Nowadays there are many options of where to take professional scuba diving Instructor training and of course with more certified Instructor trainers available year upon year, more variable price options and more locations to choose from; it ultimately means that a professional diver needs to spend more time choosing what is right for themselves.
Why choose Indonesia?
Indonesia can now be considered the best overall place for all types of diving activities. Its location being right in the heart of the coral triangle offering an abundance of marine life, amazing coral structures and a huge diversity of diving conditions right across the Indonesian Archipelago.
The great thing is that Indonesia can appeal to absolutely every level of diver from the absolute beginner right up to technical and CCR fun divers. Bali itself offers great diving consisting of wrecks, macro, wide angle and volcanic sand dives with a variety of calm and drift diving locations scattered around the island. Nusa Lembongan and Nusa Penida offer slightly colder drift diving conditions with some great wide angle marine life and an almost guaranteed sighting of Manta Ray and Mola Mola at certain times of the year as well as regular sightings of other pelagic marine life such as sharks, dolphins and large groups of schooling fish such as jacks and batfish. The Gili Islands is almost all drift diving and is a magnet for those looking to take dive training offering every level of training from beginner experiences right up to technical diving programs. The Gili Islands although popular for both training and fun diving does tend to be more training orientated and in turn divers will find highly experienced instructors with a passion for providing a high standard of training.
The rest of the Indonesian archipelago between the Gili Islands and Raja Ampat offers a range of different diving conditions and a huge variety of marine life and is said to just get more and more incredible the further east you go, although some parts of this vast country are not as well serviced by air and sea transport routes. Another growing destination is Komodo Nation Park, which is situated off the island of Flores, offering some of the world’s best and most famous dive sites and usually at the top of every divers bucket list.
Komodo traditionally caters for experienced fun divers, but with the growing tourism market, international flights and a new wave of hotels it now sees some beginner and continuing education courses being offered.
So all in all, Indonesia is a great choice for divers of all levels and a great place to start a career as a professional Divemaster and Instructor looking for life changing experiences within the recreational diving industry.
Why the Gili Islands?
The Gili Island’s are one of many locations in Indonesia that are well known amongst divers. But there are several reasons that the Gili’s, and Gili Trawangan in particular, have become the focus of recreational dive training within Indonesia.
One of the many advantages is the proximity and ease of access to a wide variety of dive sites. Dive boats leave directly from the beach outside the majority of dive shops and dive sites are only a stone’s throw away. With an absolute maximum of 15 minutes boat journey accessing great diving is a seamless experience, eliminating long boat journeys and additional transport to reach the boat in the first place. Generally dive operators offer single tank dives and again the majority of dive operators also offer hotel and restaurant facilities.
Nearly all dive sites around the Gili’s are drift dives and offer crystal clear conditions with a variety of marine life.
The Gili Islands have often been referred to as the turtle capital of the world with multiple turtles being seen on virtually every dive. Both the Hawksbill and the Green turtles are both in abundance, but the Green turtle is far more common with divers often seeing more than 10 on just one dive. Another great thing about Gili Trawangan is that there are always a number of different conservation projects going on so it’s a great place to learn about, practice or even initiate sustainable and environmental ideas or projects. Other marine life includes sharks, reef fish and a variety of macro for photographers.
The Gili Islands also have fantastic dedicated training sites that are used for Instructor training and have a flat topography, great visibility as well as training lines. The Instructor training site is approximately 10 – 15 boat ride away and again the dedicated boat leaves from the beach directly outside of Trawangan Dive.
The great thing about this is that there is no delay when conducting open water workshops and the usual logistical delays such as driving to the boat, long boat journeys, setting up training sites and sharing boats are completely removed. All in all this means that we are able to maximise the time spent in the classroom, open water and relaxing between sessions.
