Scuba Diving Gap Year - Thailand PADI dive internships in Koh Tao

Scuba diving gap year on Koh Tao Thailand

What Happens During a Typical Day of the Dive Internship?

Taking a diving gap year in Thailand you're in for the adventure of a lifetime. Exploring tropical coral reefs, experiencing life on a beautiful tropical island, meeting people from all over the world and undertaking challenging and rewarding training through to PADI Professional. Sounds perfect, but what's involved a typical day?

Each of the PADI courses involves a mix of scuba diving theory, shallow water work developing new skills and of course getting out on the boat diving. Throughout your Koh Tao scuba diving internship we'll keep you steadily working through each, making sure that each day is exciting and enjoyable, and you're progressing through your dive internship.

As regards schedules, the Simple Life dive boat goes out for two trips daily. In the mornings we depart at about 8 a.m. visiting two different dive sites and returning at about midday (in time for lunch!). Then in the afternoon, the boat heads out again at about 13:00, again making two dives and returning early evening. Night dives also run several times per week.

Dive sites are scheduled so that we rotate through the Koh Tao sites to keep things interesting. Most likely two of the dives each day will visit shallow easy dive sites, (suitable for new and inexperienced divers), then the other half day session will visit deeper, more challenging dive sites, (perfect for advanced divers and higher level PADI training).

You could make in excess of thirty dives per week! However we don't recommend that - firstly you'd become very tired, and secondly (& most importantly), the cumulative build up of dives would mean you'd only be able to make very short bottom times in order to stay within safe limits. Much better is to cut down the overall number of scuba dives and enjoy them instead!

For these reasons, normally you'll be sticking to 2-3 dives per day. All our PADI dive internships include unlimited diving, so even if you want to take a break between PADI courses, you're still welcome to head out on the boat and enjoy some 'fun dives' (non-training dives). This is actually one of the best ways of developing your navigation skills and learning the Koh Tao dive sites.

When you're not out on the boat diving, we'll be working through the other components of your PADI courses. This will include scuba diving theory covering all important diving principles (physiology, equipment, physics etc), and brushing up your scuba diving skills to perfection in the swimming pool. You'll get the chance to learn how a busy dive shop operates, hanging out with our team of full time instructors and Divemasters as they meet and schedule customers, organised diving logistics and coordinate the dive boat, maintain the shops scuba equipment, and operate a compressor to blend nitrox.

The point of the scuba internship is that you get real hands on experience and become part of the Simple Life Dive Team. As time goes by, you'll end up taking on more and more responsibility and getting a real buzz out of being part of the dive operation.

Anyone for Sunset Beers on Sairee Beach?

Unless there's a night dive out, things start winding down by about 18:30, after which there's nothing more enjoyable than heading to one of Koh Tao's laid back beach bar-restaurants to enjoy a few cold drinks and some fantastic Thai cuisine.

Simple Life is a lively, vibrant dive shop so there's always at least a few people around to chat and enjoy a few beers. And most days an underwater videographer accompanies our PADI dive courses - they usually screen their footage from the day's dives on a projector in one of the bars, which is always a lot of fun to watch.

Every night there's some kind of party taking place on Koh Tao (see Koh Tao nightlife and social scene), but if you're planning on diving the following morning it's home to sleep at a reasonable time, ready for the next day.