Working for South Siam Divers

I met for a few drinks with my friend Kob, who was working on the live aboard where Thomas and I had been last year. I told her I was done with the divemaster and instructor course and she was surprised I was working for free. "Tomorrow you go and hand your card to my office, I am pretty sure you will get a lot of work if you want". I didn't have any business cards, so I spend a day on making some pretty nice one and next day I to the moped to Karon beach to find the office. I drove up and down the street and just couldn't find it, so had to go back home again to look at the map.

Turned out I had been just outside the office, but couldn't see it, unbelievable.The next day Elle and I went out there to give them our business cards and they asked us about what places we had been diving in and around Phuket. When I said I had been on Similan a couple of times and I my friend Kob had told me to stop by the office, she said, "Kob is your friend? Ahhh". Danny, I might call you back soon for some work.
We left the shop and it felt kind of positive, at least the people had been very kind, compared to many other places where they just looked at us with a big sigh on the face.
We drove back to Patong and 20min later I felt something in my pocket vibrate, the phone was ringing. I couldn't really pick it up as I was driving, so a few minutes later when we were in a shop I get to look at my phone and the same moment, Elias's phone rings, it is the SSD. Damn, now I had passed on chance of getting on the boat, they would ask Elias instead. He picked up the phone and they asked for me, haha. It was the lady from the office, she wanted me on the Similan dive boat the very next morning at 6am. Wow, this was cool. Diving as a job, hmm, never imagined I would be happy about that, but pretty cool. Had been there as a paying customer a few times, now I was going to guide people there to experience the Similan, probably the best diving in Thailand according to many people.
I packed stuff for 3 days, there might be the possibility of extending the 1 night stay. I had not yet told Kob I was on the boat, wanted to surprise her if I had been transferred to her boat. Didn't even know what I was going to do, a course or guiding... Got on the boat, but not the same as Kob's, did a few dives on sites I had actually been to and remembered a little about, so all in all pretty ok.
The next morning though the two boats, Somboon 3 and 4, were diving at the same dive site, we got in the water as the very first group. Towards the end of the dive we are at 20 meters preparing to work our way up. I see a guy diving with twin tanks and I only know one person do that here, Muth, who was the tour leader on Kob's boat. Hmm, if he was here, then for sure Kob would be in the area too. I keep looking but no luck, so we start to ascend slowly. At around 10 meters I see another guide swim around at 25 meters, and yes, there she is. I had 5 guys with me and probably it wouldn't look good if I went down just to bang her on the head saying hello, so I didn't. But could have been fun, haha.
Up from the dive I went to have my breakfast at the front of the boat. The Thai captain came and pointed at me and the other boat. Yes, I said, I know Kob over there. He pulled me into the bridge and pointed at the radio and then the other boat. Haha, no, not necessary I said, he laughed. 5 minutes later the boats had been tied up together, not sure if that was the captain's work afterall, haha?
I was done with breakfast, but kept sitting on the front of the boat, when I saw Kob come out and put her towel to dry. She looked surprised for 3-4 seconds then a big white Colgate smile and shouted "YOU, hahaha, what are you doing here?" She first thought I had bought another trip there I guess. We talked a little bit and it was nice to be able to say thank you in person for having used her as a reference. She said she never referred anyone before, so I was special :-)
The next couple of days the phone kept ringing in the late afternoon: Danny, Similan/Racha Yai/Phi Phi tomorrow. It felt good to say yes and go and do some paid work. Even though it doesn't pay very well, food and drinks are included, which in the end saves some money. On top of that there is diving, meeting great funny people working on the boats and people from all over the world. All in all pretty good experience. What felt even better was to say no thanks when the phone rang in the evening from All 4 Diving, sorry man, already have a gig tomorrow.
Personally I can't really make a living of this, not with the amount of money I spend left and right. I would have to seriously adjust my habits, but then there is not much point in doing this. Maybe when I get a little older, having money enough, or a job on the side that would allow this. Definitely fun and rewarding to be able to show first timers some great findings and experience diving the Similans. Even though I still get lost a little bit sometimes, as I have not been to all dive sites before and maybe the captain doesn't always throw us in the water close enough to the dive site.
Solved that by letting a few experienced guides go before me, then I can always follow them to the site and take it from there. One time the guy doing the briefing mixed up left and right, and in the water after 10 minutes on a site I didn't remember, one of the more experienced divers reminded me that he had said, keep the reef on the left shoulder. I looked at him, and nodded, he was right, he had in fact said left side. Ok, we turned around and got a really shitty dive instead and spent 15 minutes in the water hiding behind an island before the boat found us. The diver apologized many times for having ruined the dive, but ultimately it was my mistake to turn around.
Oh well. On the other hand, when divers come here they usually have plenty of dives, sometimes thousands of dives, so it feels a little like they are actually guiding me more than I them.
Many of the guides look at my camera setup and tell me to make some money with that, wouldn't be difficult to sell a dvd or some pictures online. I don't feel like I want to charge people money to get some pictures that may look like crap. I have seen some pictures from other guides, they are really not great, but they still sell them with a big smile on the face. I could easily sell better pictures, I just don't feel like I can guarantee a full set of super pictures. Because I have also seen very good pictures, so I am probably somewhere in the middle. Maybe I am just being modest. In fact, the guides make as more or more on selling pictures taken with a simple shoot and point, than what the company pays them to work.

Dive guide for All4Diving

Got done as an instructor, was getting some very needed sleep and recovered from the last weeks parties and long nights... And many of them, haha
A few movies and some hanging out on the beach later, it was really time to get active again. Just hanging around was too boring. Still had 10 days of diving with All 4 Diving, that had been moved from before the IDC to after. I went to speak to them, but apparently not all things were synched in the company and it took a few phone calls here and there to get some approval for being able to go diving with them again.
The company does sell something called "Work Experience", a package with which instructors can show they have work experience and so get jobs easier.
I wasn't really interested in paying to work for free, so politely thanked no. Both Elias and I were signed up for some guiding in the areas we had been diving so many times already, that could be interesting to try too.
2-3-4-5 days went by. I thought that was it, I was never going to hear from them again. A few days later though the phone rang, they needed some German speaking guide for a few people from Germany and Switzerland.
I had told them I knew German, which is also true, but I had to admit it was a little rusty. Spent the evening finding the dive jargon in German, equipment and so on.
Over the next few weeks there was guiding to be done daily, one day off here and there. Yes, it was not paid, but at least we got to go diving, with some great people working on the boat and met people from all over the world.
Working for free for a company that makes money off us? Well, at least I had not paid to get this experience, so I was pretty content.