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Pursuing your passion, even if it means an unconventional career path and years of financial struggle, can lead to a fulfilling and sustainable lifestyle, especially in unique environments like the Philippines.
The video features a conversation with Justin, owner of Critter Republic dive center in Daan, Philippines, who shares his journey from travel writer to dive center owner. He emphasizes the importance of finding one's passion and making it a sustainable career, even if it involves years of financial hardship. Justin highlights the Philippines, specifically Daan, as an ideal location due to its rich marine biodiversity within the Coral Triangle, good infrastructure, and accessible long-term visas.
The discussion delves into the structured progression of diving certifications, explaining that it's a skill-based activity requiring formal courses like Open Water, Advanced Open Water, and Rescue Diver, with no shortcuts. Justin also touches upon the value of practical skills and alternative career paths over traditional education, using the example of an intern who might not realize the potential of a career in diving. He stresses that ambition is often limited by exposure to possibilities, and mentors can significantly broaden horizons.
The conversation addresses overcoming fear, particularly in diving, and encourages viewers to pursue their dreams despite apprehension, as success often lies beyond comfort zones. It also touches on how negative diving experiences are typically caused by bad instructors rather than bad students, and how finding the right guidance can be transformative. The future of diving in the Philippines is presented as a growing industry with unique opportunities, especially for locals, driven by the country's exceptional marine biodiversity and potential for sustainable tourism businesses.
To become a dive instructor in the Philippines, you'll need to follow a structured certification path. This typically involves completing courses like Open Water, Advanced Open Water, and Rescue Diver, followed by professional-level training. Practical experience and mentorship are key to success in this career.
Yes, the Philippines is an exceptional location for diving, especially within the Coral Triangle region, known for its unparalleled marine biodiversity. This makes it a prime spot for tourism and establishing a career in diving.
Diving certifications are a structured progression of courses, not something you can self-teach. They range from Open Water for beginners to professional levels like Divemaster and Instructor, requiring formal training and skill development.
It is possible to build a sustainable lifestyle and career as a dive instructor or center owner in the Philippines. While it may involve years of financial struggle and unconventional paths, focusing on passion can lead to a rewarding career in this unique environment.
Beyond technical diving skills and certifications, being a dive instructor requires strong communication, problem-solving abilities, and the capacity to overcome fear in students. Practical, hands-on experience often proves more valuable than traditional academic qualifications.
Scuba diving certification in the Philippines follows a structured progression of courses, similar to other locations. You must complete formal training, starting with Open Water certification, and can then advance to levels like Advanced Open Water and Rescue Diver. There are no shortcuts to becoming certified; it's a skill-based activity requiring proper instruction and practical experience.
Yes, it is possible to make a sustainable career out of diving, as demonstrated by Justin's journey. While it may involve years of financial hardship initially, focusing on passion can lead to a rewarding career. The Philippines, with its rich marine biodiversity, offers unique opportunities for those looking to build a business in the diving industry.
Mark Thornton is presented as a highly capable dive instructor by some viewers. He is associated with the channel 'Every Man Has a Story' and is suggested to be a strong contender in the diving community. The video implies that finding the right instructor is crucial for a positive diving experience.
The Philippines is an ideal location for diving due to its position within the Coral Triangle, which boasts exceptional marine biodiversity. This makes it a prime spot for diving tourism and related businesses. The country also offers good infrastructure and accessible long-term visas, further supporting the diving industry.
0:02 Find your passion, what you want to do. I never thought I would own a dive center, never thought I would own a dive center in the tropics. Once you know something's possible, there's nothing stopping you. I went like five, six, seven years making nothing. If I want something bad enough, fear is not going to stop me.
0:13 That's one of our plans for next year. Actually, okay, we are here with my buddy Justin Carac. Justin, of course, is the owner of Critter Republic in Daan, Philippines. And I know many of you have likely seen an interview or two with Justin. We're very fortunate that he's able to sit down and chat with us today.
0:32 Justin, if you could briefly introduce yourself for those people that have never seen you before. So, thanks for the interview. My name is Justin, and I run a dive center here in Daan. Well, Daan is outside of Dumaguete. Right now, we're in Dumaguete at the coffee shop where Alex is living.
