What our Divemasters did next vol 4

Our PADI Divemaster Interns are a huge part of the team, and play a massive role in the enjoyment of our students. They come join us for 12 - 20 weeks of diving, learning new skills and exploring Orkney, so we thought we'd do a series of blog posts about how they found the experience and what they're doing now. All these posts will be original and non-edited, so any negatives they have will be left in (we'll just sulk in the corner as we read them)! This second one comes from Ed who joined us back in 2023!

Divemaster Ed (left) and the team getting ready for an end of season night dive!

"I completed Kraken's divemaster internship in 2023. It was a vital step in changing career, from a corporate life to marine conservation. 

Completing a Marine Science MSc during the COVID years meant the practical aspects of the course had been missing, and I was very keen to correct this by building as much cold-water diving experience as possible. Having moved to Orkney to complete the MSc programme, I had heard on the marine grapevine of the existence of Kraken's internship programme. Having chatted with previous alumni I was sold on it and applied for the 2023 programme. At the same time as starting the internship, I also started a new role with NatureScot helping to manage aspects of their marine data systems, both simultaneously on a part-time basis. Both a shorter full-time internship and a longer part-time were available, but I chose the latter to fit in with my other job.

Ed getting ready to lead the group into a pondlike Scapa Flow

Day to day the internship consisted of travel to the dive site, unloading and preparing gear for customers, providing technical and historic briefings, supporting customers in the water with their dives, and generally helping to improve the customer experience where possible. To complete the technical aspects of the divemaster programme, instructors Rob and Margot guided us through the various assessment steps, using their deep experience to improve our skills and ensure a solid base for guiding groups of customers towards the middle and end of the internship. Dives were completed predominantly at the barriers dive sites, great sites for tuition with wrecks and abundant marine life, but with occasional days diving the World War I wrecks of Scapa Flow. 

I hadn't quite bargained for the sheer amount of life in the waters of Orkney, and this kick-started a rewarding learning process about individual species, habitats, and ecology, building on the knowledge gained on my MSc programme.  

Ed helping out instructor Margot with a PADI Drysuit Course

Kraken's divemaster internship gave me one of the key qualifications required to start diving for work, and having gained a few more supporting tickets I joined the NatureScot dive team. Since getting my divemaster I have helped the team on multiple surveys in 2024, including resurveying transects pre-existing scallop transects following an illegal fishing incident in the no-take zone in Arran, deploying flapper skate receivers in Redrocks MPA and mapping of species and habitats given Scottish government priority marine feature status. Separately outside of work, I volunteer for Marine Conservation's Seasearch programme, and have just completed a week-long cruise around Orkney, developing comprehensive datasets of the species and habitats around the inshore waters of Orkney.

The day to day work of the internship was tough but rewarding, dealing with difficult weather conditions, complex equipment logistics, and my own learning curve. In this way a key benefit of the internship is that it provides a realistic insight into a practical diving career; weather changes, customers have issues that need dealing with, your own confidence and skills vary day to day. When helping out with marine monitoring surveys at NatureScot, whilst we are our own 'customers', we have to support each other as one team, working together to achieve the objectives of the survey, and adapting when required. These skills are emphasised during the Kraken divemaster internship and are extremely valuable in the professional sphere.

I've come a long way since deciding to change careers, and the Kraken divemaster internship really helped to kickstart the practical aspects of my new career. I would thoroughly recommend it to anyone who wants to give themselves the option of diving for work in the future.

I'll leave you with three reasons to do the Kraken internship in Orkney: 

 Excellent skills development by experienced and supportive instructors

 Daily access to Orkney's incredible marine life

 Supportive dive community and great networking opportunities 

If you are considering getting your divemaster, do reach out to Kraken.