Being a Professional Diver vs. Diving as part off your Profession.

Scuba diving is an amazing experience! I don’t know what I love more about, seeing the world from a different perspective, the physical challenge it presents, or the unique kind of quite to observe the world that it provides. Sadly, most people who get their open water certification will never dive again. The rest of us are addicted.

I have gotten a few questions from people about what I do and how to become a professional diver.

I think that there is a big difference between being a professional diver and using diving as a tool to help your profession.  I use diving as a tool of my profession more than I am a professional diver but I have worked as a professional diver, and I can tell you that there is a difference.

First a warning! I love my job and I love diving, but the fastest way to suck the joy out of diving is to do it professionally. Whether your a scientist or an instructor when you have to do something to pay the bills  it becomes less about enjoyment and more about necessity.

Many of the people who ask me about becoming a pro-diver love to dive and they are looking for a way to turn their passion for diving into a way to get paid to dive. To these lovely people, I say either become an instructor or a dive master at a resort or don’t do this. The quickest way to stop loving diving is to do it professionally.

When you dive professionally you don’t get to do the “fun stuff”. Don’t get me wrong I love it, but diving in black water, no visibility, in the muck, and when you don’t really want to is not what you had in mind when after you left a beautiful tropical location having just gotten your OW certification.  I have had to dive in January when it is snowing to get a single measurement before. I have had to dive in ports and harbors where there are dead fish and birds floating on the surface. I have spent lots of bottom time doing tasks where I can not see my hand in front of my face let alone the ship I am examining. These dives are challenging and complex but they are not “fun”.

I  consider my self a professional diver for a few reason that has very little to do with my current job.

1. I have trained to do things underwater that have nothing to do with recreational diving. Much of this training came from AAUS (American Academy of Underwater Sciences), these skills revolve around collecting data and doing things underwater that other scientists need doing. They are hiring me because they either need more man power or don’t dive themselves.   The most interesting of these dives was collecting/ checking on some experiments the day after Hurricane Sandy blew through. It was interesting in that I have never seen so much stuff in the water column. I have relied so heavily on my dive buddy, and I to see a place that I was diving about once a week turned totally upside down was nuts.

2. I am have trained and am qualified to do jobs that other people don’t want to do. I have lots of safety training, lots and lots of safety training.  Most of the training that you do when you start going down the pro route is about very specific situations, collecting core samples, doing search and recovery with emergency personnel, or even cleaning the bottom of a boat. It is never about diving for enjoyment, it is always about completing a task.

3. Finally, the idea of planning your dive and diving your plan takes on a whole new level when you are a “professional”. I recently worked on a project where we had 22-minute dive windows to work in 90 feet of water. Each dive had a very specific objective, safety was so important. Diving was the tool we were using, not the purpose of our work.

I am an Underwater Archaeologist. I use diving as a tool to look at a specific type of site. I trained as diver to be a better archaeologist, I did not become an archaeologist to do more diving. The other side of this is that the higher you work your way up in archaeology the less fieldwork and diving you actually do.

Many jobs that require you to get advanced certifications in diving (surface supply, cave diving, rebreather, tech diving) will pay for your training after you get hired. With that said that are normally looking for you to bring other skills to the table like archaeology, biology, oceanography, geology, ect.

There are lots of different kind of professional divers, commercial divers, scientific divers, military divers, and divers you cater to recreational dive communities (instructors and in some cases dive masters).

So when you think about becoming a professional diver answer these questions first:

Why do you want to become a professional diver? Is it just because you want to figure out a way to get paid to dive? or do you have a specific job that you would like to do?

What is it about diving that you love? Can you possibly dive as hobby and have another job to support that hobby? Can you move in the profession you have now to a more dive friendly community (hello Miami!)?

And finally, if you could never dive again (you where injured, got the bends, blew an ear drum) what would you do with your time?

All of these questions are things to consider. I dive as a part of my profession, I love diving! But if I never got to dive again I am sure that I would still be able to do archaeology and participate in science.