Divemaster Courses in Koh Lanta

Blue Planet Divers, based in Koh Lanta, Thailand, is committed to running highly professional, fun and engaging Divemaster Courses. Our aim is to help you develop the knowledge, experience, skills and attributes that will make you an excellent, and employable Divemaster as well as being equipped for your instructor’s course, should you choose that path.

Blue Planet Divers’ Crew celebrating Mellisa’s Birthday on the boat

We only offer courses in excess of 6 weeks and recommend that our Divemaster trainees plan to spend 2-3 months with us. This gives you plenty of time to complete the course, ensures you get a plenty of experience and offers much better value to you.

Team Work

It is essential to be a great team worker when you work as a Divemaster or Instructor as you can learn so much from other professionals. That is why, at Blue Planet Divers, we make you part of the team from day one of your course. This enables you to see and learn from other experienced professionals whilst they carry out various roles within the Dive Shop. We also encourage you to work as a team with our other Divemaster Trainees so that you can work together to complete coursework and you have someone to share the up and downs with!

You will find our team is fun to work with and crazy to party with, we like to get involved with events around the island, including parties, bar competitions, charity work and beach clean ups.

Blue Planet Divers Organise the Beach Clean Up of Klong Dao

Dedicated Instructor

All our Divemaster Trainees are given a dedicated Instructor to oversee their course and provide schedules and knowledge training. Only experienced Instructors with experience with running Divemaster courses are eligible for this as this ensures a high quality course for you. We can also offer the course/support in many languages.

Laurent, one of the owners of Blue Planet Divers – IDC Staff Instructor

We love our Divemaster Trainees and our team really enjoys working and teaching the Divemaster course. We take your success personally and we ensure you enjoy your course to the fullest. Then we all celebrate your graduation to Divemaster! Our Divemaster parties are legendary on the island!

Ladyboy Farang Night, Blue Planet Divers win 1st (French Ben, Instructor), 2nd (Kelvin, Divemaster Trainee) and 3rd (Chris, Divemaster Trainee)		Blue Planet Divers Volleyball Team

Blue Planet Divers Divemaster Course

We obviously include all the basic requirements set out by PADI for the Divemaster Course, covered later on, but we also give our Divemaster Trainees the opportunity to get more involved and gain more experience which we know they will find useful as a PADI professional, these can include:

1. Equipment Care and Maintenance (you can gain the Equipment Specialty Certification)
2. Boatmaster (Management of the Boat during a Diving Excursion)
3. Assisting Rescue Courses (We like all Divemaster Trainees to do this at least once)
4. Selling Courses and Equipment
5. Snorkelling Guiding (A growing requirement of Divemasters around the world)
6. Nitrox Knowledge (you can upgrade this to Nitrox Certification)
7. Numerous Guiding and diving opportunities to increase your experience levels

All this is offered for free (apart from official PADI certifications) because we know what makes a good Divemaster and we want you to gain as much knowledge and experience whilst you are with us.
We can also offer Technical Scuba Diving Courses and Freediving Courses at reduced rates for Trainee Divemasters.

Internships and Partial Internships

We offer our Divemaster Trainees the opportunity to earn cash/or pay for their course by assisting us at the Dive Shop. The work can be varied but is likely to include; working at our beach dive shop, working at our main office or helping with general maintenance at the shop, but it could include anything (within reason) that is related to the dive shop.

In October and January we offer 2 Divemaster Full Internship positions. These last for 3 months and offer a free course in exchange for working for the Dive Centre for free. A typical week will see you work for 4 days for us, 2 days on your course and 1 day off (or diving if you wish). Those who wish to apply for this role should send Curriculum Vitae to Mellisa Bunyan at blueplanetdivers@gmail.com.

Manta Ray at Hin Muang

Course Requirements

The following are required for you to be able to start the PADI Divemaster Course with us:

1. PADI Open Water (or equivalent from another Dive Organisation)
2. PADI Advanced Course (or equivalent from another Dive Organisation)
3. PADI Rescue Course (or equivalent from another Dive Organisation)
4. 20 Open Water Dives (logged)
5. First Aid Qualification (in Active Status)
6. 2 Passport photos
7. Medical Note – Fit to dive
8. Course fees paid

If you do not have some or all of these, we can help you get these on the island.

