SCUBA DIVING
From Artist to Scuba Instructor
Hi! My name’s Alex, I’m French-Canadian. Since a little more than a decade I’ve been working in the diving industry, first as a Divemaster, and then as a Scuba Instructor.
I worked as a dive professional in Fiji Islands, Honduras, Mexico, Kenya, Indonesia and the Maldives. And I dived in a few more countries as well.
I am a PADI Master Scuba Diver Trainer, with more than 6500 dives, around 800 certifications, and counting!
What follows below is a little account of how I got where I am now, as a professional diver.
I’m still passionate about what I do. I’m a very careful and patient teacher, and I want all my students to become the best divers they can be.
Hawaii - Open Water Diver
My father was a diver when he was younger, I would say probably mid 1950’s, there were not that many people diving then
I had my first diving experience in the 80’s when my dad was still alive, and we had 3 dives together in a resort off the coast of Jamaica’s Montego Bay. I was 13 years old at the time – and although my English skills weren’t that bad – I was not fully able to understand the Jamaican instructor and everything he said in the first pool session.
I understood that the BCD inflator was to go back to the surface at the end of the dive, like so many people think wrongly when they first get explained about scuba equipment. No one was using dive computers back then, we were told to ascend at the speed of the small bubbles we exhaled from our regulators second stages. We dived with dive tables…
I’m from Quebec, Canada, and scuba diving was not really in my mind for decades afterward. Water temp is excruciatingly cold in my region, and then I had other passions at the time.
Fast forward to 2011, I started what was supposed to be a very long world trip spanning many countries. I had that idea to do a dive course in the back of my mind, just something I wanted to do along the way.
In 2012. I was traveling in Hawaii and finally I had to do it. Do a diving course and get my certification card!
Little did I know, that card would shape my foreseeable future…
Fiji - Divemaster
After leaving Hawaii, I went to Fiji Islands where I was supposed to stay for about two months. The plan was to go to New Zealand another two months afterward, and then land in Australia and continue from there
On my first night I was approached by many people, then finally I gave-in and listened to a guy that was trying to sell me a trip to a small island not too far away. The price was alright, so I said “Why not?” to a two weeks stay on Mana Island.
I think it was on my second day on the island that I spoke with a guy who told me that a dive center down the beach would train me as a Divemaster and then make me work for them after. That is something all too common in the diving industry, the “Zero to Hero” programs. When I went to the dive center however, they told me there was no such thing, and that I would have to pay the courses all the way, and most probably have no work after with them as they were fully staffed.
So I went back to my accommodation a bit disappointed, but later-on, I met Tuks.
Laitia Tukai is the owner and instructor of his own small Dive Center “Nomads Diving“, and after speaking together for a while, we had a deal. I would make him a graphic image, and he would train me up to Divemaster at a very low cost.
What was to be a two weeks stay on Mana Island turned into an almost two years experience, working alongside Tuks as a DM guiding certified divers, and also assisting him with parts of his courses when needed. Over that period I earned some experience as a diver, diving most days at the time.
Honduras - Instructor
I had to improve my skills and look for work, and for that I needed an upgrade in qualifications. So after a lot of research I chose to go to Honduras in Central-America to do my PADI Instructor Development Course (IDC)
I went to Barefoot Divers in Roatan, Honduras for my IDC. Gary Miller, Platinum decorated diving legend from the UK was the Course Director. He was like a general on a battlefield, and everything we learned had to be as close to perfection as possible. It was a whirlwind of exercises, theory & practical skills.
I also took the opportunity to upgrade my new status of Open Water Scuba Instructor to that of Master Scuba Diver Trainer (MSDT), which allowed me to teach different diving specialty courses.
Afterward I had a few freelance jobs as instructor in Roatan. The first course I ever did was an Advanced Open Water Diver course. Then for the second one it was special, as I gave my first Open Water Diver course to two very special persons, my own brother Laurence and his girlfriend Maude.
After a short low-season break, I worked for Aqua Adventures, a company based in Media Luna in Roatan. I was responsible for all the diving courses, My job was to teach all week long, with maximum people in each sessions.
And when not in courses I was guiding certified divers. We had a very nice Shark Dive in Roatan, and some world class diving sites as well. It was a busy time!
Mexico - MSDT
After a period of almost 2 years in Roatan, Honduras, I made my way North, sailing in a night from Roatan Island to the southern tip of Belize. From there, a bus brought me northward pass the Mexican border and onward to Playa del Carmen
I was hired by a big and famous diving organization in Mexico. It was low season in Honduras, so when a friend told me that the company that just hired him was looking for more instructors, I told him to give them my name.
As it turned out, it was not so good a workplace. My friend gave his resignation after only 3 days there. I was able to last a few months. I’m not naming the company, but my time with them was less than stellar to say the least.
One of the thing when you work is of course the colleagues you meet and friends you make. That was really the high point of this work experience.
I met some amazing people.
Playa del Carmen is a very nice coastal city. The food is excellent in many restaurants, the nightlife is anything you want from chill bars to extravagant disco clubs.
But then the Riviera Maya is famous for something else in the diving world – the cenotes. And it’s truly a joy to dive in those underwater caverns and caves and see the god rays shine through and illuminating parts of your underwater trajectory. It’s truly a sight to behold, and you can dive many of them with just an Open Water Diver license.
