I’M BACK: The Journey Back to Dive Instructor in Gran Canaria

In this article I wanted to explain a little about my recent journey back to the dive industry, why I am back, what has changed, and what I am doing now. I’m Scott Finch and I’m back. The last few years have been quite eventful for me. I stepped away from commercial diving and focused on the dive industry here in Gran Canaria. I was lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time and found myself the owner of a diving centre.

Some of you reading this may have done courses or dived with me during that time. If you have never owned a dive centre before, you probably wouldn’t understand the highs and lows. Let’s just say there are plenty of both.

Every location and market is different, and here in Gran Canaria we have a very specific diving demographic. Those demographics influence the type of business you build around them. It goes without saying that the diving industry can be a tough one. Margins can be tight, costs are high and running a dive centre involves a huge amount of work that has very little to do with actually being underwater. For a small centre, the owner is often also the operator, instructor, manager, mechanic, salesperson and problem solver.

My centre was small, but it wasn’t simple. There was a boat and a captain, marina fees, extra staff, servicing, equipment, compressors and the never-ending government bills, licences, insurance and taxes that come with running a business in Spain.

After a few years it became obvious that it was going to take a lot longer to start generating the profits needed to grow the business in the direction I wanted. And, to be honest, the joy had started to disappear from it for me.

The upsides were great, but the sacrifices were huge.

From hobby to profession

I have been diving, on and off, for over 20 years now.

What started in my late teenage years as a diversion became a side hobby while I was growing up, and was then more or less sidelined while I was in the military. After working in security and the entertainment industry in London as a firearms trainer, I decided it was time to take diving from a hobby to a profession.

I had always wanted to be a commercial diver.

From the day my dive instructor on my Open Water course, in a cold lake in the UK in winter, told me about commercial divers, I was sold. He told me stories of these humans that worked in deep, dark water, fighting the pressure and waves to live a life of mermaids, shipwrecks and giant squid. Obviously, I was sold.

The problem was, as is often the case in life, it wasn’t cheap. Commercial diving training costs thousands of pounds, depending on the route and qualifications, and at that point in my life it simply wasn’t possible.

So the dream had to wait.

After working in the entertainment industry — the exact job title was “film-set armourer”, look it up if you don’t know what that is — and finding myself on my fifth+ job title, I decided it was time to pick up the old dream.

So I set out on my diving journey, from hobby to payslip.

Commercial diving is one of those jobs that people have an idea about in their heads, but almost always have it slightly wrong.

I found no mermaids.

I found no shipwreck treasure.

And I never saw a giant squid.

Believe me, though, I did see some stuff.

I have some good stories to tell, but I’ll save those for another article.

Commercial diving is amazing, and I often recommend it to the most bitter and worn-out Divemasters and instructors I meet. When they become interested, I then tell them what the training costs. A few have even gone on to do it, and are doing great.

But it is a tough job, and it is particularly hard on a young family.

And I have a young family.

Moving to Gran Canaria

When moving to my partner’s home island of Gran Canaria became an option, we took to it with great enthusiasm.

It seemed perfect. I could work around the world in the water, while our family had the sun, the sea and a more relaxed life here in Gran Canaria. It is seldom that simple.

Within two years, the strain on the family was becoming brutal, and my son was growing up without me around as much as I wanted. Something else was needed.

That’s when PADI came into the story.

I had done my Divemaster and was happy at that level for a while. I started working longer and longer in Gran Canaria as a Divemaster and spending less time away commercial diving, which was great. But the money was a real shock.

I loved diving, but recreational diving was a very different world from commercial diving. Then the dive centre opportunity came up.

It was a struggling business, and I happened to be there at the right time, with the right contacts and enough experience to make it happen. So, together with a business partner, we became the owners of a new dive centre.

Happy ever after, right?

Wrong.

Owning a dive centre in Gran Canaria

This chapter of my life can be told in many ways.

I am going to choose the upbeat and positive version. The time I spent running the dive centre taught me an enormous amount and led to a huge amount of personal and professional growth. Looking back, its benefits outweigh its struggles. It certainly didn’t feel that way at the time. Being a small businessman, trying to keep a family together in a strange country, learning a language, growing a business and showing up every day for people can take its toll. And during that time, I drifted further and further away from what made me happy.

