Open Water to dive master

The dream

Imagine slowly drifting over the reefs, with the soft sound of bubbles rising above you. Image a life of sunny beaches, exhilarating boat rides, palm trees, and beautiful dives… waking up in the morning to the sound of the waves, looking forward to a day of scuba diving.

This could be your life!

Becoming a PADI Divemaster is the key to living this dream. A Divemaster is a bit like being an underwater tour guide – you lead scuba dives on wrecks or reefs, or you assist with the training of new divers.

A typical Divemaster’s role would be to prepare scuba gear in the morning for clients, leading the dives of the day, and washing up and getting ready for the next days’ dives again.

Does this sound like something you would enjoy? Then read below on how to go from Novice to Divemaster in just three months!

The internship

To become a PADI Divemaster, there are various courses that need to be completed, as well a significant amount of experience and dives that need to be obtained.

At Into the Blue Scuba Dive Centre, we have designed an internship program that will help you get all of this in just three months. The internship is based on the principle that you pay for the individual courses, while we give you the extra dives and experience needed to complete your Divemaster Course at no charge. In turn for this, you help us out at our dive school. Your duties can include anything that needs to be done for us to run a dive school.

Typically, internship duties can include:

  • Preparing equipment for clients
  • Helping on dives
  • Washing of boats and equipment
  • Helping in our office if needed
  • Participating with us on a marketing run.

The idea is to give you as much experience as possible in the diving environment, so that you will be an asset to any dive school that you go work at as a Divemaster. This way, the internship is beneficial for both us and you. The internship is not a paid internship.

Courses & experience that need to be completed during this time are:

  • PADI Open Water Course
  • PADI Advanced Course
  • PADI Rescue Course
  • Emergency First Response Course (CPR & 1st Aid)
  • PADI Divemaster Course
  • You will need to log a minimum of 60 dives

Schedule

You can start your internship at any time, and we recommend that you dive with us 5 days a week to be able to complete in 3 months. You can do fewer days – for example if you only have weekends available – but keep in mind that the fewer days you do the longer it will take you to get to qualify. Talk to us if you have special scheduling requests

Who is eligible for the program?

  • You need to be a minimum of 18 years old
  • You need to be reasonably healthy and should be able to swim. Download our medical questionnaire here. A “yes” answer to any of the conditions on the questionnaire does not mean that you will not be able to dive, but you would need a doctor to sign you off for diving.
  • Professionalism is important to us. When it comes to our Divemaster Internship Program, we only allow participants who we think will contribute positively to our team, and entrance to this program is at our discretion.

What have others said about Into the Blue Scuba Dive Center?

Globetrekker Oxford

“Top marks for safety and professionalism”....

The reason for giving five stars is not because my dive day was good - it was horrible, a complete washout, no viz, unpleasant swell, just all round yucky conditions.

However, that's nature, and dive operators can do nothing about it. What all dive operators should do is be as professional and customer-focused as the guys from ITB diving.

First thing to note is that ITB is considerably cheaper (by almost 1000.- Rand) than Simonstown operators, which is baffling considering that they also have the transport cost from Cape Town to budget for.

DMs, Instructors and Shopfloor staff are all super friendly and helpful; I even got picked up from my Cape Town digs and dropped off afterwards, free of charge.

On the boat, I saw all the emergency and redundancy gear I like to see: twin engines (VERY important!), Oxygen, comms gear, flares, the lot. Briefings were thorough, and buddy check was insisted on.

The trip to Seal Rock in the RIB was fun in the swell, but when we got there the captain did not let us dive because of the unsafe conditions. Disappointing as this was, he was totally right. Low tide and heavy swells are a dangerous combination this close to the rocks, and as for trying to get back into a RIB in seas like this....
We then tried the PMB wreck, where zero viz and nasty vertical swell separated the group and forced us out of the water after 25 minutes.

The captain did offer to try another spot but was honest enough to tell us that in his opinion it was going to be rubbish everywhere, and so we called it a day.

Back at the dive shop, we were all offered a re-schedule, but as I'm out of time I was given half my money back. I know from experience that this is not the norm in the industry, sadly.

Into the Blue is a top notch outfit that does things by the book, with a strong safety focus and very customer centered, on top of offering reasonable pricing and a fair refund policy. You'll have a hard time to find a better operator anywhere around. They'll definitely be my first choice when I pass through next, and for doing my IDC sometime this year.

Just hope mother nature will be in better mood then.

Visited April 2017

 

Clinton Bobbert

I recommend anyone that is nervous or thinking twice to do scuba diving, it is the best choice you can…

I grew up on the sea, always wondered how it must be into the deep blue sea. Then one day me and my wife decided to do an attempt to do scuba diving and I was quite nervous about going under water but thanks to the Into the blue crew and their patience and determination me and my wife found a new hobby and looking forward to go around the world and scuba dive all around the world. So from me and my wife we want to thank Cape Town, South Africa, Into the blue, for what we have experienced and thank you for opening a new world to us! I recommend anyone that is nervous or thinking twice to do scuba diving, it is the best choice you can ever make!

Jacques Vermeulen

Best dive shop ever! People are friendly and helpful!...

Cape Town diving for the win!