Scuba Professional: Insights into Sport Diver Training & Operations (The Scuba Series) - Softcover

Pridmore, Simon

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1507621078 ISBN 13: 9781507621073

Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2015

Synopsis

Scuba Professional is the natural successor to Simon Pridmore’s first book, Scuba Confidential - An Insider's Guide to Becoming a Better Diver. Whereas Scuba Confidential focused on how to scuba dive, Scuba Professional looks at how diving is taught and how dive operations are conducted.

Scuba Professional is an excellent source of out-of-the-box ideas and independent, objective advice for instructors and dive operators. It is also an indispensable guide for those aspiring to become dive professionals with chapters such as “Do You Have What It Takes?” and “Which Training Agency?”

In short, this is everything you wanted to know about working in scuba diving but never dared to ask.

Scuba Professional is not only for professionals. Serious divers who take more than a passing interest in their hobby and want to know what goes on behind the scenes will be fascinated by the topics addressed and the insights offered.

From a dive safety point of view, Simon looks at the bigger picture and, in a series of chapters on avoiding and handling accidents, sets out a framework for developing the safety culture within our sport. He also examines the present state of key aspects of the dive industry and speculates as to the future.

"There is quite simply nothing like this book. Scuba Professional offers an invaluable guide to divers who want to excel in the scuba world. This is the ultimate backstage pass into the business of scuba."Jill Heinerth, Underwater Explorer, Technical Instructor Trainer and Filmmaker

"Terrific, really good! Simon captures the key characteristics of the diving instruction milieu concisely and with insight and clarity. It took me back to my many years of diving instruction and I was able to tick a mental check box against almost every key point he makes."Associate Professor Simon Mitchell, Consultant Anaesthetist and Diving Physician

"Required reading for every scuba professional and anyone with hopes of becoming one. In fact every diver can learn from this distillation of hard-earned wisdom. Simon Pridmore is one of the most thoughtful and readable of divers."Steve Weinman, Editor, Diver Magazine

About this title

From the Author:

Scuba Professional is mainly for three groups of people. First it is for folk I would call serious divers: people for whom scuba diving is a large part of their life. They are interested in far more than simply going underwater: they are also curious to know how the world of scuba diving works. 

Scuba Professional is also for anyone thinking of making a career in the sport. Working in scuba diving can be highly rewarding but it takes much dedication and a certain amount of political nous to make a success of it. Many people come into the sport professionally with their eyes half-closed and it takes them a while before they realise what they have got themselves into. Scuba Professional aims to give potential recruits a clear idea of what is involved and help them make the right decisions. 

This book is, of course, also written for current professionals. There are very few resources out there that dive centre managers and instructors can consult on matters relating to teaching scuba diving or running dive operations. Most of the material available is training agency - sponsored so it is primarily sales driven and designed to reinforce an agency's particular way of doing things. Scuba Professional is different. It raises important issues that affect dive professionals everywhere and discusses them with common sense, straight talking and no hidden agenda.

From the Inside Flap:

"The dive industry can be thought of as a messy meritocracy, where a wide range of quite different skills are required and put to use - frequently in all sorts of unlikely combinations - and where entrepreneurship, improvisation and tenancy are often key for any long-term tenure.
 
By dissecting and laying out the inner workings of this seething and ever changing marketplace, Simon Pridmore has managed to put no small measure of meaning to the madness, pointing out viable niches, going over success stories and mapping out possible pathways through the chaos, some of which have already been trodden by first venturers. He points out footsteps that can be followed, cites case histories to use for inspiration and shares hard-learned mistakes to take to heart.
 
As such, "Scuba Professional" is the closest thing we have to an 'insiders guide to the dive industry.' It should be perused by anyone who has aspirations for a career in diving and is seeking guidance. Or it can just be read as an entertaining behind-the-scenes documentary highlighting many of the diverse, multi-facetted and colourful aspects of the dive industry and its captivating personalities with their often intriguing and twisty career paths. There is never a dull moment in this industry and you won't have one reading this book either. "
 
Extract from the foreword to Scuba Professional by Peter Symes - Editor-in-chief and publisher (X-Ray International Magazine & AquaScope Media)

About this edition

• Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 1507621078
• ISBN 13: 9781507621073
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 308