What a season, first year as a 5*IDC Resort….

So, mid October, and despite the continuing outstanding diving conditions, the season is almost done.  This has been a great year for Diamond Diving and we’d like to pass on a big thank you to all of our clients for their loyalty and passion for diving that contribute to enabling the business to grow and develop.  And of course a massive credit to Romain and a number of dedicated interns (Joanne, Katie, Nicolas, Jonathan & Neil) for helping make 2013 such a success.

The ProShop has been a good introduction and we urge all of you to consider the series of offers we have put together for Christmas, some great deals on excellent quality dive gear from one of the world’s most prestigious equipment manufacturers : Aqualung. Everything must go!

We’re not done yet…another PADI Instructor course for late October and early November, and a fabulous weekend to La Londe Les Maures to dive the awesome Parc National de Port Cros.

Plus as some of you are aware we are in the early stages of putting together a liveaboard trip to the Maldives in Winter 2015.  This one is going to be very very special, so if you’d like more details please let us know.

2014 promises more interesting developments with your favourite South of France PADI Instructor Development dive centre…keep an eye on our Facebook page for more news…

All the best for now,

Alex, Nono & the team.

Lots going on at Diamond Diving at the moment.

On the 7th May we have a full Open Water Course starting for which there remains one place.

On the 12th May we have a Project Aware underwater cleanup at one of our most frequently used confined water training sites off the Cap d’Antibes.  This is nearly full but there is a standby list in case anyone drops out so please let us know if you are interested. We highly recommend all divers to create their own My Ocean account on the Project Aware website at www.projectaware.org.  Here you can also download for free the excellent book Our World, Our Water which has a wealth of information on the world’s seas and oceans.

There is an Open Water Referral (for those who have already completed theory and confined water training elsewhere) running on the 15th and 16th of May and we have two spaces left.    

Two places are still up for grabs for the Discover REBREATHERS day we are running in conjunction with Jean-Francois Andre of HippoConsulting.  For €80 you get one of the best known techincal diving instructors in France supervising and guiding an introductory experience at a 2:1 ratio with roughly 25 minutes in the water.  Let us know if you would like to participate.

On the Instructor Development side of things we have an IDC running from 27th May to 7th June with the exam in Cannes on the 8th and 9th of June. We have a couple of places still, so let us know if you are interested,

We also have a full 10 day intensive DiveMaster course running from 25th May to 4th June.

We are also really pleased to annouce that are Aqualung ProShop is now open for business so we can help you with all of your equipment purchase needs.

The water is warming up nicely and the great weather is on it’s way so we look forwards to seeing you in the South of France soon.      

Here is a little taster of the Diamond Diving effect, and how we tend to make our clients happy.  Everthing from Discover Scuba Diving to a full programme of PADI Instructor Development courses…we look forwards to welcoming you on board soon.

Come diving with us in 2013! Venez plongee avec nous en 2013!

We wanted to really take the time to explain as clearly as possible why it is so important to get qualified as a Specialty Instructor in the PADI system as soon as possible after having passed your Instructor Examination, and what exactly that entails.

Specialty Courses can really improve the bottom line of any dive school and increase hugely what you can offer to your clients.  Being able to teach Specialty Courses increases your employability as a diving instructor by a significant margin and will help any aspiring career professional progress much more quickly in the PADI system to the Master Scuba Diver Trainer rating, allowing you to then get qualified as an IDC Staff Instructor and so on.  It also means you will have a more varied life from day to day as an Instructor, teaching areas of diving that you specifically find interesting.

You can apply directly to PADI to become a Specialty Instructor once you have 25 certifications to your name as an Instructor.  However it is a wise and sensible investment to spend a bit more time with your Course Director (we do the course over three days) really getting into the nitty gritty of each Specialty that you’d like to teach, including:

– How best to teach all of the performance requirements
– A full familiarisation with all of the theory requirements of the course
– How to price, sell and market the course, key target audiences
– Applying your teaching skills learnt during the IDC to one performance requirement for each Specialty Rating

Diamond Diving charges a €750 list price for a three day MSDT course but from a financial point of view it is also worth bearing in mind that a direct application to PADI for one Specialty Instructor rating costs €73.80.  If you have been trained by a Course Director however that price is €33.  So the real price of this very valuable training reduces by €204 for five specialties straight away.

