We had an auspicious start to the March PADI IDC, or at least Instructor Candidate Henry did, as it was his birthday on the first day.
Henry, from the UK, arrived at Thresher Shark Divers on Malapascua Island in January to work towards his PADI Instructor qualification on TSD’s Diving Internship Program. He was already an Advanced Open Water Diver and completed Rescue and Divemaster at TSD in preparation for PADI Instructor. Henry had just gotten married and bought his little girl with him, a definite future diver! Despite it being his birthday, he took it easy and didn’t go overboard, saving the celebrations for the end of the IE.
Laid back Henry took everything in his stride, acing all his courses, really taking everything on board, and he learnt huge amounts from his time and experiences in Malapascua.
Stewart, from Australia, was taking a break from his consulting job to become a PADI Scuba Diving Instructor. Already a Divemaster, Stewart had a bit of experience behind him. He got in touch with us here at TSD and the rest is history.
Yun (Sey Lueng) had recently completed her DM, has been diving around South East Asia and joined us from China especially for the IDC. She also came to see her friend, Yuan, who is TSD’s Chinese speaking Instructor and an old student of Course Director, Mark. Diving is such a small world!
And finally, American Chris Knapp also joined this month’s program. Chris has been teaching in Japan, but is looking for a way to move out to Japan’s beautiful islands. It looks like he has found that in diving! Chris is quite the athlete and participates in regular triathlons, so we imagine his swim test was not a problem!
And there were plenty of Staff Instructors to help out during the course. Instructor Yuan and her friend Pete were taking their IDC Staff Instructor Course and Lydia, an old student of Course Director Mark, was gaining some more experience in staffing IDC’s.
The PADI IDC went off without a hitch and the Instructor Exam came around all too quickly. We were honoured to have Gary Cruea as our PADI Instructor Examiner for this IE. Gary is the longest serving examiner at PADI and taught many of PADI’s top dogs, including, or so we are told, PADI CEO, Drew Richardson.
As usual, all of our candidates passed the IE with flying colours! Well done to all of them and to their Platinum Course Director, Mark Soworka!
After a well deserved party and celabration, some of the candidates went on to do Instructor Specialty Ratings. As an added bonus during this IDC, all of the candidates did a FREE Intro to Sidemount and Tec Diving Taster with TSD’s Tec Guru, Jason. Stewart then went on to take the PADI Tec Deep course, adding yet another string to his bow and getting to dive the 55 meter “Pioneer” wreck! Reason enough to take the Tec Deep course!
Stewart also stayed on with us afterwards for an instructor internships in the form of TSD’s unique Learn to Teach program where he gained invaluable experience with real students.
Congratulations to our 4 new Instructors and 2 new IDC Staff Instructors! We wish you all the best in your future careers!!!