My best memory of those days in Playa del Carmen? It’s where I met my (now ex) partner Margherita, the woman who would share my life for the next five years.
Maldives (part I) - MSDT
Early 2015, me and Margherita got an opportunity to go and work in one of our dream destinations for diving – The Maldives. Off we go!
The Resort was named Six Senses Laamu, and we were hired by Ocean Dimensions. Six Senses Laamu is a luxury high end resort, catering to rather wealthy people – it’s an expensive stay!
Working abroad means you are working with people from diverse countries and origins, Marc and Petra the owners from New Zealand and Germany respectively. Jörg from Germany, Marcela from Brazil, Hiromi from Japan, Gigi from Malaysia and Oleg from Belarus.
Diving in Laamu was extremely good from 2015 to 2016, but when the coral bleaching of 2016 started we lost a lot of the pristine old reefs in the area. By the end of the summer 2016, we saw the effect of the bleaching in most of the shallow areas of our dive sites, and it was heartbreaking.
In Laamu, Ocean Dimensions was organizing a Pirate trip every year, for the kids. Petra told me one day that I was to be the next pirate captain, as if it was a punitive assignment, little did she knew, I am a pirate! I went into the role with great enthusiasm, making my own costume the first time, and the next year I had one custom made, as seen on the photo below.
In 2017, Ocean Dimensions left Laamu Atoll to relocate the operations to the Baa Atoll in Kihaa Maldives. Me and Margherita where invited to follow Marc and Petra on this new adventure. We were now right in front of the famed Hanifaru Bay, a seasonal feeding ground for manta rays, new dive sites to discover and new responsibilities. Abdul, a local divemaster was already there, then Oleg came back later-on, as well as Jörg, Marcela and Gigi. The dream team was back again! We worked in Kihaa from August 2017 to March 2019.
Kenya - Manager
While working in Laamu, I came into contact with one of Marc and Petra’s long time friends Ralph and Sandra. A few years after, on their first visit to Kihaa Maldives was around the time that me and Margherita had decided to leave the Maldives. And that’s when Ralph offered us a position in Kenya.
We moved to Kenya to work as managers for Diving the Crab, located inside The Sands at Nomad in Diani Beach. It was our first time in a manager position, although Margherita was assistant base-leader in Kihaa. We were put in charge of Diving the Crab’s dive centers at the Sands at Nomads, Diving the Crab Baobab, and indirectly Diving the Crab at Chale Island.
We had a team of seasoned Kenyan divemasters and instructors, and it was interesting to meet people that has been working there for so long.
Diani Beach is a fantastic area on the coast of Kenya. The diving along the coast offer splendid marine life, and also the MV Funguo wreck dive.
As manager, I didn’t do a lot of diving in my time in Kenya. My duties were more in the office. It was a very different experience, and to be honest – I prefer to be underwater!
Then at the end of March 2020, something else was in the air – Covid-19. I was able to leave Kenya only 1 hour before the border was shut down, fly to London, then Montreal, and then to my hometown of Chicoutimi to quarantine. For much longer than I expected…
Maldives (part II) - MSDT
At the end of my Covid-19 confinement in Canada, Marc the owner of Ocean Dimensions contacted me, and offered that I re-join the team in the Maldives at Kihaa. After 1 year and 5 months in “captivity” I quickly said – YES!
Marc and Petra had opened another dive center in the Raa Atoll in a resort called Brennia, but I was to return to the one I knew in Kihaa Maldives.
Coming back to Kihaa at the end of the pandemic, I felt I was back in familiar territory, and at the same time, things were different. The tourism was just starting again, and we had some guests, but many nationalities were somehow missing.
I was back to a place I knew, but with a different team to work with. Gianluca and Ariana were now there since they came to basically replace me and Margherita when we left in 2019. Abdul was still there, and Oleg would come back for another of his 6 months yearly stint in the Maldives.
It was interesting to see the reefs slowly coming back from the 2016 bleaching that affected most of the shallow reefs worldwide. After the time I spent in Kenya and the break forced by Covid-19, it was more or less a period of two and a half years since I was there, and I could see the difference!
Indonesia, Bali - MSDT
I resigned from Ocean Dimensions in Kihaa Maldives in April ’23. My goal was to head to Thailand and try to freelance there as a scuba instructor.
However my timing was just wrong, as April to October is low-season in Thailand. On top of this the cost of getting a visa to work legally in Phuket was insane. So I sent my C.V. around the globe. The very next day I had 3 job offers, and I agreed to the first who contacted me – I was going to work in Bali.
I arrived in Bali around the end of April, and almost started working immediately, but as I didn’t yet had a work permit I was not allowed to teach. Bali Aqua sent me to the nearby Island of Nusa Penida, where started learning the dive sites and guiding dives alongside the team of Bali Aqua Nusa Penida. After so long in the Maldives, there was a situational shock. I found myself not really enjoying working there, and at that point I had some family problems in Canada, so I left Bali after a only being there for 6 weeks. I have to say the people I met in Bali were incredibly nice!
Maldives (part III) - Manager
After a spell in Canada, Marc the owner of Ocean Dimensions contacted me, and offered that I re-re-join the team back at Kihaa Maldives. But this time – as dive center manager.
And that is where I am now, so the story of my 3rd stint in the Maldives is still being written…
Next stop: ?
to be continued...