0:51 That's a great introduction, Justin. What makes Daan a great place to learn how to dive? Well, man, so many things. So before I got here, I was a travel writer, writing about dive destinations. I was going all over the world. I dove on six continents, 80, well, I've been to 89 countries. I didn't dive in all of them, but the point is, I could have ended up anywhere.
1:14 I ended up in the Philippines, and I could have ended up anywhere in the Philippines, and I ended up in Daan. It's just such an awesome place. The marine biodiversity is, well, we're in the Coral Triangle, if you didn't know that already. But the Philippines in general is the center of the Coral Triangle. So you add a lot of other things like infrastructure, and the people are kind, and long-term visas.
1:38 I'm telling you, long-term visas in the Philippines are one of the easiest. So you add all those together, and it was just a perfect spot.
1:47 Do you have a typical progression? Let's say I've never been diving before, and I want to get an intermediate level skill set. That's not something that's going to happen in one dive. What kind of timeline can you share with people who have never been diving before, or maybe they're very lightly experienced? Maybe they went once on vacation, but yeah.
2:07 Diving doesn't work that way. I think when you say 'my level,' I guess you mean instructor and tech diver. It doesn't work that way. It's not like going running, you just do it. You can do try dives with an instructor where they take you through the basics of a dive and then see if you can handle breathing underwater in the pool.
2:27 We have a pool, and then if it's all good, we go out in the ocean, maybe 5 meters, and you get a little bit of a taste. Because then you know if you like it and you don't have the anxiety. All that, you can do the dive courses.
2:40 And so how diving works, it's kind of like skydiving. You've got to take courses, man. There's no such thing as self-certifying or self-taught in scuba diving. It's a pretty dangerous sport activity. So how it works is there are a lot of levels.
2:58 So the first one would be Open Water certification. For us, that's a four-day course. Our average student, I think we've been open about 15 months, we've had about 400 students certified. Our average student has been 60 years old. We could do between 10 years old to, well, we've had an 80-year-old and a 78-year-old.
3:18 So you're never too old. And if you're 10 years old, you can start. So after the Open Water certification, there's only so much you can learn in four days, four ocean dives, and all the skills you do underwater. Getting comfortable is the main thing.
3:31 You've got to get a little bit of experience, do some regular diving, and then the next level is Advanced Open Water. That gets you down to 30 meters. The first course gets you down to 18 meters.
3:44 And then we work on other stuff. You start learning theory, physics of scuba diving. You learn a little bit in Open Water, but there's only so much you can retain. People are usually nervous, anxious, also super excited. I mean, this is like a bucket list activity for a lot of people.
4:04 As instructors, we're told to give 150% of the information so that they retain 75%. You know what I mean? So there's only so much you can learn in your first course. So the second course touches more on that, and you start working on the skills.
4:19 And then there's a lot of specialties like night dives, navigation, wreck diving. There's a lot. We teach all of it at my dive center. And then after that, it's Rescue. Rescue course, all these are prerequisites if you want to be a professional level.
4:33 So then you would go on to CPR, oxygen administration, bloodborne pathogens. There's a lot of little stuff with Rescue. And then Divemaster. Divemaster, I got a student this month actually, my own student. Normally, my instructors are doing all the work. I'm just the, I just run the business.
4:54 And I got people to do stuff, but I do do longer type courses. So she's, I got a Divemaster student all month. After that, you've got to get a lot of experience, even as a Divemaster. And then you can do your instructor course.
5:09 And then on from there, rebreathers, instructor trainer's course, directors, tech diving. Now, as a student myself, I'm getting into tech diving. You've got to start again at the bottom. You've got to be a student.
5:24 So I'm an instructor on the recreational diving side, but on tech diving, I just did Intro to Tech, which is a 40-meter. You start with stage tanks, learning a lot of stuff. And then Advanced Nitrox and Decompression Procedures. It's all about physics, decompression stops.
5:44 Boring stuff for most people listening, but I'm a student of the game, and I'm fascinated with this stuff, and I love the sport or activity, whatever. There's something when I get interested in something, I want to know everything. And if you get into knitting or something, you're probably going to learn everything pretty quick.
