A PADI professional short story – PADI Instructor Naz from Blue Season Bali

Are you curious about becoming a PADI professional? You’ve probably already been to different areas to dive and experienced all sorts of diving! So have a lot of our interns and instructors at Blue Season Bali. In this series of blog posts, our PADI professionals will tell you all about their path to professional diving, why they became a PADI Pro and where they enjoyed diving the most. We hope those stories help you choose your own path to becoming a dive professional, maybe even a PADI Instructor!

This time our PADI professional Naoko aka Naz tells us all how she ended up becoming a PADI Pro:

Since I was young I always had a big fascination for the underwater environment. I loved the idea to swim with fish and become part of the ocean. I started diving with my Open Water Course in Sydney which was kind of disappointing. It didn’t really meet my expectations of the great underwater world I had imagined. It was cold, the visibility was so bad – you could barely see 2 meters ahead. As I always wanted to swim with fish I wasn’t really pleased to only see two fish during my dive. Yes, you’ve read it right – two fish! Even though I only saw two fish, it still was amazing to breathe underwater and I wanted to go further. So I did my Advanced Open Water Diver as well as my Rescue Diver in Fiji. During those courses I gained much confidence in diving and realized that becoming a PADI professional was really something I wanted to pursue.

As I am from Australia, of course I’ve been diving at the Great Barrier Reef, also at Julian Rocks, the Maldives, Thailand – but Bali is by far my favorite area to dive. I had a lot of expectations as everybody says that it’s one of the best dive sites in the world and I wasn’t disappointed! My expectations were more than fulfilled – Bali’s dive sites provide such a great variety – amazing!

So after doing my Divemaster and my Instructor with Blue Season Bali, I didn’t want to leave – I love the island. I got to know the team, their level of service and how they are all passionate about diving, and it convinced me so much that I decided to stay when they offered me a job as a full-time PADI Instructor. I am also planning to do my Master Scuba Diver Trainer.

For me teaching as a PADI professional means I get to share my big passion – diving. It gives me the opportunity to show other people how great it is. Furthermore something really important for me is to create awareness for the marine environment.

What is the most fascinating thing about diving for you? Are you thinking about becoming a PADI professional too? Let us know all about it in the comments!