Your daily tasks could vary but the main objectives of this placement are for you to: 

• Gain experience of running a water sports centre and, if you are able to stay for a period of three months, have the opportunity to do a total of 60 dives as a prerequisite to the Dive Master Course (you'll need to start the programme with a PADI open water qualification to be considered for this course).

•  Assist the Dive Master in the daily running of the centre. Responsibilities include: taking care of the dive centre, guiding and assisting new learners, handling customers enquiries, customer service and reporting to the Dive Instructor

• Develop your diving skills by taking several courses – i.e. PADI Open Water, Advanced Open Water, Emergency First Aid Response, Rescue Diver etc.

Wet activities: The main activity you will take part in is assisting the Diving Instructor, for example; helping the instructor while conducting diving lessons, supporting and guiding learners, preparing diving gear for lessons, interacting with new learners. You will also be responsible for cleaning and maintaining the diving equipment, and getting the boats and Jet Ski's ready for guests.

•  Monitoring and Surveying Artificial Reef (snorkelling) -  replacing and/or repairing damaged coral, continuing the development of the reef, conducting an inventory of the marine life encountered (specifically fish), cleaning underwater rubbish, collecting and replanting coral fragments. Due to the location of Pulau Tiga, heavy winds are common resulting in beach debris.

• Monitoring and Surveying House Reef (snorkelling) - this will involve conducting an inventory of the marine life (fish, coral, giant clams, etc) encountered at the designated area, clearing underwater rubbish, feeding fish, reporting the quality of water (i.e. visibility, under water current, seaweeds, jellyfish, red-tide, etc), reporting any damaged corals

• Developing an Artificial Reef – to form the foundation for planting corals, setting up coral nursery units etc (some of this work will be undertaken as a dry activity)

These activities are not guided by a marine biologist, so your input will not have any academic value. Instead, these activities provide you with the opportunity to be involved in useful work for the centre whilst practising your diving skills. Some of the activities are quite routine and in some respects similar to underwater gardening (for example, clearing underwater rubbish, collecting and replanting coral fragments, etc.) During each of the above activities you will dive with other volunteers who are on the placement at the same time as you and will not be supervised by a member of staff from the dive centre.

During your stay you might encounter days when the weather is not suitable for water activities and therefore dry activities will take place. Once you have gained your PADI Open Water certification you can also proceed with the following courses during your placement:

FIRST MONTH: *Open Water Course, Advanced Open Water Course

SECOND MONTH: Emergency First Aid Response Course, Rescue Diver

THIRD MONTH: Dive Master Course. This is optional but you need to let us know before commencing your placement whether you intend to do the Dive Master Course. In order to do the dive master course you must have completed at least 60 dives and reached a high level of fitness and a slow level of air consumption. During this course you will also learn, amongst other things, about customer service, fish and coral identification, reef structure and underwater current movement. If you intend to take the Dive Master Course within a 3 month period then we recommend that you do not start as a complete beginner – it is advisable for you to have at least the Open Water PADI qualification when starting the project. 

WORK SCHEDULE

“Our two month placement in Pulau Tiga Resort has been a wonderful experience.

The Divemaster section of the placement ran very smoothly with expert instruction and guidance from Julius. The Water Sports Team have been great along with all of the other staff at the resort in welcoming us, integrating us, and guiding us through our duties and responsibilities along with providing us great friendship which has made living and working here a wonderful experience which comes highly recommend to others.

We would also like to thank the water sports team for working with great patience and understanding while we were asked to be in charge of the day to day running of the Centre and to all the other staff for letting us help out in various ways and making our stay a very enjoyable one.”  Paula Walters & Chris Howarth

During the first week of your placement you will have most of the afternoons off. This is to enable you to acclimatise to the tropical weather and to be familiar with the surrounding environment – i.e. the resort and its facilities. During the rest of the placement you will be required to work 6 days per week. Your day off will not usually be over the weekend as this is when the dive centre is at its busiest. If there are several volunteers doing this placement at the same time then you may be able to arrange some of your days off together.

Of your 6 working days you will be expected to spend 3 days doing dry activities and 3 days doing wet activities. You must take your own fins, mask and wet suit (which can be bought locally, if needed) but diving equipment is provided (this includes BCD, regulator and Scuba tanks).

This is not a conservation project but there are some elements of conservation based activities that you can become involved with during your stay (see above). There will be a minimum of 2 volunteers on this placement at any one time and each volunteer must spend a minimum of 2 months on this placement.

Diving is possible all year round although the weather tends to be stormy between June, July and August. All diving is weather dependant.

he resort can accommodate a maximum of 120 people at any one time – it’s peak occupancy period tends to be from April/May to Sept/October when usually it will be at least 70% full. At other times of the year, occupancy can drop to around 20%. During the Low season, you’ll find that the staff have more free time to give 1 to 1 instruction, where as during the high season, you’ll have more exposure to customers but more diving will take place in a group.

In order to dive you should take out specialised diving insurance (e.g. Divers Alert Network www.daneurope.org