When I first started servicing yachts, it was by far the hardest thing that I had ever done. It was brutally intense, physically demanding, cold, dirty, smelly, sticky and of course, wet. For me, It was a nice day in October and I was very excited to begin my first day underwater. The guy I was working for at the time pretty much walked me down the dock and pointed to the dirtiest, most disgusting boat I had ever seen. He said "Let me know when you are done" and he walked away. I didnt know what to do, I didnt know where to start, but I got in the water anyway. I slapped my fins on, put on my mask, snorkel and gloves, lifted the heavy weight belt over my waist, grabbed my scraper and hopped into the water. 

As soon as I got in, I began to breathe a little heavier. Not being able to see the floor, I kept looking around at the sea life with anxiety as I attempted to find a place on the boat to grab on to. The docks were embedded with fish, mussels, tunicates, tube worm coral, crabs, red algae, kelp, nudibranch and probably thousands of other things I cant identify. The boat pretty much looked the same. You couldnt see the propellers, the hull or the waterline. It was all covered in growth. I have been diving for a couple years so I had been experienced in the water, but I wasnt nearly prepared for this.

I angled the scraper against the boat and ran it across the hull. Immediately, hard, calcified growth began to descend and sink into the blackness of the bay. At the same time, crabs and nudibranch began to crawl up my arm and onto my face. Covering my mask. I can feel the tiny legs of the crab crawling along my lips as I continued to scrape away. Pretty soon, I was exhausted. My body was aching, my arm was in pain, my legs did not want kick anymore and I still had over 500 square feet to scrape. Eventually I had finished. 2 days and 5 tanks later I was finished. The boat costed me 7 hours, a quarter tank of gas and $20 in airfills (about $32 in expenses excluding man hours). The boat paid me $36.00. I made $4.00 on that boat and for 7 hours, I made about 57 cents / hour. I earned every penny. Over time, I became stronger, faster, smarter, and more efficient. Now, the same boat would pay $130, take me an hour and a half of labor and half a tank of air.

As a diver working for a company, the work is contracted, and each individual is a self-employed entity. Each boat pays an "X" amount of money upon completion, and the total money earned depends on the work performed. You are not an employee, you are a subcontracter and you withhold your own taxes. You are also eligible for business expense related tax-writeoffs. Diving boats, like any other job, requires a lot of patience and willpower. I find that the biggest challenge of this job for many beginners is the lack of self-motivation. As a diving subcontractor, you make your own hours and you work your own days. Although that sounds enticing, there are pros and cons. Some advantages are extreme flexibility in your work schedule, there is no one in the water to micro-manage you, and you make pretty good money working on your own. A major con would be the potential lack of self-motivation. I have seen many people spend hours sitting in their cars at the marinas trying to find the motivation to get into the water, well-knowing of what lies ahead. Sometimes they eventually suit up, and more often than not, they drive off and go home.

If you want to make $18-$22 an hour, and you are a self-motivating individual, diving boats may very well be for you. As a diver, you can stay in shape and make money at the same time. In one given weekend, you can make $200-$300. Why settle for a minimum wage job making $8 or $10 an hour where you can potentially make a lot more working on your own as a sub contractor 5-6 hours a day?

Although everyone uses different tools, has different pre-water rituals, eats different foods and applies different techniques, I have broken everything down into a science and I will expose some of the divers' best kept secrets. If you are stll interested, click here to learn about diving boats as a science.