Becoming a skilled and proficient scuba diver takes more than a weekend class or even a series of short-term training events. Often, sound dive skills result from obtaining additional experience and coaching over the long term. But finding these opportunities presents its own challenges…
Enter Dive Alaska’s Men
torship Program! In partnership with experienced local divers, we created a formalized dive mentorship program to help you achieve your diving goals. This program pairs divers with qualified mentors who have mastered the level of diving to which you aspire. Utilizing an individually tailored coaching plan, we will outline your objectives and provide guided dives, workshops, and educational resources to assist you on your journey. Our goal is to offer an affordable, reliable method to obtain the diving experience necessary to improve your diving capacity, without breaking the bank with additional training fees.
What is the purpose of mentoring?
We believe that an effective mentorship program will increase diver retention. Nationally, 80% of the scuba divers who learn to dive fail to continue their activity in the sport beyond their initial training. We think this is largely due to the fact that scuba courses have become so abbreviated that the new diver does not have time to truly become comfortable in the underwater environment. While comfort can be developed with additional paid training, often this becomes its own barrier and prevents divers from maximizing the training they have already received.
Ultimately, we want to ensure that you develop confidence in your own skills, so that you may enjoy the beauty of our underwater world at your leisure.
What results can I expect?
Divers will develop the confidence and capacity to independently plan and execute dives with their team, up to their level of training and experience. As your capacity increases, you will find yourself assuming a leadership role simply because you can, opening up new and exciting dive opportunities. Other divers admire dive leaders, and your value will increase within our diving community as you become a regular fixture at the dive sites, organizing and planning your dives with ease. Perhaps you will even join us as a mentor!
How much does this cost?
Our goal is to provide you with an affordable means of developing your skills as a diver, without breaking the bank. Your mentor will not charge for their services but simply asks that you assist with their diving-related expenses (transportation, dive site access fees and breathing gas). Compare this to the costs of one-to-one instructor-led coaching or the cost of taking an additional specialty, and you will discover that mentorship adds little to the overall cost of doing a couple of dives on your own.
The best value? Get your team together and split the mentor’s expenses among all team members!
What’s the next step?
Once you have committed to continuing your diving education, set up a meeting with us to discuss our various programs. If the mentorship program is selected, we will match you up with a mentor and develop a training plan around your individual needs. You will then commit to a schedule of regular meetings with your mentor, with in-water and dry activities tailored to help you achieve your goals.
When you consider the available options, this is easily the best training value around. We hope you take advantage of all our mentorship program can offer and become the diver you want to be!
We’re proud of our dive team, proud of you, and look forward to seeing you in the water!