6 Days a Week??

So I was speaking to my parents the other day, amazed at how after 6 years of doing this job they still take the time to 'encourage' me to come home and 'get a real job'.  I wonder if other instructors have this conversation as often as I do - I suspect so.  Supportive or not, there will always be an element to people's thinking that a professional diver pretty much just sits around on the beach and drinks cocktails, occasionally taking some young hot backpacker beneath the waves for a little underwater seduction.  Believe me, I wish it was like this!!  Have you ever tried seducing someone underwater?  It's hard man!  Saltwater in the eyes, clown fish trying to peck your nose off, fin blisters, mosquito bites, snot all over your face when you surface - trust me when I say that diving ain't as sexy as they would have you believe, and definitely not as easy...

A typical dive day with typical guests

When I left the UK for the Middle East, for my first ever full time diving job, I went as an instructor to a country that I believed to be completely strict and hardline - imagining fantastic diving conditions but almost no social life.  Boy, was I wrong!  My first weekend in Bahrain saw me perched on the edge of sanity watching a clutch of military men strip naked and start drinking games, fascinated with the idea of a British female diving instructor.  To say I was in clover is under-selling.  These men were amazing to me coming from cold and dank UK, where the men rarely even notice the words falling from your lips before proposing something undoubtedly disgusting in a regional accent (you may be able to tell I'm not a fan of the average British male - certain men excepting I'm sure!).  Here they were strong, fit, tattooed, polite with just a hint of 'I could kill you with my thumb' that was intoxicating.  And even better, most of them could dive! 

As for the diving itself - imagine swimming in a completely brown very warm bath, with only the occasional cuttlefish or small damselfish to break the gloom.  It was definitely not the best diving I had ever done in my life, and in the first two weeks I had three trips to hospital to remove fishing hooks from my hands and have tetanus shots, but the people, for the most part, were pleasant and the money was good.  Working with a great commission structure helped, as well as having my own apartment for the first time ever, complete with gym and pool; all of these conspired to keep me in the country, on and off, for three years.

A typical dive!

The moral of this story is, before choosing a location for your dive job, make sure you research thoroughly and enter into everything with eyes wide open.  Bahrain was not the perfect job, but it was a perfect stepping stone for something bigger.  Don't travel anywhere with preconceptions or prejudices, and most importantly of all - ACCEPT EVERY INVITIATION!  Oh and be safe ;)

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