Retired but active.

[ATF]

No, it's not that he wants to work, per se, it's that he wants to lead diving groups. I admit I don't know much about what's involved in a dive. Never been on one and don't have any desire to start now, but I've been deep sea fishing.

What's to stop the OP from chartering a boat and inviting a bunch of friends to go diving together? How is this illegal? Don't they have private diving parties in Phuket? Doesn't someone have to organize them -- hire the boat, figure out where you're going, point out interesting sites to everyone along the way.

How is this any different from when a friend of mine organized a weekend trip to the Textile Festival in Mae Chaem, sent out emails to her friends, asked them to forward to other friends and before long we had a couple mini vans of ladies going out of Chiang Mai for a fun weekend of shopping, taking in native culture and girl-time? Was this friend engaging in work without a permit? Nobody stopped us and the local town officials in Mae Chaem (and along the way) seemed to like have 20 ladies from Chiang Mai come in to spend money.

There is no harm in setting up a diving or fishing club as long as there is no money involved except for expenses and there is no formal teaching involved except from someone with a workpermit.

Edited December 3, 2014 by ATF

[uptheos]

No, it's not that he wants to work, per se, it's that he wants to lead diving groups. I admit I don't know much about what's involved in a dive. Never been on one and don't have any desire to start now, but I've been deep sea fishing.

What's to stop the OP from chartering a boat and inviting a bunch of friends to go diving together? How is this illegal? Don't they have private diving parties in Phuket? Doesn't someone have to organize them -- hire the boat, figure out where you're going, point out interesting sites to everyone along the way.

How is this any different from when a friend of mine organized a weekend trip to the Textile Festival in Mae Chaem, sent out emails to her friends, asked them to forward to other friends and before long we had a couple mini vans of ladies going out of Chiang Mai for a fun weekend of shopping, taking in native culture and girl-time? Was this friend engaging in work without a permit? Nobody stopped us and the local town officials in Mae Chaem (and along the way) seemed to like have 20 ladies from Chiang Mai come in to spend money.

There is no harm in setting up a diving or fishing club as long as there is no money involved except for expenses.

Indeed, no different from a chess, bridge or book review club.

Some people are so fearful I'm surprised they ever venture out!

[PhuketFarang]

I think people should be reading the original post again. Or is the one reference to showing a friend diving as an example confusing everyone?

Edited December 3, 2014 by PhuketFarang

[PhuketFarang]

There are quite a few recreational divers here actually, but the hassle and expense of a 1.5 hour boat ride out and back to the same dive sites gets redundant. Now if you had a boat and were looking for recreational divers to go with you to new spots, you'd get quite a bit of interest I would think.

Steele. There are plenty of shore diving you can do off the island. Kata Reef, Airport Reef, Banana Bay, Paradise Beach, Kamala Rocks, and I'm sure there are plenty more that I have yet to discover. Plus there's night diving, glow diving, spear fishing, and other ways to dive at these places. No need for the hassle or expense of a dive boat and I do have a couple of friends I go out regularly with. But that's off topic of the original post/question.

If you're a rec diver and want hook up, let me know! I'm always ready to head out.

[NancyL]

No, it's not that he wants to work, per se, it's that he wants to lead diving groups. I admit I don't know much about what's involved in a dive. Never been on one and don't have any desire to start now, but I've been deep sea fishing.

What's to stop the OP from chartering a boat and inviting a bunch of friends to go diving together? How is this illegal? Don't they have private diving parties in Phuket? Doesn't someone have to organize them -- hire the boat, figure out where you're going, point out interesting sites to everyone along the way.

How is this any different from when a friend of mine organized a weekend trip to the Textile Festival in Mae Chaem, sent out emails to her friends, asked them to forward to other friends and before long we had a couple mini vans of ladies going out of Chiang Mai for a fun weekend of shopping, taking in native culture and girl-time? Was this friend engaging in work without a permit? Nobody stopped us and the local town officials in Mae Chaem (and along the way) seemed to like have 20 ladies from Chiang Mai come in to spend money.

If you read the original email, showing my non-diving friends a DSD dive is the LAST thing on the list. What about the others? Like offering free weekly spay/neutering? Heck, I know someone who got into trouble because he helped another friend set up wifi without a work permit.

As for your question.... how is taking a bunch of friends diving illegal? Because you're guiding them. And that is not permitted even with a work permit. I guess the police would take your word that they are your friends and not customers, because a farang would never lie about that, right?

As for your tour, if a police officer in a bad mood decided he wanted to take someone to jail and stopped your van, you (or whoever would confess to be leading this group) could easily end up in jail or pay him an on-the-spot fine... or both... and then you would have to sort out the legalities of it later, if you can.

