Experienced PADI instructors is one ingredient, real life experience for our divemaster interns and PADI instructor interns is the other.  We consider the internship style of Divemaster training to be by far the best method of preparing someone to work in the dive industry.  Furthermore a Divemaster internship needs to involve a good variety of experiences.  At Coconut Tree we have designed a Divemaster internship program which not only meets all the requirements as described by PADI, but goes the extra mile in terms of variety of experience.  We are able to do this thanks in part, to our size.  As the largest dive shop in Roatan (in terms of certifications issued) we have more PADI courses going on at any one time than anyone else.  This variety of courses translates to a variety of choices for our Divemaster interns.  During your internship you can rest assured you will have the opportunity to assist on many of the different courses that PADI offers, depending upon your interests and our view of your training needs.

This variety of courses translates to a variety of choices for our Divemaster interns.  During your internship you can rest assured you will have the opportunity to assist on many of the different courses that PADI offers, depending upon your interests and our view of your training needs.

Small groups are another mainstay of the Coconut Tree philosophy.  A large dive shop with many courses is a great thing for someone looking to do their divemaster internship or PADI instructor course, but can be a real problem if there are too many Divemaster interns.  We have a strict policy of no more than 2 to 3 Divemaster trainees per full time instructor.  This means that competition between Divemaster trainees to assist on courses is virtually nonexistent, and there are no instances of more than two Divemaster trainees assisting on any one course.  In some of the larger training centers across the world this is a real problem, so when shopping around make sure you ask about the ratios of DMTs to full time instructors.  These small groups of professional trainees also lead to improved employment prospects after the course, as you are in competition with fewer other recently trained PADI Divemasters or Open Water Scuba Instructors.

Our PADI Instructor development courses which we run every month, are also focused on taking our time to fully prepare our candidates not just for the instructor exam, but for a long and fulfilling career as an open water scuba instructor.  We run the course over an 11/12 day period, with a day off in the middle (meaning 10/11 days of instruction).  The final two days of the course are a mock Instructor exam, run as closely as possible along the lines of the real instructor exam.  These extra days of instruction give our candidates the edge over some of the other more hurried PADI instructor development courses. If time is a concern we can also offer the IDC using e-learning.  This will reduce the time you spend in the classroom and reduces the IDC to a 7 day course.

Small groups and big boats is also key component of a quality Instructor Development Course.  Our IDCs run with maximum group size of 8, TOTAL.  Many IDC centers offer similar low ratios, but few offer a maximum group size as small as 8.  This small size makes a huge difference to the efficiency of the course allowing more flexibility to tailor the timetable to student needs, and more time in the water working on your skills.  It does however mean that reserving a place in good time is essential.