By Victoria Bell
Inspired by a quick research trip my senior year, I decided to spend some time working at a dive shop in Roatán, Honduras after college. I was working as a teacher at the time and looking to get back into more hands on marine work. Located just off the mainland, Roatán is a Caribbean island that is home to the second largest barrier reef in the world. With some of the most incredible diving on the planet, it has become a very popular destination for tourists and professional divers alike.
After extensive research, I settled on becoming a Divemaster Intern at Coconut Tree Divers. I already had my Advanced Open Water certificate, but it is not uncommon to show up with little to no SCUBA experience. It takes 6 weeks to go from no knowledge of SCUBA to being a full on PADI Divemaster, after which you can go on to become an instructor or gain additional diving expertise in TEC diving, sidemount, and much more.
Coconut Tree accepts interns of all ages and backgrounds; the youngest person in my class was 24 and the oldest was in his 60s. Time is spent working in the shop, taking classes, and helping instructors on various dives. While the courses are fun and the people are great, they do not make it easy. The swim test is to be completed back-to-back as opposed to broken up over two days like many shops do it, the Rescue Diver test is almost always on a day with bad weather and large waves, and they challenge you at every step. Yet every challenge came with a detailed explanation for improvement, passing the Rescue Diver test in bad weather ensured my confidence looking for a missing diver in almost any situation, and completing the swim test in one day proved to myself I deserved to be there and made me feel incredibly strong.
As a woman who often travels alone, I admittedly had some reservations about going to Honduras given some of what I had been told. On this trip I traveled with my brother (who ended up becoming a SCUBA instructor and living on the island for a few years), but I would not hesitate to go back by myself. Paired with a dive shop like Coconut Tree, you are never really alone. They even have a dorm with private rooms for interns or will help you find other accommodations if needed. Being constantly surrounded by other interns and like-minded individuals, friends are easily made. It’s a place I absolutely recommend for men and women alike, and especially for solo female or hesitant travelers.
Once classes were over, a standard day involved helping around the shop and on the boats. On a dive, you help patrons with their gear and either support a dive or lead one of your own. Surrounded by vibrant corals and an incredible amount of sea life, you make sure all the divers are comfortable and safe, ensuring they are using air efficiently and weighted properly. When off the boat, you usually do shop work and when the day comes to an end almost everyone grabs a beer and hangs out on the patio together. It is a very inclusive and friendly environment.
If you are in a transitional period and have 6 weeks, I cannot recommend the Divemaster Internship Program enough. It was some of the most incredible diving I have ever done. Countless fish, octopus, sharks, squid, turtles, and so much more, swam around me. The local marine park is almost always looking for volunteers as well.
As someone who has always been interested in working in the marine environment, I can attest to it helping in my career. When it came time years later to conduct baseline marine protected area data in Micronesia, I was used to carrying my own gear around and diving multiple times a day surveying the underwater world. Even if you only have a few days to spend, I highly recommend making the trip and seeing some of the incredible marine life and local culture Honduras has to offer.
Other articles in the Women’s Aquatic Network December series:
- A Woman, a Vision, a Network: The Rise of WAN in Washington and the Importance of Women in Marine and Coastal Affairs, By Katy Lackey
- From Wrecked Reefs to Ocean Optimism, By Dr. Nancy Knowlton
- Becoming a Miami Waterkeeper, By Dana Tricarico
- SmallScaleOA: A Win-Win for Academia, Industry, Community, and Conservation, By Katharine (Kat) Leigh
- Diving Dreams and Solo Travel, By Victoria Bell
- Why the Women Around You Are the Network You Need, By Dana Rollison
Victoria Bell works at a grantmaking organization that funds scientific research on policy-relevant topics concerning the world’s oceans and communicates the results of the supported research to decision makers and other interested audiences. Victoria joined WAN in 2015 after moving to DC and not knowing anyone in her field. She heard about WAN through a co-worker and found an entire group of professionals with the same interests and values. She has served on the Executive Board of the Women’s Aquatic Network since 2016.
Victoria holds a B.A. in Environmental Studies from Eckerd College and M.A. in International Environmental Policy for Ocean and Coastal Resource Management from the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey. You can reach victoria at: vebell@mac.com.
Note: Views expressed in this article are the author’s own. They do not necessarily represent WAN or the author’s employer.
References
Roatan: Types of Coral Reefs. Available at: https://roatan.online/types-of-coral-reefs/. Accessed: November 15, 2018.