A Day as a SeaUrchin Intern
Hi, I am Timo, one of the Interns at SeaUrchin. I came to SeaUrchin as an Advanced Open Water Diver and plan to become an Open Water Instructor. For this I am staying in Mauritius for 6 months, getting trained by Katharina and her team.
For me, all began with the Divemaster Internship which lasts for 3 months. In my case, this also included the SSI Specialities “Stress & Rescue” and “React Right” which I had to complete before I could start my Divemaster training.
Apart from doing the courses we Interns also help in the dive center anywhere we can. This includes taking care of incoming customers before, during, and after the dives. We help to find the right equipment for each customer, prepare everything for each dive, fill cylinders, load and prepare the boat and give general information about the shop and all our courses.
The usual day of us interns starts in the morning at
8:00. We come to work and start preparing the store and all the necessary equipment needed for our dives (safety gear etc.)
8:30 Our customers arrive and after all paperwork is done, we start equipping everyone. 9:00 We go out for the first dive. Depending on our qualification, we will close groups, or help out in the shop. At this time we also start all of our Beginner/Refresh courses (Discover Scuba Diving, Refresher, Open Water Course). This means we (depending on our qualification) will teach the theory at the Dive Center and in the lagoon.
10:30 The boat arrives from the first dive. Should we have a lot of beginners (DSD) we sometimes leave straight away with all beginners and do a third dive for all qualified divers.
11:00 We leave for the second dive (on a normal day). Again, we close groups or help out in the shop. In between the dives we fill cylinders, log dives with our customers and help rinse all gear which is staying at the shop.
12:30 The boat arrives from the second (or third) dive. Now we remove everything from the boat again, clean/rinse all our equipment, fill cylinders and prepare the shop for the next day.
14:00 Most of the work is done and we are leaving for home.
16:00 Alex, our Office Girl is closing the shop for the day.
The time we interns get off work mainly depends on work to be done, the number of customers for the next days and cylinders to fill for the first dive in the morning. Sometimes we can leave at 14:00 as well, but if we’re busy we have to stay until the end. Since we interns are seldom alone, we can rotate and no one will have to stay until the end all the time.
