Do you want to increase your diving skills and earning potential, explore new underwater dimensions, and improve your chances of getting a job as a Divemaster? Then The Ultimate Divemaster Course is for you!
If you aim to work as a professional Divemaster or go on to become an instructor, then standing out from the crowd is essential to gain employment! Employers are always looking for the best staff, and the ability to do more than other candidates will help get your application to the top of the pile when dive centres are looking for new recruits.
The best way to increase your skills, knowledge, and your ability to offer more, is to become qualified in a wider range of diving fields and extend your diving repertoire by taking some SSI Specialty courses. If a customer wants to go deeper than 30m, go inside a shipwreck, or dive on Enriched Air Nitrox, then the dive shop needs a Divemaster who is also qualified to do these things.
With this in mind, Goodtime Thailand has created the Ultimate Divemaster Course to propel you into the upper echelons of the Divemaster fraternity. By integrating five SSI Specialty Diver courses and the Advanced First Aid for Divers course into the existing high-quality components of our regular Koh Tao Divemaster Program, we will be giving you all the tools you need to be the best of the best!
The SSI Divemaster course can be completed in as little as two weeks, but we normally recommend spending around 6 weeks with us to get the most out of both your training at Goodtime and diving on Koh Tao in general.
Get Trained in:
Enriched Air Nitrox
Deep Diving
Navigation
Night & Limited Visibility Diving
SSI Advanced Wreck Diving
Advanced First Aid for Divers
By integrating all of these specialty courses into your Koh Tao Divemaster training, you will be making a saving of over 30% on the cost of taking each course individually, and you will be putting yourself right at the top of the list when it comes to finding work as a dive professional.
The Ultimate Divemaster Specialty Courses
SSI Enriched Air Nitrox – This course will teach you how to safely plan and dive with enriched air mixtures of up to 40% oxygen. Diving with enriched air can increase your no-decompression limits, increase your safety, and reduce the required length of your surface intervals compared to diving on air. It’s great for repetitive diving, especially if you are visiting some deeper sites, so it’s not unusual for our customers who book packages for fun diving on Koh Tao to request nitrox fills. The same is true in other locations, and especially with liveaboard operators.
SSI Deep Diving – Many exciting dive sites in the world are located at depths below 30metres, and without the proper training and experience to dive them safely, you’d be putting yourself and other divers at risk. This specialty course will equip you with the skills and ability to safely plan and conduct dives to depths of up to 40 metres. The course will significantly increase your confidence and comfort levels for deeper diving and is a prerequisite for some more advanced training courses in technical and decompression diving.
SSI Navigation – This course covers all of the basic concepts required to comfortably lead other divers and navigate underwater. You will learn how to use both compass and natural navigation techniques, estimate distance, conduct basic navigation patterns, and practice leaving and returning to a designated point. This course will significantly boost your confidence as a dive leader and will provide tangible benefits to your future customers.
SSI Night & Limited Visibility – This course provides you with the skills and concepts required to dive safely and comfortably at night or in limited visibility conditions. Some of the ocean’s most amazing creatures only come out at night, so your diving day shouldn’t have to end when the sun goes down! Plus, while we are blessed to be diving on Koh Tao with fantastic visibility for most of the year, this may not always be the case in the off-season or at other diving destinations that don’t have such reliable conditions. So it’s a really good idea to have some practice and training in limited visibility diving. You will learn how to enter and exit the water safely, use specialized equipment, and how to communicate and dive with a buddy at night or in limited visibility.
SSI Advanced Wreck Diving – Quite simply one of the coolest dive courses you can take! Many of the ocean’s best dive sites are artificial reefs or wrecks that have sunk throughout the ages. This course will give you the skills and knowledge to safely penetrate wrecks with overhead environments while remaining within the daylight zone. The training required for this type of diving is overhead buoyancy control and new finning techniques, with additional optional components for laying safety lines and the proper use of lights.
Advanced First Aid for Divers – This course is an absolute must for any dive professional, and indeed all divers who take safety seriously. You’ll have already mastered the basics in the First Aid and CPR certification you took to enroll on your Diver Stress and Rescue Course, but this program will take your skills and competence to the next level. As well as a refresh on your basic training, you will learn about airway management, drowning protocols, intermediate life support, water removal techniques, and diver safety.
Course Logistics
You can start the course at any time, although here are some factors to be aware of before you sign up.
Prerequisites
To officially begin your SSI Divemaster course at Goodtime you must:
If you do not already meet all of these prerequisites, don’t worry! We can help with additional fun dives, Open Water, Advanced Adventurer, and Diver Stress & Rescue courses and also any SSI specialty courses you need on arrival.
Equipment
We recommend that every dive professional should own a full set of their own equipment, and we provide a 15% discount on any purchases you make through Goodtime. However, we understand that not everyone who takes their pro-level dives courses on Koh Tao with us can continue travelling with lots of bulky equipment, and others may not be planning to work as a dive professional right away. So we do allow free use of our rental dive equipment for the bigger items. You do need to own or purchase the following items as a minimum however, as we do not have enough of these available for you to borrow on a long term basis:
For your comfort and safety, it is also recommended that every diver should have their own mask and snorkel, fins, rash guard or wetsuit, and dive computer. Remember that as an Aqualung Partner Centre we can help you get access to a wide range of top quality dive equipment at the best prices.
SSI Ultimate Divemaster Course Costs
The Ultimate Divemaster Course costs 55,000THB and is inclusive of all SSI materials and fees.
If you have any questions or would like any more information about Goodtime, the SSI Divemaster course, Koh Tao, or Thailand in general, or if you would like to sign up and start your professional dive career with us, please contact gaz@goodtimethailand.com
What’s Next?
Becoming a professional Divemaster on Koh Tao is only the first step in your diving career. If you have a passion for teaching or want to increase your employment potential, then the next step is to take the Instructor Training Course to become a fully-fledged SSI scuba diving instructor!
So what are you waiting for? Come and join us, and start your professional diving career in paradise!