Blue Compass · A professional development course
Six modules. One operation, built properly.
For anyone who guides or runs trips on the water, whether on the ocean, along the coast or on lakes and other still water. Everything you build in the course is for a real operation (your own, your workplace or one you research), so it is ready to use the day you finish.
Join the waitlist
How it is built
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Applied, not theoretical.
Each lesson changes a document you keep. Each module ends with one assignment, assessed as met or not yet met against published criteria, with resubmission available. Nothing is graded.
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Designed to fit around work.
Self-paced, with enough depth to be worth doing and no more volume than it needs.
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One track for everyone.
Business owners, employed guides and people new to the field all build the same documents for their chosen operation.
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Not a certification.
Blue Compass is a professional development course. It does not replace first aid, rescue, dive or medical qualifications, which participants hold through their own certifying bodies.
The six modules
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Module 1: Aquatic Ecology and Site Literacy
Read a site's condition, tell stress from health, and decide what it should change about how the day runs.
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Module 2: Group Leadership and Field Communication
Lead guests of any age by earning their trust, not by giving orders: the first five minutes, briefings, de-escalation, and leading your own crew.
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Module 3: Risk Management and Emergency Response
Build the working documents of a safety management system: thresholds, participant declarations, an emergency action plan, and what happens after an incident.
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Module 4: Sustainable and Regenerative Operations
Turn what Module 1 found into operating decisions: impact, wildlife interaction, fair work, and fair partnership with local communities.
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Module 5: Field Operations and Logistics Management
Equipment, transport, staffing and supply, and whether the operation is making money.
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Module 6: Business, Partnerships and Regulatory Compliance
Pricing, researching the rules where you operate, a code of ethics, and a partnership proposal.
How the modules connect
Where it applies
Ocean and coastal water, and still inland water: lakes, reservoirs, flooded quarries and cenote basins. Rivers and swiftwater are a separate discipline with their own hazards and rescue training; the course teaches you to recognise moving-water conditions and refer that work on, not to run it.
What makes it different
We have not found another programme, in dive leadership, outdoor leadership or aquatic science, that combines all six of these areas in one professional development course.
A UN Ocean Decade Activity
Blue Compass: Ocean Guide Training Cohort is endorsed as an Activity of the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development, for 4 January 2027 to 3 January 2028. About the endorsement
Join the waitlist
Enrolment opens in January 2027. Join the waitlist and you'll be the first to know the day it opens.
Founding members get a free welcome session. Join the waitlist before enrolment opens and enrol in the first month, and you'll have a 30-minute one-to-one with Laura before you start: we look at the operation you'll build your course documents for and agree what to focus on first.
Questions
Is this a certification?
No. It is a professional development course. Completion is recorded; the course does not certify you or your operation.
I don't have marine training. Can I take it?
Yes; you build every document for a real operation you research.
Can I buy one module?
Blue Compass is offered as one complete course of six modules, so each module builds on the one before. If you want help with one part of your operation now, the Aquatic Leadership Mentorship works on it with you one-to-one.
What does it cost?
The course fee is $650 for all six modules. Enrolment opens in January 2027, and waitlist members hear first.
What do founding members get?
Everyone who joins the waitlist before enrolment opens and enrols in the first month gets a free 30-minute one-to-one welcome session with Laura. It is offered by Ethos Origen alongside the course: a chance to look at the operation you'll work on and plan where to put your effort.