Again, you would probably get the same answer as I gave from the MOL. I come up with new questions like this to them every other month.

The mind boggles at the concept of a police officer stopping our vans on the way to (or better yet) from Mae Chaem and asking who was leading the tour! We'd have shown them all our purchases, told them about the great restaurants we visited, the parade we saw, the wats we visited. Enough of our group spoke really good Thai. We'd leave out the part about how one of our group (an old Thai Peace Core volunteer) managed to get us into a National Park at no charge saying we were just transiting the park on our way to Mae Chaem. Instead, we took a little detour and stopped at a waterfall for a hour photos, coffee and a little wading. Ohhh, the entire group could have gotten busted for that! Using a National Park without paying!

Edited December 3, 2014 by NancyL

[steelepulse]

There are quite a few recreational divers here actually, but the hassle and expense of a 1.5 hour boat ride out and back to the same dive sites gets redundant. Now if you had a boat and were looking for recreational divers to go with you to new spots, you'd get quite a bit of interest I would think.

Steele. There are plenty of shore diving you can do off the island. Kata Reef, Airport Reef, Banana Bay, Paradise Beach, Kamala Rocks, and I'm sure there are plenty more that I have yet to discover. Plus there's night diving, glow diving, spear fishing, and other ways to dive at these places. No need for the hassle or expense of a dive boat and I do have a couple of friends I go out regularly with. But that's off topic of the original post/question.

If you're a rec diver and want hook up, let me know! I'm always ready to head out.

True, although I've been doing a lot of paddle boarding lately so looking down at the reefs. Just a thought, why not form a rec diving group on facebook and see what you get.

Anyway back on topic, the Phuket immigration department applies laws when it suits them, so one day they look the other way, the next you're hauled in. I've also understood that on a retirement visa you can't get a work permit, and as another poster alluded to, you can't get PR unless you've been paying taxes and on a different visa then retirement. So, if you want to try to get PR later and get a work permit now, your best option is to change your visa status.

[PhuketFarang]

Nancy... one of the many reasons I love CM. SO much easier up there. Did you know that you can get into NPs and many other cultural attractions for free just by showing your Thai drivers license? I haven't paid any of these tourist fees for a few years now.

As for the van situation, I have a friend that came visit who is technically a Thai. Both parents are Thai and they both live here but he was raised and lives in the US. So no Thai ID at all. He hired a tour mini-van to take him from Phuket to Krabi and was stopped by the police. They were detained for about an hour questioning if this was an authorized tour with the van driver. Of course my friend didn't speak Thai all that great so he was no help at all. They ended up paying a 1500b "fine" to the policeman because they couldn't produce the proper paperwork.

So you're lucky in a few ways. Things are more laid back in CM and you haven't ran into a policeman in a bad mood yet. I should just make the ocean an occasional visit and move north. Been thinking of doing that for awhile now.

[PhuketFarang]

Steele. Been thinking about doing that. Heading out diving has never been much of a problem. I dive 3-4 times a week. in the OP, I was mentioning showing my non-diving friends diving. This is done as a DSD. THIS is what could land me in jail since it's teaching.

But starting a non-pro rec diving group would be a great idea. You going to sign up for it?

[NancyL]

Nancy... one of the many reasons I love CM. SO much easier up there. Did you know that you can get into NPs and many other cultural attractions for free just by showing your Thai drivers license? I haven't paid any of these tourist fees for a few years now.

As for the van situation, I have a friend that came visit who is technically a Thai. Both parents are Thai and they both live here but he was raised and lives in the US. So no Thai ID at all. He hired a tour mini-van to take him from Phuket to Krabi and was stopped by the police. They were detained for about an hour questioning if this was an authorized tour with the van driver. Of course my friend didn't speak Thai all that great so he was no help at all. They ended up paying a 1500b "fine" to the policeman because they couldn't produce the proper paperwork.

So you're lucky in a few ways. Things are more laid back in CM and you haven't ran into a policeman in a bad mood yet. I should just make the ocean an occasional visit and move north. Been thinking of doing that for awhile now.

Yup. Us ladies were digging around in our handbags for our Thai DLs -- some had managed to produce them. A few ladies in the van were Thai nationals who had lived overseas for decades. It was evident it was going to take a while for all of us to come up with TDLs and when it was pointed out we were just transiting the park on the way to the Textile Festival in Mae Chaem, he just waved us thru the gate rather than hold up the queue any longer.

Yes, things are more laid back in the north, but I find it difficult to believe that even in the south a police officer would hassle a group of 20 ladies old enough to be his mother -- some of them Thai and others who have been in Thailand for decades. And to think there are those who think Thailand is a "man's country". Little do they know......

Edited December 3, 2014 by NancyL