From Novice to Instructor: An Aquanauts Intern Looks Back on 7 Months in Thailand

One of this blog’s best contributors over the past year has been American Grant Cauley who spent seven months with Aquanauts both training and truly taking advantage of his time here to travel around and tell all his friends (and the rest of the world) about his time in Thailand. Grant’s now an instructor and has left for home. But before he did he wrote one final dispatch for this website.

Aquanauts intern and now OWSI Grant Cauley. (Click to enlarge.)

Quit your job, send a bunch of money to someone you’ve never met, and travel half way around the world to a town you’ve probably never heard of… They’re probably not the actions of most rational people, but it’s exactly what I did about 7 months ago.

Maybe it was a sense of adventure; maybe it was curiosity; possibly it was just time to move on to something new. I’m not sure exactly why I did it, but I’m definitely glad that I did. After almost seven months I’m now a PADI Open Water Scuba Instructor looking forward to the many other exciting places that this may take me to.

I have to admit, I was fairly clueless about what I was signing up for. Travel was my first priority and when I came across this internship it sounded like something that would add a little more substance to my adventures, other than traveling from town to town learning about the local watering holes.

Diving is something that has always struck my curiosity. I kept saying that I was going to become a certified diver, but for one reason or another never got around to it. Well then, let’s just jump from non-diver all the way to instructor on a whim. I signed up and nervously wired my money off with the worries of “Internet scam” going through my head. After arriving in Pattaya those worries were soon put to rest as I was trying on my brand new equipment and checking in to the studio apartment that I would call home for the next seven months.

Immediately I felt like part of the family. The interns welcomed me and were extremely helpful with advice on everything from diving to which bars are the most fun. I quickly felt at home.

It is a rather diverse lot, 18-year-olds that just got out of high school to retirees looking for some adventure and everything in between. I’ve made many good friends and hopefully found plenty of couches to crash on in future travels. The internship in itself is a natural networking platform. Those that finish before you have already spread out to amazing diving locations around the world.

Aquanauts interns and instructors celebrate on the boat after another successful Instructor Exam. (Click to enlarge.)

I started my courses right away and was a Rescue Diver, entering the Divemaster training before I knew it. PADI stipulates that you have to have been a certified diver for a minimum of six months before you can start your Instructor Development Course. That gave me plenty of time to dive and get a few travels in.

I’ve grown to really enjoy wreck diving. There are three great wrecks that Aquanauts frequent. By the end of my internship 71 of my 196 dives were wreck dives! I was very impressed with the training provided and in the end did quite well on my Instructor Exam because of the high standards set by the Aquanauts staff.

I couldn’t spend that much time in Thailand and not tour around a bit. Five of us spent a week in Koh Chang, a great Island without the massive amounts of tourism that some of the southern Islands have.

I dragged three other interns through Cambodia with me for two weeks which was quite the traveling experience. I highly recommend it to any one spending time in this area of the world. The temples around Siam Reap are one of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen. We spent three days touring around Angkor Wat and its surrounding temples.

I flew to Krabi and spent three weeks working my way through Koh Phi Phi, Phuket, Koh Samui, Koh Pha Ngan (Full Moon Party), and Koh Tao. All offer excellent diving and some of Thailand’s most beautiful beaches. A couple of the other interns joined me for a week in Hong Kong and Macao. Great trip, but I don’t recommend it if you’re on a tight budget.

This has been a tremendous experience and hopefully will one that will open the door to other adventures as a diving instructor. But first it’s back to San Diego for the summer to try to save up some more money and venture into the world of cold water diving. Thank you Aquanauts and all of the other interns that helped make this such an enjoyable experience.