About Thresher Shark Divers
Founded in 2003 by Andrea Agarwal. Twenty-three years on Malapascua. The only PADI 5 Star Career Development Center on the island, and one of a handful in the Philippines.
Andrea’s story
Andrea Agarwal grew up in the UK and learned to dive in cold British waters. She moved to San Francisco and ran a dive school there for several years, then heeded the call of the tropics in 2003 and moved to the Philippines.
At the time, very few people had heard of Malapascua. The Philippine dive industry was barely formed. Andrea opened Thresher Shark Divers with four staff and a single tank compressor, betting that an island with daily thresher shark sightings would eventually find its audience.
It did. Twenty-three years later, Thresher Shark Divers is one of the largest and most respected dive operations in the Philippines. Andrea still personally signs off on every internship intake and is on the island the majority of the year.
Why we focus on internships
Recreational diving pays the bills. Training the next generation of dive professionals is what we love. We’ve put over 1,000 dive pros into the industry. Our former divemasters and instructors run dive shops in Egypt, the Maldives, Indonesia, the Caribbean, Galapagos, Australia, and Mexico.
The internship side of TSD is small, deliberately. We run max 4 trainees per instructor. We don’t churn 200 divemasters a year. We’d rather train 60 well.
Our credentials
- PADI 5 Star Career Development Center. The highest possible PADI rating, awarded specifically for training professionals. Less than 2% of PADI shops worldwide hold it.
- Green Fins certified. Independent assessment of environmental practice.
- TripAdvisor Travellers’ Choice 2024.
- 23 years of operation. Through SARS, Haiyan, Covid, multiple typhoon seasons.
- Zero serious dive incidents in our internship program.
The team
10 instructors, all PADI Master Instructor or higher. Average tenure on TSD’s team: 7 years. Most started as TSD interns themselves.
Our location
Bounty Beach, Malapascua Island, Cebu, Philippines. Near the western end of a kilometre-long picture-postcard white sand beach. 30 minutes by boat to Monad Shoal where threshers patrol most mornings.
What past graduates say
“They were simply the best.” — Dawn, IDC Graduate
“Genuinely some of the best times of my life.” — Henley, Divemaster Graduate
“All-star cast of instructors and managers.” — Chance, Divemaster Graduate
See where graduates work now →
Get in touch with Andrea
Email Andrea’s internship team: internships@thresherdivers.com. For internship inquiries Andrea reads every message personally and replies within 24 hours.