What Does a Day in the Life of a PADI Divemaster Look Like?

Published On: December 18th, 2024

Being a PADI Divemaster is an incredibly fulfilling job. Besides being able to scuba dive as much as you want, you also sign up to a fun and sociable lifestyle and become a role model to other divers. Being part of a dive community as a dive professional is awesome. You make friends with the same passion as yours, bring joy to customers and put your dive skills to practice. A day in the life of a PADI Divemaster is exciting and varied, everyday is different – from assisting dive instructors in courses, leading fun dives to managing some courses independently. Ultimately helping to teach the knowledge, skills and attitudes that make a great diver. It is most importantly the phase in your dive career to gain confidence, get useful contacts and further understanding of the diving industry.

Interested to know more on what the typical duties of a PADI Divemaster are? Here are a list of them:

1. Assisting PADI Instructors on courses

One of the key roles as a PADI Divemaster is being a supporting figure for PADI Instructors while they conduct scuba diving courses. This includes all programs from PADI Open Water Course, to Speciality dives, to Discover Scuba Diving. PADI Divemasters play a crucial role in helping with the running of the course, providing an extra hand and eye for both the PADI Instructor and students. As well as this, PADI Divemasters play an important part, by being another dive professional for students to turn to during any difficulties, enhancing their safety and bringing happiness. Also being a role model to students, by showing how to dive responsibly and adhering to PADI standards of professionalism. Other important responsibilities that Divemasters have in courses:

Demonstrate and re-demonstrate skills during courses, helping students to master and refine their dive techniques
Guiding PADI Open Water students on surface swims, navigation exercises and open water dives 2, 3 and 4
Lead certified divers on Adventure or Speciality dives
Looking after students underwater when the PADI instructor needs to ascend with somebody
Leading subsequent dives for Discover Scuba Diving participants

But being a PADI Divemaster doesn’t only mean you are an assistant. These next roles fall under the leadership of Divemasters:

2. Guiding Certified Divers

Whether you decide to work in a dive shop, liveaboard or any other place, Divemasters are the primary people to lead fun dives. Fun dives as you know are for certified divers to explore dive sites around. This role is very rewarding as you are the centre of making their dive experience better and enhancing safety of certified divers who more than likely or not are on holiday. It entails you to manage the diver’s paperwork, assembling and disassembling their dive gear, assisting them to the dive site either from shore or boat, providing dive briefings, reminding safety precautions and leading and navigating the dive. Most importantly, your job is to ensure the customers happiness by being fun, friendly and approachable, asking any special requests they may have, spotting cool creatures and in general making their day one to remember.

3. PADI ReActivate / Refresher Courses

As well as guiding certified divers, you will also be responsible for undertaking PADI ReActivate / Refresher courses. This course is aimed at certified divers who have taken a long break from diving or simply just want to brush up their skills. You’ll be the leader of these courses in both a training pool and in the open water. The responsibilities include going through paperwork, managing the runnings of the course, teaching and demonstrating skills according to the PADI Instructor Manual and attending to additional requests. ReActivate candidates also need to complete the “PADI ReActivate eLearning” before the course and complete a Quick Review. On top of this, after completion of the course, you’ll likely be guiding a fun dive for them. It’s a very fulfilling role as you’ll be the main supporting figure for these divers. Helping to build their confidence and regain their passions in getting back underwater.

4. PADI Discover Local Diving

On top of the PADI ReActivate course, Divemasters can lead PADI Discover Local Diving dives. This program is aimed at certified divers who are diving in a new environment or location and are interested in having a local orientation from an expert. The duties of this course is very similar to guiding a fun dive but also incorporates more local information. This includes a briefing of the dive site including conditions, hazards, points of interest, local procedures and techniques used and also being environmentally responsible.

5. Dive Site Management

Basically helping with the day to day running of the place you work in. Some typical duties to expect throughout the day include:

Before diving: It’s normally an early start for Divemasters as jobs need to be completed before customers/students arrive. These include preparing classrooms for courses, setting up scuba gear, helping the boat staff with scuba tanks and checking safety equipment. Afterwards, you’ll greet customers/students when they arrive and assist them with their paperwork and questions.

As well as this, you’ll be hands-on with dive planning and logistics. This includes monitoring the weather and tides and setting up the pool for lessons. You’ll also be in charge of boat briefings explaining boat facilities and emergency equipment. In addition providing pre-dive briefings. Checking underwater currents to establish proper navigation, highlighting potential hazards and local marine life that can be found.
Surface intervals: Between dives you’ll have opportunities to boost your career. This can be helping out in the dive shop/liveaboard with office admin and talking to new customers. Also doing other diving associated tasks like updating social media posts on your dives, editing underwater photos and even fixing any faulty equipment. This is a great period to get to know your customers/students better, building rapport, boosting their experiences and even increasing opportunities to provide information on further courses/training on offer that will be beneficial for them.
After the dive: Before you can end your day, some duties you’ll do are checking that cylinders are filled, scuba gear has been rinsed, and plans are ready for the next day’s diving.

Further Training you can undertake as a PADI Divemaster

If you are interested in teaching more during your time being a PADI Divemaster, you can undertake further Divemaster programs. These include:

PADI Discover Scuba Diving Leader Internship: To lead Discover Scuba Diving Courses without a PADI instructor.
Complete PADI Specialty Instructor courses: This includes all dive specialities that don’t require being in the open water besides the PADI Digital Underwater Photographer speciality.
Become an Emergency First Response Instructor: To teach EFR primary and secondary care.

Having more skills to offer as a PADI Divemaster enhances your CV and can help you to find a job easier around the Philippines. Here you can read about the 8 Best Places to Work in the Philippines as a PADI Divemaster.

Work Culture and living in paradise

Divemaster Internship Courses – DiveProCareer

At Dive Pro Career, we provide tailored courses to match with your lifestyle and timeframe and beyond completing a PADI Divemaster Course with us, you’ll have assistance in finding your first job. The work culture here is relaxed, supportive and friendly but also can be busy, ultimately a great environment to help build your diving skills and knowledge.

Life as a PADI Divemaster in Moalboal, Philippines is just great. The dive community in this small Filipino town is renowned and the dive sites and conditions here are perfect for mastering your dive skills and teaching. It provides a warm atmosphere where making lifelong friends amongst colleagues and other divers is guaranteed. You’ll also be working in a sunny tropical paradise where water temperatures never go below 27C / 80F degrees and land temperatures average 30C / 86F. Life outside of work here as a Divemaster is exciting, with many bars and restaurants and other land activities to keep you busy. Read more about what living in Moalboal is like here.