6:01 But in this, there's never, you can never know everything. There's always another step, there's always another course. I haven't even gotten into rebreathers yet. Tri-mix, heliox. I'm only qualified for deco diving at 45 meters. Next up, I'm doing Extended Range.
6:20 But you can never stop learning in diving. There's a lot, a lot more to it than just going down and seeing a turtle. And that got way more technical than you were hoping. I think this is what I always tell people: find your passion, what you want to do, and then figure out how to do it for a living. Make it sustainable.
6:37 I knew this wasn't just a one-week-a-year vacation. I had to figure out how to do it. That's so powerful, Justin. And beyond the obvious value of diving, I think that you're a good example to people who want to live what some might call an alternative lifestyle, right? You're not in the 9-to-5, you're not sitting in traffic with, oh, I got to drink coffee and, you know, this and that.
6:58 I mean, you have a lifestyle many people dream about. You know, when they fall asleep at night and they start dreaming, they're thinking, man, what would it be like to be in a gorgeous tropical place and be able to help people have these once-in-a-lifetime experiences?
7:09 Speaking of which, a majority of my audience at the current point is 55 plus. Obviously, we're guys in our 30s. We're probably a little bit less worried. You could say we're a little bit more resilient. We're in the prime of our being. Can a 60-plus year old really dive? What kind of things does your team do with somebody who's in that age range that maybe they wouldn't do with a younger diver, or is it the same?
7:31 Could you speak to that? Well, first, I want to reiterate on the first thing you said, the alternative lifestyle or whatever. Yeah, growing up, I'm 38 now. Growing up, it's all relative, right? So, for example, I have an intern right now, she's about to turn 18. I've sponsored her for all her courses up until her next step is Divemaster. She can't do that until she's 18.
7:55 So I asked her, what do you want to do for a living? And she's a local Filipina, she's my divemaster's daughter. And she said, maybe I'll be a school teacher. And I was like, what? Like, that is not a dream. I mean, no offense to school teachers, but it's safe. It's exactly. It's safe.
8:11 But she doesn't know the possibilities. So she grew up in a tiny village, no TV, no internet, no nothing. Her dad is a Divemaster, her mom is a stay-at-home mom. She's, I mean, the highest profession she ever met was her school teachers. So she's like, well, you know, they seem successful.
8:31 So we got to looking at it, and like the average wage is 27,000 a month. That's like $500 a month, and that's after a four-year degree. So I got to thinking, is she just not ambitious, or is she ambitious up to her experience, up to what she knows?
8:50 So I got to thinking about my own. How come I'm hyper ambitious? And I started thinking of my own, you know, when I was younger, not childhood, but I met a guy. I lived in Southwest Town, Colorado. I also didn't have a huge influence out there. I never thought I would own a dive center in the tropics.
9:11 I met a guy that showed me, oh, this is possible. This is possible. Just go for it. It's like it broadened my horizons massively. I knew my passion was traveling, and then later diving. I just figured I got to find a job where I can work really hard and do that.
9:25 Once you know you get a vacation every year, I had this professor that's telling me, well, why don't you just do it for a living? Do it all the time. Have the ultimate life, not just wait till you're retired or, you know, one week a year or whatever.
9:37 What do you mean that's possible? So I started Googling those kind of things, and there's, I was finding the stuff is possible. So then once you know something's possible, there's nothing stopping you, or at least me back in our day when we were young.
9:48 Or let's say these other guys that are twice our age, this wasn't possible. You're not going to work online. You're not going to do all this stuff. Alternative lifestyle. There wasn't an alternative lifestyle.
10:00 There wasn't an alternative lifestyle; you were considered a hippie or something, and there was no option but to follow the conventional path. Ask any of these old guys if they wished they were doing what I'm doing or what you're doing 30 years ago. Guarantee not one of them would choose money over freedom. I just so happen to be making good money now, but I went like five, six, seven years making nothing, just so I could live and build something up myself, not rely on Social Security, but rely on my own investments and whatever I do.
