Become a dive instructor on Ko Tao

I have made Thailand my home, I live on a small island called Ko Tao off the east coast and teach travellers to scuba dive. Many people comment on how lucky I am but luck really has nothing to do with it. My response is always the same, you can do it too, and it's true.

It's far cheaper and quicker to train to teach people to dive than it is to qualify for many other trades or occupations. If you're bored at work and looking for a change or just don't feel quite ready for college, then maybe this is for you. Best of all you get to hang out in a tropical location whilst training and once qualified you have a pick of many fantastic places to look for work. Sound interesting?

Firstly you have to learn how to SCUBA dive and the entry level course, open water, is around 4 days. This will tell you if you like diving but don't worry too much at this stage about the progression to instructor level, you have a way to go and a lot to learn so don't feel intimidated.

Enjoy the next few courses which lead up to the entry qualification for your first professional course and take some time out to fun dive too.

Your advanced course follows your open water, this takes two days, and amongst other things gives you the opportunity to dive at night, learn how to take photographs underwater and to dive deeper.

The rescue course is the next one and the final before you enter your first professional level. This will teach you how to respond to emergency situations and takes a further 3-4 days.

You can practically do these three courses back-to-back, so in around 2 weeks, you can sign up for your dive master course. If you choose this route most dive centres will advise you to go out and fun dive for a while. I certainly would recommend it as up until this point you will have probably not conducted your own dives and not actually dived just for the fun of it.

The majority of dive centres here on Ko Tao offer you unlimited diving as part of your dive master course, so therefore once you have signed up you can take some time to get some experience before progressing. You will need to have achieved 60 logged dives to certify to this level so take a break from learning and just go dive. It's part of the course, so you don't have to pay for each dive and it's certainly a cost effective way to dive everyday for eight weeks.

Most people take around 6-8 weeks to complete their dive master course and the majority of centres have schedules built around this. You can certainly take longer about it and if you are more experienced then you could also do it in a bit less time. However if you have the time to spend 8 weeks then I personally would recommend it. You'll get the most out of your course and enjoy it without feeling pressured.

During the course you will learn more about diving theory and science. You will be taught how to organise diving activities safely, how to run a boat and you will learn about dive centre logistics as well as the practicalities of leading divers underwater. Once certified you will be able to refresh divers techniques' if they haven't dived for a while so you will learn how to demonstrate skills to a very high standard.

Instructors always value a good assistant and this is another role a qualified dive master can fill. You will assist different instructors over different courses to learn the role a dive master plays and to be exposed to different teaching styles. This course is the foundation for your instructor course.

As a dive master, you can now get paid to dive; leading fun dives, conducting scuba reviews and assisting instructors. Lots of people choose to spend a few months working before entering into their instructor course but this choice will be up to you and may depend on your experience too.

In order to enter the instructor development course you must have been a certified diver for 6 months and you must enter your instructor exam with a minimum of 100 logged dives.

Most people are surprised that the instructor course (IDC) only takes around 2 weeks. However you have mastered all your dive theory and science in you dive master course and you already know how to dive to a high standard so the IDC simply teaches you how to teach. The exam, at the end, lasts three days; it tests your skills in classroom, confined and open water teaching. Written exams verify your knowledge around course standards and dive theory and science. Passing this certainly entitles you to a few beers and a day off to recover.

Ko Tao certifies many new instructors every month and the standard is very high. Many people come here intending to complete their IDC but for every one of them there must be at least four who simply get stuck.

Beware, diving is very addictive and this little island seems to be covered in superglue but it's not a bad place to get stuck, after all – I did!

Thanks to Ayesha Cantrell for taking the time to put this story together. Ayesha is a highly experienced scuba diving instructor based on Ko Tao. She offers flexible, unrushed and personalised diving courses that can be tailored to suit your needs including private diving tuition. You can contact her here.