Professional Diving Services You Maybe Don’t Know

Professional diving had been on Jess’ mind for some time. It was a recurring thought. Kind of like when you’re in love; you can’t stop thinking about the other person, but with professional diving.

It comes sooner or later. Yes, we all have that moment of inspiration when we know exactly what we want to do with our life, exactly how we want to spend the rest of our working future.

Jess knew she wanted to dive and make a living at it. But she had a lot of doubts: what were her options, was there any possibility beyond becoming a Scuba Instructor, and if so, how to become a dive professional?

In today’s article, we are going to answer all these questions. Take a look at the table of contents.

1. What is professional diving?

We could define professional diving as those underwater activities in exchange for an economic reward. In other words, professional scuba diving goals go beyond recreational diving, which is normally a hobby and involves a cost, not an income.

Usually, this type of diving is subject to the professional diving regulations of each country and involves a certain degree of danger. The risk is more related to the nature of the work than to diving itself. But often, the professional scuba diving practice involves gas mixtures, rebreathers, integral breathing helmets, sidemounts, professional diving masks, and specific training in technical diving as well. In deep water work, scuba diving gives way to rigid scuba diving, so extra support equipment, such as dinghies, may be needed.

2. Professional Diving Services

a. Professional scuba diving services in the recreational diving industry

Professional diving for recreational services begins with the Divemaster Course. In the recreational diving industry, based on providing recreational experiences to recreational divers, the divemaster is responsible for guiding the group and assisting the Dive Instructor. They teach people interested in the sport to become a scuba diver. Both dive professionals can work in dive centers or be dive leaders on liveaboard cruises.

After obtaining the Open Water Dive Instructor certification, the dive professional can take 5 more certifications to become a “Course Director”. The latter is in charge of training new diving instructors.

At Dressel Divers, you can obtain the 12 Scuba Diving Certification Levels from Beginners to Professional. YOU CAN START YOUR CAREER RIGHT NOW, contact us.

b. Commercial Professional Diving Services

Usually, commercial diving is useful for industrial, construction, and engineering tasks. They might include: building bridge foundations, maintaining oil facilities, working in contaminated waters and overhauling nuclear power plants or fish farms, underwater blasting or repairing, cleaning, and maintaining ships.

Workers who perform commercial professional scuba diving must have transversal skills, such as underwater welding, handling explosives, handling pneumatic and hydraulic tools, etc.

c. Professional Scuba Diving Services for Science Research

Since 70% of the earth’s surface is underwater, it seems that there is a lot of research to be done there. This is what professional scuba diving for science research is all about. Generally, the main occupation of these divers is not diving, but marine sciences, archaeology, or geology.

The patrons of this type of work are universities or treasure hunting companies. Also, there are some scientific diving associations, such as the American Academy of Underwater Sciences AAUS.

d. Professional Diving Services for The Maintenance of Aquariums

Between scientific diving and commercial professional scuba diving is dive work in aquariums. On the one hand, there is a need for professionals capable of performing underwater maintenance of the facilities. Usually, divers with a commercial certification do this task. They clean the algae from the tanks and check the filtration systems.

On the other hand, biologists and veterinarians may perform their work with an Open Water or similar certification. The main job of these professional divers is to care for and feed the animals. Professional aquarium diving allows the marine biologist to observe the behavior of the animals and find out if they are sick or injured. Also, to provide the necessary treatment for recovery.

e) Professional Scuba Diving: Navy

Who could forget Lieutenant Jordan O’Neil and her grueling military training to become part of the U.S. Navy Seals?

These divers received military training in combat, but military professional scuba diving does much more.

The first professional military divers responded to a basic need: to repair damage to ships as a result of naval engagements or simple navigation.

They were also in charge of recovering cargoes and bodies from wrecked military vessels.

When engaged in combat, professional military divers perform underwater demolitions, infiltrate and sabotage enemy vessels or installations and also deactivate mines. This involves conducting reconnaissance scans beforehand.

Most of the advances in autonomous diving have come from the hand of professional military diving. So much so that there are special units focused on this purpose, such as the United States Navy Experimental Diving Unit (NEDU).

g. Professional Scuba Diving: Underwater Photographers

From the cameraman you hire when you dive at Dressel Divers to the filmmaker who worked under James Cameron to shoot Titanic, they are professional graphic divers.

Actually, their job specialty is image and sound, but they have decided that the underwater environment is what they want to capture with their camera. Their professional scuba diving equipment has a complement; their camera.

Their level as divers usually exceeds Advanced Open Water as they often carry heavy equipment and must dive to great depths. But, in principle, they do not need diving skills beyond those obtained with recreational diving certifications.

3. Professional Scuba Diving Courses

Depending on the type of professional diving you want to do, you will be interested in some courses or others.

According to what we have seen, professional scientific, aquarium, and graphic divers can work just with a recreational diving course (Open Water or Open Water Advance).