diving philosophies or even other instructor's take on the particular diving philosophy / agency that they choose.

This is also a great reason to dive with many different people, something that in my opinion we have a HUGE wealth of here in the Pacific Northwest - solid divers from multiple agencies / perspectives that are great people, good teachers, and very welcoming to new divers - and not just as an avenue to recruiting.

Warts and all, I love our PNW diving community. The few really bad apples can be quickly discovered and avoided.

Good luck in pursuing your dream!

I wholeheartedly agree with the advice. There is nothing more than I want, than to be able to dive at a different area of the world each year and have many diving experiences. My end goal is to have my own liveaboard and sail the world's waters. Having a house just doesn't sound as appealing to me. I'd also would like to do most of my diving in warmer waters. I just happen to be in the Northwest right now and for the foreseeable future. I'm still very far from having the skills, means, and knowledge to carry on such an unusual lifestyle.

For now, I'll do as much diving as my schedule and pocket book will allow in the local waters enough to know the area like I do my neighborhood. I'm certainly open to taking a weekend trip out to Vancouver Island, Olympic Peninsula, and where marine life abounds.

Always open to suggestions and advice...

Francis

I'm very interested in diving mid week during the day. Starting right after traffic would be great or even an occasional sunrise before traffic start is cool. Multiple dives per day are great for me.

I live in Mukilteo one mile from the ferry. I'll travel wherever as one of my goals in the next twelve months is to dive at least 50 different WA and BC sites and log a minimum of 100 cold water dives. So it sounds like we may dive a lot together. ;-)

Feel free to email at GMHA375@yahoo.com

I'll echo what others have said...

When I started to consider taking Divemaster training, I decided I wanted to have at least 200 dives. I was being "pushed" into becoming a DM a bit faster than I was comfortable with. I don't know how I came to that number, but at the time, it probably just seemed reasonable to me that 200 fun/personal dives was a respectable amount of experience to warrant making the transition to the "professional" level where I'd be responsible for other divers. In hindsight, for me, I think 200 dives was ok to START my DM training. Those 200 dives were spread out over probably at least 60-80 dive sites, so I gained experience, good and bad (but experience nonetheless, which is what was most important), from a wide spectrum of dive sites and conditions.

I think I started my DM training ~250 dives or so. My training was done by at least 3 different instructors. I knew fairly quickly that I wanted to become an instructor eventually, but I also knew that was a big jump (the jump from DM/AI to instructor, imo, is enormously larger than the jump to DM training). So, I set a hard number of 500 dives and at least 2 summers working as many classes, with as many different instructors, as possible. Again, I don't know how I came up with 500 dives as the minimum.

The next two years I worked countless classes, at various levels, with at least 9 instructors. This is where I really got exposed to different teaching styles and methods. I took something from every single instructor that I would eventually apply to my own classes.

During that time, I continued to do non-training/class dives as often as possibly...not because I was deliberately trying to get more experience, but because I didn't want to get wrapped up in only diving in class settings, because I saw instructors who were doing that, and the simple fact that I thoroughly enjoy diving.

I finished my IDC in late 2004, and had ~550 dives or so when I started it.

If I had to do it all over again, I'm not sure I would make any major changes. The path I took worked well for me, and I think I'm a better instructor because of it because I can draw from my own experience, which makes for some funny anecdotes, some great teaching moments and also being able to explain the "why" and not just the "how". Additionally, I've had some at-the-time stressful moments that, upon reflecting on them, I was really glad I took my time. It allowed me to see how other instructors handled different class situations, and allowed me time to gain confidence and comfort in my own abilities underwater.

Good luck with your journey! Keep gaining more experience, and most importantly, have fun doing it!