It took a few months longer than planned, but Scotsman Ewan Greenwood is now the latest new PADI Open Water Scuba Instructor to come from Pattaya’s Aquanauts Dive Centre.
Greenwood, 46, came to Pattaya in January 2010 as a newly minted diver. The former social worker did his course in the U.K. and recalled it was “freezing,” even in a dry suit. The appeal of changing his life and becoming a PADI instructor in the warm seas of Thailand seemed like just the adventure he was looking for.
Aquanauts Course Director Roger M. Smith (left) congratulates Ewan Greenwood on becoming a new PADI scuba diving instructor.
Greenwood’s training program at Aquanauts, a PADI 5-Star Career Development Center on Soi 6 in North Pattaya, was originally for three months, but things slid out of April and into June, when he did his Instructor Development Course. But a last-minute change saw him postpone actually taking the Instructor Exam and head back to the U.K. for a few months.
He came back in late September, did a bit of a refresher and stormed into the I.E. in at the Discover Beach Hotel Oct. 8-10. Unlike several students from other schools, Greenwood failed nothing and needed no make-ups, keeping up Aquanauts’ tradition of turning out the area’s best instructors.
Aquanauts now has a 100 percent pass rate for 40 consecutive months, the longest of any PADI instructor training facility in Thailand.
The I.E., Greenwood said, was a bit easier than his IDC. “The exams are what spooked me. I knew once I got past those I’d be fine, as I’m quite happy in the water,” he said.
Greenwood now will spend the next two months with Aquanauts working on his Master Scuba Diver Trainer rating.