For more information about our Specialty Instructor Training courses and MSDT packages please call us on +33 (0) 615305223 or e-mail alex@www.diamonddiving.net.  

TRADUCTION FRANCAIS:

Formations Master Scuba Diver Trainer et de moniteur de spécialités.

We have a number of vacancies this year for motivated individuals to gain real hands on experience of the dive industry and at the same time get trained up as DiveMaster by a small, experienced and hands on team.

Typically the time commitment necessary is two months and ideally you will already be qualified as a Rescue Diver and have your ICC Certificate of Competence/Permis de Bateau Cotier or RYA Powerboat Level 2.

Further to this we are running six Instructor Development Courses, starting late Feb, March, May, September, October and early December.

Places are available between mid May and mid October.  To be considered please send CV with photo and covering letter to info@www.diamonddiving.net.

Firstly we’d like to wish all of our clients an excellent remainder of the festive season.  We thank you all hugely for your business in 2012 and look forwards to delivering many more unforgettable underwater moments in 2013.

We are extremely happy to announce that we have recently been awarded 5*IDC Resort status from PADI.  This is excellent news and means we will be running six Instructor Development Courses throughout 2013 out of our new facility in Golfe Juan.

For more information about our GoPro offering please click on the GoPro button on the homepage.  We look forwards to seeing you all soon for more diving adventures.

With the long term goal of buying our own premises recently achieved we are very pleased to announce our recent success in becoming a PADI 5*IDC Resort.

This is fantastic news and the new facilities will mean much more comfort for all of our clients, we will also have a small boutique/pro-shop selling Aqualing dive equipment plus a decent range of diving fashion wear and accessories.

It also means that we will be running a full programme of Instructor Development Courses in 2013, the dates of which are as follows.

Today we welcome our second group of the “arriere saison”.  Great bunch of folks from Ireland, who we are strongly looking forwards to re/introducing to the great diving in the area.

Scuba 2000 from Uckfield, West Sussex visited us again in early September and we have a group from HydroActive, (Beds & Herts) coming down for the second time this year in October.

Loads of rainfall these last few days, which has not done the Viz any favours, but it will no doubt settle down soon. Surface temperature is still 22 degrees.

We will be diving until early November.  Including DrySuit specialty courses 😉

The PADI IDC is intensive, and rightly so.

You basically go from being a dive guide with a bit of teaching and assisting responsibility to an Instructor who has the right to go out there and start selling, organising and delivering their own courses.  All of this in a course that typically lasts ten days, sometimes less.

So how can you prepare optimally, to minimise stress and really get the best out of your Instructor Development Course?

Here are a few tips:

1.  Dive, dive, dive.  More time in the water, more comfortable you will be.

2.  Watch the PADI DM video and get all of the 20 skill demonstrations sorted (no pun intended) in your head, and practice them in the water if you have the opportunity.  This should be in the bag as a competence before you arrive at the IDC, if you have an IDC prep, it should be for fine honing the demos, not relearning the skills, for example.

3.  Get your theory down.  Revise, go through the Dive Theory online via PADI eLearning, get out the Diving Knowledge Workbook and work the problems.  Arrive at the IDC already with a list of what your weak points are on the theory.

4.  Familiarise yourself with the Instructor Manual and the Guide to Teaching.  The Instructor Manual is a very logical and well laid out document, and the art of getting a good score in standards exams is knowing how to find stuff QUICKLY.  Read it, highlight it, figure out what sorts of information you find where.  A little bit of time investment doing this is going to make your life a huge amount easier during the course itself.

5.  Revisit your Open Water, Adventures in Diving, Rescue Diver and DiveMaster manuals and try and understand how they are structured, why they are structured like that, and again, how to find relevant information quickly.

If you follow these five basic steps and invest a bit of time before you get to the IDC you’ll get alot more out of your IDC at lower stress levels and come out of the IE as a better prepared entry level PADI Open Water Scuba Instructor.

We hope to see you soon in the South of France for some excellent fun and the start of a path to living out your dreams.  Any questions please call Alex on 0033615305223 or e-mail alex@www.diamonddiving.net.