Diving Internships | Thailand

I could not have asked for more from the diving at DJL. I was given the chance to explore a site outside of Koh Tao which was amazing.

All the instructors at the shop have tonnes of experience each in their own speciality of diving. I did my intro to tech diving down to 45 meteres very early on and onto a wreck found by DJL.

All the recreational diving is always reallly chilled out and everybody enjoying themselves whilst still getting the serious points across and what needs to be learnt. The benefit of DJL having their own RIB and comitment to always doing something new meant I got to gain a lot of experience fairly early on.

I loved the Unicorn wreck dive for two main reasons. Its was my first ever dive on a wreck and also, I had never been that deep before. 

I was introduced into a new side of diving at a fairly early stage in my dive career, tech diving. A full briefing before on the deco diving procedures allowed me to learn a lot.

The dive internship was constructive in every way that it could be.

The qualifications that I gained will help me with my career in the future and the leadership skills that I had to improve will be very helpful to me, leading people without verbal communication provided a new challenge.

Just getting away to a completly different culture and taking in a new way of living whilst meeting people from all over the world would be worth the trip in itself. Listening to all these stories from different people helps broaden your mind and by being at the shop doing a DM course you meet at least 4 new people a day.

The way the internship is run is very good in that you become one of the team. You are given responsibility to work with new people at the shop and at an early stage start to pass on what you have learnt, so very good for the instructor course.

Everything is done at the pace you want and everyday you learn something new. Just from listening to the instuctors stories and having a laugh with everyone. Once the DM course starts, you start working as if you are a DM already and therefore are given respnsibility straight away. Then as you progress through, the instructors slowly back off with their assistance - you become capable of doing everything that's required independently. 

Being fully accepted by all the instructors into the team is a very good learning environment and you make some really good mates. 

The flexibility of the course isn't too bad either - in that if you want to have a few nites getting hammered theres no problem there either...[just don t get round tabled]!

By the time i came to give my first boat briefing i had already listened to about 20 of them, so knew what to include.

I found everything ok as I don't get embarrassed talking in front of people. The first two times an instuctor was there incase i missed anything out. The hardest part was being heard over the engine but thats it.

100%. I will be going back next summer and after seeing the last expedition where the DJL team discovered a new wreck and seeing the things that have been brought back was well cool. Stuff like WW2 plates, antique telescopes and old school compasses that havent seen the surface for over half a century isn t to bad.

I know that there are a lot of marks that are still left to explore and all of different orientation. depths, different vessels containing different things and varied conditions makes it well worth the adventure of going back to join up with DJL and take part.

I thought that the accomodation in 'the tree house' was really good. I had a fan room with sky TV, a fridge, double bed, laundry service and room cleaned twice a week. Having the shop right below was really handy and the family who run the shop and rented the rooms were really nice. 

We had a big balcony where everyone would sit and chat at what ever time of day and a small basket of drinks and snacks laided out each day. All in all i thought that the accomodation was really good.

By the time it came for me to leave i had just started to take divers out by myself. This was the most rewarding part of the course.

Being given the responsibility to start passing things over to other people who were in your position not to long ago is ace.

I think I left Koh Tao just as I had started to enjoy everything more than ever. Knowing the answers to people's questions and putting the skills you have just learnt into practice and seeing it all work gives a real sense of acheivement.

For this year I am going to do as much UK diving as I can to gain more experience in harder conditions and hopefully by next summer have completed my instuctor or be well on the way.

I will in the next few weeks begin planning the dive expedition 08 for Typhoon Squadron, with me in complete control. Only stipulation may be where we go as the OC has a say on this.