Eric Zwanenburg PADI Course Director
by: ThePope
Word Count: 647
My name, home town and occupation
My name is Eric Zwanenburg and I am the resident PADI Course Director for Dive College. I was born in Holland in a city called Leiden, I grew up in different parts of Europe, such as Spain, Belgium. During my high school and College years I grew up living in the Hague. Presently I am living in the Riviera Maya, Mexico.
How and when I became involved with scuba diving
I initially got involved with Snorkeling while I was living in Spainin the Alicantearea. While spending lots of time on the beach, one day a saw a group of divers going in to the water and coming out with all kinds of stuff.I was really intrigued and I wanted to go in the water with them, so my Mother bought me a Snorkel set of masks fins and snorkels, so I could go and see what they where doing. In 1995 I was invited to come and work in Cabarete, Dominican Republic, as a bartender in one of the most popular bars in the area. This is where I got the opportunity to try diving for the first time. I remember having some problems clearing my mask, but after a couple of try’s I completed my Discover Scuba Diving Experience and 4 days later I was certified. I enjoyed this so much that I wanted to become a Dive Instructor. I took the courses from Advanced Open Water all the way to the Instructor Development Course that same year and got certified as a PADI Assistant Instructor and a PADI Medic First Aid Instructor. I had to wait for my Instructor exams till 1997 regarding the 1-year requirement. (Which is now 6 months) After that I worked in lots of Diveshops increasing my experience. For a while I had a concession for the photography and video department, which worked really well. This gave me a lot of experienced handling 
camera’s like the Sea and Sea and Nikonos 5. In 1998 I got the opportunity to enroll in a IDC-Staff Instructor Course organized by Pro-Dive Fort Lauderdalein the Dominican Republicwith Course Directors Larry Friedman and Dave Schubert. Since then I felt the passion to teach Instructors and every time there was an IDC I got involved. In 1999 I received the PADI Master Instructor rating and worked full time in Aquaworld, Cancun, PADI Career Development Center, where I was the Lead IDC-Staff Instructor, training to become a PADI Course Director. During this time I also worked a lot on the Cave Diving for which I got certified by Mattheas Andreas in 1999. In 2002 after having staffed 14 IDC’s and certified over 900 Students I got accepted in the Course Director Training Course held by PADI Headquarters in NewportCalifornia.
Presently I work as a PADI Course Director with Scubacaribe. This is a really big company with operations based in different parts of Mexicolike the Puerto Vallarta, Cabos san Lucas, Cancun, Cozumeland the Riviera Maya. Also we have operations in Jamaica, Bahamas, Costa Rica, Dominican Republicand since recent also in Cape Verde(of the coast of Africa). This means that I am doing lots of traveling around to those destinations, which makes my job really versatile and fun. Since I became a PADI Course Director in 2002 I have been teaching an average of 10 IDC’s per year in those different destinations. Presently I have certified over 400 Dive Professionals and taught more then 30 IDC’s. During the last 2 years, I have been working very hard on the Technical Diver and Instructor ratings. October 2005 I completed the last part of the DSAT Tec Trimix Instructor Trainer rating. Next courses I want to do are Closed Circuit Rebreather ones, I just can’t make up my mind which one...
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