10:31 Building a business and everything else has high value. These days, school isn't as popular as it was in our day. Our parents probably told you, 'Just go to school.' If you don't know what you want to do, just go anyway. Come out 50 grand or 100 grand in debt, as long as you can say you have a degree. But now, I think there's so much value unless you're going to be an astronaut, a pilot, a lawyer, or a doctor. For certain things, 90% of us aren't going to do that stuff.
11:01 I think there's way more value now in internships. When I lived in Australia for a year, you had to do apprenticeships no matter what job it was. Like, I was a bouncer, and I had to do a freaking apprenticeship to be a security guard. You get a certification to be a plumber, you have to be a plumber's apprentice or whatever. I think there's way more value when you come out with actual skills in the exact profession you're not studying things you'll never use anyway.
11:29 So, I'm telling my apprentice, my intern, 'Whatever happened to being a dive instructor?' I mean, I'm sponsoring you; I'll make it happen. And she's like, 'Do they make money? Do they...' I love diving, but is that a career? And I was like, 'Look at me. You're 18. You could own a resort one day. I didn't come here with money; I built it from nothing, putting every dime I make back in and living far below your means.'
11:55 You just have to know what's possible. Figure out what you want to do, not how. Figure out what you would love doing and then decide you're going to do it, and then figure out how to do it. Because there's always somebody who's a pro that's done it that'll help you. Online education is massive; there are so many tutorials on how to do everything from accounting to bookkeeping, I mean, you name it.
12:17 We've gone through it all, and then, there are people that want to support you if you're doing positive things, trying to improve your life. I think getting a bachelor's degree to be a school teacher or something that doesn't pay anything is not a dream job; it's just comfortable, I guess. That's not a good investment for her, maybe for some people if that's the actual dream, but it's not her dream.
12:42 She wants to do marine biology and instructing diving, but she's doing it because she thought that was what was expected. I can speak to this as an Asian person: in our cultures, we tend to be risk-averse. We want to do the thing that feels steady and stable. Teachers get a lot of respect here in the Philippines; it's not like in the United States. A teacher is considered a respected, upstanding member of society.
13:07 But there are different ways to earn a living. The Philippines' economy is rapidly growing, one of the fastest-growing economies in Asia. I think there will only continue to be more and more unique opportunities here. What do you say to the person who is scared to go diving?
13:18 Back to diving, I get this question all the time because there are a lot of dudes who come to do a course with me, and they want their girlfriend or wife or whatever to do it with them, and they're scared. You wouldn't believe how many girls have been there, Filipinos who say this is the closest they've ever been to the ocean, and they're not going in. To answer your question, anything that is worth doing is scary. I think success is on the outside of your comfort zone.
13:55 I've gone so far out of my comfort zone so many times, and it's always, always, always paid off. So, if I want something bad enough, fear is not going to stop me. It's always paid off. So, if these guys are scared to go in the water and they have no reason to go in the water, that's different. If they're scared, but it's always been their dream, that's a whole different thing. You're really going to want to regret it the rest of your life.
14:21 I have a Dive Master student right now. Dude, she arrived with her boyfriend or husband, whatever, and he was doing the course. She just joined in, and now she fell in love with it so much. They bought gear, she went all the way through all those courses I just mentioned, and now Dive Master. I could see her being an instructor one day. She just totally fell in love with it.
14:53 They live in Sipadan, and they're literally changing their whole life plan. Everything. They're like, 'We can never live in a city where we can't just dive all the time.' I mean, it's life-changing. I kind of think you need a sports psychologist on staff.
15:09 Justin, what do you say to the person who maybe had a stressful first experience in another country, not here in the Philippines? Maybe they went to Mexico, maybe they went to some other country. I say Mexico because it's close to the United States. Nothing wrong with Mexico. What do you say to that person who's had that difficult first experience?
15:30 Easy. I get this all the time as well. Man, a bad instructor can really make somebody not want to dive ever again. They can put them in danger, they can hurt their ears, a whole host of things. I think in diving, there are no bad students; it's just bad teachers. We've had a host of those, guys, girls, whatever, especially young ones, that the instructor forced them down deeper when they were having anxiety. We know how to deal with this, and a lot of guys don't.