The dive site itself is situated in a relatively calm area, but is located directly within a mild split current so instructors in training can learn from current changes during sessions. These varied conditions providing candidates with first-hand experience of how to easily solve and overcome unexpected environmental changes such as current direction and current magnitude by repositioning themselves, their students and occasionally adjusting the way in which a particular skill is delivered. Of course adapting to conditions also helps new Instructors develop additional skills and requirements such as learning to think on their feet, or fins in this case.
The Gili Islands are an extremely popular place for new divers and those taking continuing education programs. This allows for new scuba diving instructors to gain first-hand experience of a busy dive shop environment as well as to easily find opportunities locally as dive shops are often looking for new scuba diving instructors.
Outside of diving there is always something to get involved in whether its conservation, yoga, seasonal surfing or the array of restaurants and bars that are located across the Gili Islands.
Why the PADI IDC in Gili T with Holly Macleod?
Gili Trawangan is the largest of the three Gili islands and therefore all of the above benefits and opportunities are maximised on Gili Trawangan providing the perfect place to start a new career as a scuba diving instructor.
The PADI Scuba Diving Instructor Development Course (IDC) with Industry Leading, Award Winning Platinum PADI Course Director Holly Macleod takes place every month at Trawangan Dive, the first ever 5 Star IDC Career Development Centre (CDC) to have been established in the Gili Islands and Lombok. Professional divers will find world class training facilities at the absolute highest possible standard available.
All professional PADI Instructor training is entirely conducted by Holly Macleod, who offers a wealth of direct industry experience.
Having been teaching professional diving programs for the past 17 years in a range of different diving destinations such as Honduras, Thailand, Australia, UK, Malaysia, Philippines, Indonesia and Singapore; Holly has the pure experience to assist professional divers in developing the skills, knowledge and confidence to be highly successful in the dive industry. She is the perfect person to consult when making the transition into a new career knowing exactly what is expected from new instructors and of course what new scuba diving instructors should expect from the diving industry.
Holly has issued well over 3000 Instructor level certifications in the Gili Islands alone and has earned both the Platinum Frequent Trainer Award for 8 years running along with the PADI Elite Instructor 300 Award. These ratings and experience allow candidates to have the confidence that they will receive the absolute highest possible standard of training. The program has been specifically designed to go beyond the requirements laid out within the PADI IDC Curriculum and includes a range of real life experience based training workshops providing new instructors with the necessary skills, knowledge and most of all confidence to succeed in any busy dive shop environment.
Additional components within the PADI IDC with Holly include organisational and environmental workshops, logistical course structure analysis, experience based workshops as well as an increased focus on continuing education programs and the PADI Rescue Diver Course. Candidates will work through a series of training scenarios working with students at different levels of certification and ability, in varied conditions and at a range of dive sites.
Other additions include a brief overview of international and government body standards outside of the PADI framework such as the ISO/ EN/ WRSTC standards and a brief overview of the more formal legally binding local legislative regulations.
Being a certified DAN Medic and a Diving Emergency Medical Response Instructor Holly has also developed the PADI Emergency First Responder Instructor Course to include a range of additional components aimed at not only improving candidate knowledge, but improving the knowledge of their own future rescue diver and first aid students. In addition to the course curriculum Platinum PADI Course Director Holly Macleod includes a number of further components such as purpose made tourniquet use for cases of serious bleeding, the use of adjuncts in Airway Management, additional techniques to respond more effectively to drowning and advanced resuscitation methods using a bag valve mask (BVM)/ resuscitator/ self-inflating bag, sometimes known by the proprietary name Ambu bag.
The PADI IDC Indonesia Program takes place every single month here on the island of Gili Trawangan and is entirely conducted by Holly. There are a variety of ways to gain further information about the program including checking out the PADI IDC Gili Islands TripAdvisor page for first hand reviews of previous candidates taking professional Instructor training with Holly or simply checking out the PADI IDC Indonesia Instagram Page. Alternatively simply contact PADI Course Director Holly Macleod directly at