Freedom. The water. Exploration.

And that feeling of being an underwater reprobate that commercial divers all seem to love. They often say that if you leave something lying around, a commercial diver will steal it. They really are a breed apart. Modern-day “men of fortune” comes to my mind.

Something had to change.

So, we sold the company.

The road back

I set out to find myself in the massive upheaval that followed.

I went back to the UK for a while. I had time to think, and eventually returned to commercial diving again for a brief spell. But it wasn’t long before the same challenges emerged. Again, something needed to be done.

And that brings us to now. I’m back.

What I was missing wasn’t simply diving. It was that mission-focused exploration and challenge, and the love of sharing it with others. Taking the extra time to explain how decompression works. Teaching advanced skills and drills in the water. Spending time understanding equipment and why we use it. Planning a dive properly. Helping divers develop skills rather than simply getting them through another course.

All of those things had been slowly forgotten in the push towards profit and efficiency — taking more Try Dives, fitting more people into a day and making courses as fast as possible. I don’t work that way.

So now I’m back as a PADI diving instructor, but this time with a difference.

I’m still a PADI Scuba Instructor but now I’m a PADI TecRec Instructor, with specialist instructor qualifications in Sidemount, Tec Sidemount, Tec Basics and Tec 40 here in Gran Canaria. My experience spans recreational, technical and commercial diving, and I bring that background into the way I approach diver training.

Why Sidemount and Tec Diving?

Gran Canaria can be a great location for diving.

It’s safe, it’s European, it’s around four hours from mainland Europe and it’s warm, even in winter. We seldom get weather days — commercial diving slang for bad weather stopping work — and the marine life can be amazing. The dive sites are varied and entertaining, and there is a lot here for recreational divers. But what Gran Canaria doesn’t have a huge amount of is Tec Diving and Sidemount Diving. And that’s where I come in.

For me, Sidemount diving in Gran Canaria and Tec Diving in Gran Canaria are as close to that feeling of mission-focused diving as you can get in recreational diving. The planning. The equipment. The training. The problem solving.

Tec diving isn’t for everyone, and that’s fine. More for the rest of us.

I decided to set out as Scott Finch Diving independently to focus on exactly that.

I’m still a PADI instructor, but this time I am a PADI TecRec instructor in Gran Canaria, teaching Sidemount and Tec Diving professionally. No big groups. No rushing people through. No manufactured experiences.

Just real training, good equipment, and the time to actually develop your skills.

I have been lucky enough to dive with and learn from genuine subject-matter experts, from technical diving to Sidemount in the Mexican jungle. Those experiences didn’t just build my skills; they built my passion for this side of diving.

And now I want to share that excitement for diving again.

But this time, as an independent instructor.

Scott Finch Diving isn’t a new dive centre.

I’m an independent PADI diving instructor based in Gran Canaria. I work with established dive centres around the island to provide my specialist instruction and training. They provide the local infrastructure and facilities, while I focus on what I do best: teaching.

This independent approach allows me to concentrate on specialist diver training, working with small groups and providing a more focused learning experience.

My focus is the more advanced side of diving, particularly PADI Sidemount and Tec Diving courses. That means I can work with divers who want something different from the usual diving experience. Maybe you’re looking to start Sidemount. Maybe you’ve been diving for years and want to learn more about technical diving. Maybe you want to improve your equipment configuration, buoyancy, gas management or underwater skills.

I offer Sidemount training in Gran Canaria, from introductory Sidemount experiences through to full PADI Sidemount certification. For divers interested in progressing further, I also teach PADI Tec courses, including Tec Sidemount, Tec Basics and Tec 40.

Whether you’re visiting Gran Canaria on a diving holiday or already live here, the aim is the same: to give you the opportunity to develop your skills, gain confidence and explore a different side of diving.

Or maybe you simply want to get excited about diving again.

That’s what I am interested in.

So, I’m back

I’m back. Back as an Instructor, back in the water and back in Gran Canaria.

I’m Scott Finch, founder of Scott Finch Diving, an independent PADI instructor specialising in Sidemount and Tec Diving in Gran Canaria.

If you want to learn more about Sidemount courses, Tec Diving training or what it’s like to learn with an independent instructor, or just want to talk about where your diving could go next, drop me a line.

Dive safe,

Scott