Assava Blogs

Congrats to Kelly-Ann Nickel on her recent achievement as PADI Master Scuba Diver! 

Kelly completed her training with a  flexible schedule whilst maintaining her employment as a PADI freelance instructor.  On the odd days availalbe and where possible with her PADI Course Director Natalie Hunt, Kelly was able to achieve her Specialty Instructor ratings for : Enriched Air Nitrox,  Self- Reliant, Deep Diver, Wreck Diver, AWARE Marine Debri and AWARE Shark Conservation.  

As Kelly is a Marine Biologist, her specialty instructor ratings for the Eco programs including Project Aware, Coral Reef Conservation and the Marine Debri and Shark Awareness will compliment her teaching these programs to her student divers taking the PADI Open water course or PADI Advanced Course, introducing them to how to preserve our oceans and marine ecosystems.

With our recent visit from Jack Fishman from Project Aware - Kelly further broadened her knowledge on the Marine Debri Awareness program after conducting the clean up underwater dive at Lighthouse Bay. Data from this dive was then added to the Assava Dive Resort - My Ocean Page. www.projectaware.org 

Apart from participating in the ECO programs, Kelly developed her personal skills with the Self-Reliant course that was conducted in 2 days. Here you learn how to dive using a redundant air source.  Along with having the independent skills of diving solo, she also took on the Wreck Specialty - to have the opportunity to penetrate and explore inside the wrecks that we have on Koh Tao - especially the HTMS Sattakut Wreck. 

If interested in becoming a PADI Professional please contact us at : This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Thank you to all the PADI Instructors from Sunshine Divers and Bans Diving Resort, who recently attended the Internal Staff Update conducted by Course Directors, Guillaume Fargues, Michael Richardson and Natalie Hunt on the 5th March 2015.

The recent update was conducted to inform PADI Instructors of the most recent changes to the Classic PADI Open water course - which is now referred to at the Revised PADI Open water course. New PADI materials including the PADI Videos, PADI Open water manuals both hard copy and digital and PADI Instructor Materials are now available (and in several languages) to be implemented within our dive centres.

A classroom session was conducted to bring attention to the importance of following PADI Standards to ensure student safety and dive centre credibility. With the new additional skills including weight belt drop, surface marker deployment, and the mini dive, we will find that schedules of the dive program will be adjusted to ensure student divers are able to fulfill performance requirements.

Following the classroom a short demonstration of these skills were exhibited in the confined pool environment to give instructors options on how to integrate these skills which will only benefit student divers.

As all certified PADI instructors have access to the PADI site, we strongly suggest you keep updated by completing the PADI Member Forum 2015 and Instructor Development Updates that are found on www.padimembers.com

Once again a big thank you to those instructors who attended and we look forward to the successful implementation of the New Revised Open water course within our Dive Centres, - Sunshine Divers S-6153 and Bans Diving Resort S-2645

PADI Instructors participating in the Update March 5 2015

The PADI Instructor Development Course as the acronym IDC represents, is the Development of each individual candidates skills and knowledge.  Although on completion of the Divemaster program - we all understand the fundamentals of how to be a responsible leader, demonstrate critical attributes for skills and be confident with rescue techniques, it is still necessary to understand how to recognize when beginner divers are ready to become independent divers.

The PADI Instructor Development Program is broken into segments to ensure that candidates learn both academic, confined and open water presentations, but again the IDC is a training ground to that of the Real World.  That is why the MSDT program, also known as the PADI Master Scuba Diver Training Program broadens the knowledge and skill of PADI Instructors - learning more about each Adventure Dives or Specialty options available to offer to new divers.

The PADI MSDT includes 5 or more specialties in the training, although to register with PADI on completion you will need only 5 specialties and 25 certifications. This is where the internship option is valuable. At Sunshine Divers, we offer the MSDT and Internship program together, so on completion of the PADI MSDT - candidates may continue with interning, (assisting on courses with experienced instructors - learning how to teach in a classroom, pool and open water with real students). During the training you will learn to follow a complete PADI Open Water Course structure ( group sizes will vary from 2 to up to 10 students, where you will team teach, and on completion obtain the course certifications, to add to your credentials. The internship program duration is really dependent on your time schedule and of course we would hope you would continue to obtain as many certifications for your ratings, but also the experience to help you teach independently with confidence in the future.

Congrats to Recent IDC Candidates : (Tyson Young, Tina Mueller, Sandy Wahrenberger, Galia Gazizova, Mike Drobynka, Remco Cornelisse)

Congrats to Recent MSDT & Internship Candidates: (Adam Fulcher, Thomas Geraghty, Ivan Alexis, Tyson Young, Galia Gazizova, Mike Droybnka)

The PADI Instructor Development Course entails several segments including Academic Presentations, Confined Presentation and Open Water Presentations.  Each of these segments are eventually evaluated by the PADI Examiners that travel worldwide to assess each instructor candidate on their skills.

At Sunshine Divers we prepare all candidates by conducting several presentations in each category. However on their final days prior to the PADI instructor examination we also have a Mock IE, whereby candidates are evaluated by a PADI Course Director or PADI Master Instructor and on some occasions PADI Regional Managers so that they already have an understanding on the structure of the examination and what to expect.

This past Mock IE was conducted at Bans Diving Resort pool facilities with Course Director Guillaume Fargues and PADI Regional Manager Tim Hunt.  It was a great day for Candidates - Sandy, Mike, Tina, Tyson, Galia, Remco (Sunshine Divers) and Par from (Bans Diving Resort) and Rich (Staff Instructor) to all get together and present their confined water skills.