15:59 So, we just kind of untrain them and show them, you know, we give them a good attitude like, 'Ah, you got this. Don't worry about that experience.' They weren't doing it right. We'll show you how it really is. I think out of the 400-whatever certifications we've had in the last 14 months or whatever, I think I've had one student that didn't finish on his own. Most, I mean, almost all of them, and he's coming back.
16:24 So, you could definitely have a bad experience, but getting back on the horse and finding the right instructor could be life-changing, or it could be bad. We have this all the time as well; we have to retrain not even the training, just the experience. That's why the try dives, you know, the DSD.
16:42 I know that we talked a bit about future careers, and something that I think is beautiful about diving is that it's not, from what I can tell, something you can get AI to do, right? Can you speak to the future opportunities that you think the diving industry will create for Filipino people who don't know what they want to do with their life?
17:01 So, I get a ton of Filipinos, as well as everybody else, watching. I have a YouTube channel about diving, and I actually have two. One is the educational aspect, and the other is showing what you're going to see, you know, all the species.
17:20 I had an old business school teacher that told me, 'Nobody wants a quarter-inch drill bit; they want a quarter-inch hole.' So, if you're in advertising, are you going to show how cool this drill bit is, or are you going to show how cool the hole is that is the direct result of that drill bit?
17:40 I do have the educational aspect: the physiology, the physics, Boyle's Law, Archimedes' Law, Henry's Law, Dalton's Law, Gay-Lussac's Law, like all these physics and all this stuff. That is more like how to be a better diver or increase your education, so it's a small niche.
17:54 But the other aspect is the marine biology and what you're going to see as a diver. And why the Philippines? Because there are more species in front of my shop, within a few miles of my shop, than all the entire Florida coastline, which is massive. That says a lot.
18:16 You know, when I was traveling around the world, Egypt, for example, that's a very popular dive destination. I spent a year in the Red Sea; it would take me three dives to do one episode. Then I came here, and I could do one dive and do three episodes. There are just so many things to film. I can't film a fraction of what I see every day, and I'm not filming the same stuff.
18:35 I'm working on my second book, and it's just tons of species. I don't even know what the question was. I hope that answers it, but I go off on tangents. This is what it's about. It's not hard to get up; I'm up at 5:00 every morning. It's not hard to get out of bed when you're working for something you love doing. You're not clocking in to make somebody else's dream.
19:00 And when people talk about it and they're interested and they ask you questions, it's the lifestyle, man. It's easy to talk about.
19:06 That's so cool, Justin. You're one of those people that helped inspire me because, like, you look here at Dumaguete, you look at some of the vlogs, you get the impression the only foreigners that can live here in Dumaguete are retired men of age, right? They wait until they're 62, 65, 67, they collect Social Security, and then they get to enjoy life. You're doing it at a much younger age.
19:27 And I think there are a lot of guys who, if they could sort out some kind of business opportunity, they would love to be here as well. Speaking about your business, because I think that's just part of what's so interesting to me, what do you see as the future? What is your vision for the future of Critter?
19:43 Vision for the future of Critter Republic. Well, so first off, there is a lot of channels in the Philippines, like about the Philippines. Yeah, and it's almost 99% retired, how to retire in the Philippines. You know, and these guys look, man, I know this is the age of information, but you've got to consider your source. You get guys that have been here one, two, six months, and they're an information channel. And every time I watch them, I just got to shake my head, and it's so hard for me not to call them up and be like, dude, you're wrong on every single level. I'm here almost eight years, and everything you just said is not true.
20:24 And they're always have, you ever seen somebody positive? It's always, I'll never buy real estate, never buy a car. It's impossible to get a driver's license. It's impossible to have to be here six or a year or however long to get a bank account. You can't register a motorcycle. I've done every single one of these things in like a day each. Like everything, everything they have a problem with, it's nothing.
20:51 They leave us or wherever for a reason, but then they want to bring, and they come here because there's no problems. They want to bring their problems and the luxuries they want. They think it's going to be the same luxuries as wherever they just left. And it drives me crazy.
