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Owner and Resident Technical Diving Instructor

Javier Salas

About Javier

Nationality: Mexican

Place of residence: Mexico

Spoken languages: English, Spanish (mother tongue)

Role at DZD: Owner and Resident Technical Diving Instructor

Originally from Mexico City, has been a resident of the Mexican Caribbean coast since 2005

More than
19
Years of experience
Few words

Javier grew up in Mexico City, however he was drawn to the ocean at a very early age. He became a diver at age 10 and always chose diving over anything. You could say he was obsessed.

He attended a summer camp every summer from the ages of 9 to 16 for 6 weeks where he was able to take daily dive lessons for 6 weeks every summer. He took a “Junior Divemaster” program at 16 and has been a dive geek ever since.

He became a Dive Instructor in the year 2000 at the age of 18 and an Instructor Trainer at 21. He has trained over 2,000 people of all ages and levels.

In 2005 he left a career in Tax Accounting (of all things) to pursue diving full-time. Since then he became a certified Cave and Mixed Gas diving, achieving Full (Advanced) Trimix Instructor rating in 2010. In 2015 he became a PADI Course Director and an Trimix Instructor Trainer. Since then he has trained dozens of mixed-gas divers and Instructors.

Javier was an early adopter of Sidemount and is Offical Razor Instructor #9 and has thousands of technical-level dives on the Razor harness both in Overhead and open water environments

Javier is a passionate and active Technical Diver that is qualified as a Technical Cave Diver, Cave CCR Diver, DPV, Survey and Mixed Gas CCR diving, always learning and pushing his limits and comfort levels.

In 2008 he became the owner of XTC Dive Center in Xcalak, and in 2017 started Dark Zone Diving as a sister facility.

Teaching Credentials

GoSidemount

OFFICIAL RAZOR INSTRUCTOR #9

TDI

TDI: ANDVANCED TRIMIX
TDI: NORMOXIC TRIMIX INSTRUCTOR
TDI: ANDVANCED NITROX INSTRUCTOR
TDI: DECOMPRESSION PROCEDURES INSTRUCTOR
TDI: GAS BLENDER INSTRUCTOR

IANTD

IANTD: ADV. TRIMIX INSTRUCTOR
IANTD: TECHNICAL DIVER INSTRUCTOR
IANTD: NORMOXIC TRIMIX INSTRUCTOR
IANTD: ESSENTIALS INSTRUCTOR
IANTD: SIDEMOUNT INSTRUCTOR

PADI

PADI: TEC TRIMIX INSTRUCTOR TRAINER
PADI: TEC DEEP INSTRUCTOR TRAINER
PADI: COURSE DIRECTOR
PADI: SIDEMOUNT INSTRUCTOR TRAINER