by Mike Peakman PADI Staff, EFRI, BSAC AI

Diving has long been my passion. I first started in 2001 and did my first Open Water dive in January 2002 in a freezing cold quarry at Dosthill in Tamworth. My last dive (in February 2010) was in the warm Mediterranean on the HMS Maori, it was my 1462nd dive.

Working as a professional racks up the dives but you know what, I am still enjoying it! Okay, there are a few dives that I would have rather not done, 3m underwater with a 'Try Diver' who was only there because her boyfriend had pestered her for days to do it and was not having a nice time.

Balance that up with the hundreds of dives where clients come out of the water with huge grins, smile all day and are genuinely grateful for your efforts and you have the supreme job satisfaction. Couple that with your own personal enjoyment of diving, warm water, sunny days and easy lunches and you can see the attraction I think.

Of course, there are the cylinders to fill, the vans to load and unload, the endless questions about non-diving - what's that building?, why are those police there?, how does the parliamentary system function on Malta?, why should I move my car from where it is parked (because we can't get the vans out, dipstick!). All of these things contribute to the average dive instructors day and we are expected to provide answers to all the questions - I managed the building question, the police question and a polite response to the car moving question, but the Maltese Parliament - do me a favour!

So, what can you expect as a Diving Instructor then? The average day starts somewhere between 8:00am and 8:30am depending on how many clients we have. First job is to get all the gear out ready for the clients to pack. That complete, the next step are the cylinders; two per diver and anything up to 25 divers. Some require 10s, others 12s and some 15s. The cylinders are loaded onto the trucks normally first dive on one side of the truck(s) and second dive on the other to try to avoid confusion at the dive site. We organise the distribution of cylinders for both dives - imagine 20 odd divers trying to do it themselves! It would be chaos - now I know one of those 20 cylinders is a full one, but which one? No thanks, we'll do it!

We normally go out for two dives at the same location. Malta is pretty good in this respect, so, for example, we can go to Zurrieq and do the 'El Faroud' followed by the 'Atlam Helmet' or Cirkewwa and do the 'Rozi' followed by the 'Right Arch', all excellent dives. Lunch is normally at a local cafe and is one to one and a half hours long depending upon the dive that has been done. There are a lot of wrecks sunk purely for diving and a lot of cafes and shops rely on the diving trade to survive. One thing you can say for Malta, it is very diver friendly. Of course, dive 1 is normally the deepest.

The maximum depth of water around Malta is about 35m for such dives as the Um El Faroud, the Rozi, Boltenhagen etc, whereas Comino and Gozo can yield dives up to 60-80m from the shore, but are reef or wall dives. The dive itself can be a guided dive; many clients just want to be shown around and not have to think very much, others are on courses and so will be doing some drills or skills on the dive. For me, this year about 25% of the dives were instructional and 75% guided. Of the courses, the PADI Advanced Open Water course was by far the most popular with Wreck, Multi-Level, Fish ID and Enriched Air being the most popular elective dives (Deep and Navigation are mandatory).

An average return time is somewhere betwen 2:30pm and 3:30pm. We then have to unload all the cylinders and begin the filling process for the next day. The compressor is capable of filling 4/5 cylinders at a time and takes about 15 minutes per set, so it can be a long process if we have a lot of cylinders to fill. In addition to that, we have the Nitrox cylinders to fill which take much longer to fill as we partial pressure fill them which means that we have to add 100% O2 first which must be added very slowly (about 1 bar every 5 seconds) followed by the air top-up and can't be done whilst normally air cylinders are being filled. There are often log books to stamp and sign, sometimes knowledge reviews to read, courses to continue with and vans to clear out which occupies any 'spare' time. At the end of the day we have to take in all the wetsuits and BCDs and hang them up, plus all of the clients kit boxes - it is normally easier and less frustrating to do it ourselves rather than directing clients. You would not believe how hard some people make putting a box on a shelf! Finally, we close up and either go home, or often to the bar two doors away for a relaxing pint or two, swapping stories about clients antics before wending our weary way home for a shower, dinner and bed, ready to face another day in the office. And we do this 6 days a week for about twenty pounds (sterling) a day!