21:08 And I think because, you know, most of these guys, these channels, they never went anywhere. And then they went straight to the Philippines to retire because they saw somebody else do it. It's very rare where you got somebody that's super well-traveled and then just ended up living in the Philippines, kind of like me and you. Maybe that's why I didn't have any culture shock. Culture shock, maybe I can't even think of a place I had crazy culture shock, maybe Zambia or something.
21:33 The Philippines is the most like the US than any country in Asia. It's the most English, the most friendly. I mean, the stores, the American products, you've got American brands here. So they're so jaded. It feels like that they watch like a James Bond movie where he's riding a Vespa with some hot girl on the back, just going down the coastal highway with the beach or the ocean on one side and like some cliffs on the other. And that's how it's going to be in the Philippines or whatever.
22:06 And then they get here and it's traffic and the normal Asia stuff, and they start making videos about how horrible it is here and don't come here. But you know, they can come here, but you're not going to be able to handle it. And there's so many different gatekeeping, gatekeeping. So I feel like I'm a, well, I don't make videos about this, I make videos about diving. So, but I honestly think that diving is the number one hidden jewel of the Philippines.
22:33 Otherwise, I'd be somewhere else. There's a lot of country. All the best things about the Philippines is not unique. There's a lot of countries with friendly people. There's a lot of countries with tropical beaches and island vibes. In fact, better ones. There's countries with better food, you name it. There's a lot of good things about it, but you can go to Indonesia and a lot of places. The marine biodiversity, the diving, it does make the Philippines unique in the world. Maybe five countries in the world has what the Philippines has.
23:03 And then you add in the, like I said, the infrastructure and the visas and all that, it's just better here. That's why I'm here. And I started Critter Republic. So what I see in the future, this is a long answer, I guess, but right now I'm leasing the dive center space from a big resort. I'm at Sierra Resort in D. And so in the future, I need to buy a resort or land and build, build a resort because of the channel. My channel, it's overcrowded. I've made that resort really popular. Really, I mean, they're always full. And then that's why we have a lot of students as well. So I'd like bigger classrooms, bigger office.
23:47 Right now, we're making massive plans that I can't really talk a lot about. Got it. Yeah. Um, a good magician never, because it's almost 2025. And I'm so cliche in this one thing where I love, I'm not going to say resolutions, but like goals. And just having a new year is like a good timeline, a good marker or whatever to implement goals. But we have big brand ambassadorships and things that we're working with, like Dive Right and Insta 360 and stuff like that. We're in talks. There's not too much I want to talk about.
24:19 But no worries, I figured that you'd want to keep a lot on the down low. I think in six months, we've had a lot of investor offers that we turned down because I think in 12 months, it's not even going to be recognizable. We're expanding. We just hired another accounting company and a bookkeeper and CPA. So we had to go through our books for our, this is our first year. It was huge. So I think we're also getting into real estate stuff, but I'll get into the main thing is we did a lot better in our first year than I thought we did. And we had to invest a lot of money back into it, you know, like trucks and gear and insurance. And we have a lot of full-time employees now. I think a year from now, it's going to be even bigger.
25:01 Well, Justin, thank you so much for sitting down with us today. You've been so generous with your time to share with the audience. One of our students is shopping, they're doing their hair and shopping. So I got to come to town and chill out and meet a lot of guys here in Daguatty in the coffee shop. So I'm always at my resort. Well, not always. That's one of our plans for next year, actually. I have a full-time staff now. I've outsourced pretty much everything because, I mean, one man can't do it. I'd be a bad business guy if I was leading the divers on guided dives all day or teaching every day. I need to be out of the water editing videos and doing the marketing and the stuff that my staff can't do.
25:45 That being said, I get guys all day, every day, coming to my shop just to buy shirts or say hello or dive or whatever. So I'm opening, I got a new studio like off property, and I'm going to be hitting out a lot so I can get some actual work done. And my wife, my secretary, my instructors, my dive masters, all them, they can run the day-to-day stuff. So I was going to say, come down and see me, but I can't guarantee I'll be there. I have to dive every day, every couple days, get footage. But I can't run the day-to-day stuff anymore. It's too busy. It's a good problem to have. But thanks for hanging out.
26:21 That's wonderful, man. I'm sure we'll see you soon. Take care, everybody.
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