PADI Course Outline

The PADI Divemaster Course is split into 4 sections; those points highlighted in blue italics are extras that Blue Planet Divers offer you:

Assisting Student Divers

1. Assist with one Open Water Course
2. Assist with one Further Education Course
3. Assist with one Discover Scuba Dive and Scuba Review
4. Assist on a Rescue Course – where possible
5. Assist with other Further Education Courses

Working with Qualified Divers

1. Guiding qualified Divers on a dive
2. Mapping a Dive Site
3. Creating an Emergency Action Plan
4. Guiding several dives at several different locations

Knowledge Development

1. Complete Knowledge Reviews in Divemaster Manual
2. Complete 8 Exams (Dive Skills & the Environment, Assisting Student Divers, Divemaster Conducted Programs, Physics, Equipment, Recreational Dive Planner & Decompression Theory, Supervising Experienced Divers and Physiology)
3. Instructor led Class on all exam topics
4. Specialist Equipment Class from ‘Tech Dave’
5. Nitrox Theory (Certification available and small extra cost)

Skills and Stamina

1. Mask Remove and Replace Demonstration to Presentation Standard
2. Demonstration of 20 PADI basic skills to high Standard
3. Rescue Demonstration
4. 400m Timed Swim
5. 800m Timed Snorkel
6. 100m Timed Tired Dive Tow
7. 10min Float
8. Equipment Exchange Underwater
9. Log 60 Open Water Dives

With every section we can offer support and practice, so that even though you may find some areas challenging you will be able to complete all tasks well by the end of your course.

Course Fees

The standard Divemaster Course costs 35,000 Baht for divers with 40 logged dives or more. 40,000 baht if divers have 30 logged dives or less. It includes the Divemaster Pack (Divemaster Manual, Encyclopaedia and Divemaster Candidate workbook) and equipment. However, we strongly recommend to purchase your own diving equipment. We can offer you some very good price and a wide range of diving gears.

Working after your course

We will always try to give you work after you have completed your course, but this cannot be guaranteed as this depends on guest numbers. We will happily provide references for all our Divemaster Trainees after they have completed their course either on paper, or via telephone or email.

Living here

Koh Lanta National Park

Koh Lanta is a beautiful island and somewhere you will not want to leave. Around 30km long most tourist life is located in the North West of the island but there are resorts all the way down the west coast. Our beaches are stunning and living on the island is relatively cheap. We can help you with organising accommodation but expect to pay around 10,000 baht per month for an air conditioned bungalow or less if it just has a fan.  This should include all your electricity and water but please check before signing the contract!

Local Fishermen on a traditional Longtail		Local Elephant

We also recommend that you rent/purchase a motorbike (or pedal bike if you are fit!) this is essential if you want to get around the island and to work on time! It is also the cheapest method of travel on the island. Most motorbikes are 1500 baht per month to rent.

Eating out here is really cheap and you will find that you will do this most nights, about 60 baht for Thai food.  Beer is quite cheap (about 60-70 baht for Thai beers) but shorts, shots and wine are expensive!

In order to stay long term on the island you need to arrange visa’s outside of Thailand. Currently the Thai government has waived all fees for tourist visas so we really encourage you to apply for a 2+2 visa. This allows you to stay for 4 months (2 months and then another 2 months when you do a visa run). Applying for visas before you come will save you lots of time, money and energy.

Why do your course with us? 
A few reasons from last year’s Divemaster Trainees

“I loved everything about Blue Planet's Divemaster program, especially the staff and customer interaction. The instructors were very friendly, knowledgeable and helpful. Due to the big size of Blue Planet's boat, as a DMT you really had the opportunity to interact and share your knowledge with the customers and OWSI students. This customer interaction I found to be invaluable. You necessarily couldn't get this type of interaction at other dive center programs that operate speed boats."
Arnold Lee Divemaster Trainee 2009

“I feel like Arnold, it was great to have the possibility to learn the way of teaching from so many different Instructors and I loved it to be in an international team of French, English, Mexican, German, Netherlands people who were working in such a nice relationship together. The theory presented by Mellisa will ensure everybody understands with pleasure and without problems (including physiology ;-). You will learn to react & to prevent new diver problems... for example how to get them down and how to keep them there until the end of the dive. Sounds easy but at the beginning it wasn’t that easy:-D The Work in Koh Lanta is perfect it’s not so crowded neither so quiet such other places. The food is great; you have a big quality of life during the working day and also after work. Never I have had such nice fire shows and beach parties and dancing on the bartable ;-) Koh Lanta has the Asian backpacker flair and you don’t find that so much with lazy all inclusive tourists.
ONLY ONE THING :  PLEASE TELL THE CANDIDATES: DONT TO FORGET YOUR LAPTOP!!!!!!!!!!
A kiss for all, Stef”
Stephanie Irmer, Divemaster Trainee 2009 (Stef recommend you bring your laptop, if you have one for email and we can give you some stuff electronically)

“I’d say the best thing about Blue Planet is that everybody is friendly and full of fun and laughs and they made me feel comfortable, I even met some cool people and made some cool friends. I think this is really important when doing your Divemaster with a dive centre and I would recommend Blue Planet to because it has all of that to offer. Also I was glad that you allowed us to do extra dives if we didn’t feel confident in area such as guiding, working with the instructors or briefing and I reckon most dive centres will charge extra for that, at least one of them does because I asked them when I got to Koh Lanta.
Miss u guys, Chris.xx”
Chris Henry, Divemaster Trainee 2009