Looking for camera and course suggestions for new person

On my recent dive trip I met a woman who has now decided to try dive photography.  I told her I would make some camera suggestions and get her some names of appropriate photo courses she could take.  She lives in the EU and dives in the Maldives, Red Sea and Caribbean, primarily.  She has virtually no photo background and this would just be an adjunct to her diving at the moment.  I was thinking of suggesting an Olympus TG6, Panasonic LX10, Panasonic lx100 II, or E-PL10.  I am unsure of her budget.

I don't know what instructors/courses would be good for a new shooter.  Any suggestions welcome.

The cameras you suggest are all excellent, personally I would start with the Olympus TG4 to 6 with housing, base with handle, and one medium size strobe such as an Inon strobe. Older models of the TG are available second hand, I bought one some years ago and still dive with it.  The TG models are tough, versatile, take excellent photos and are excellent learning tools. 

Recently I used an Olympus EPL and was impressed by the quality of its photos and ease of use.  But for a beginner I feel it has too many gizmos to plug into it, the housing is much larger and more expesice, so overall it lacks the compact virtues of the TG series. 

For photo education, nothing like joining a local photo club, also an underwater photo group locally if there is one.  

Thank you for your thoughts on this.  I think what she is looking for is someplace she cold go on a dive trip and have a course of some sort as part of that trip.  I was thinking of something along the lines of Cathy Church in the Cayman islands, or the Bluewater photo store says they do classes in various locations.  I just don''t have any personal experience with any of these.

Blue Water has an excellent reputation, particularly if the trip guide is a top photographer like Mark Strickland. 
Or a resort with a good instructor should work well, say a resort in Anilao, Philippines, such as Crystal Blue run by Mike Bartick, who is a top underwater photographer. 

Reef Photo in Florida and Backscatter in California also run dive photo trips, with dedicated photographer dive masters.

I have no experience with the Caymans, so writing and asking an outfit  there would be a good idea. 

TG-6 is the go-to recommendation for new users, but you list Maldives, Red Sea and Caribbean as destinations, and those are primarily wide-angle, where TG-6 is adequate, but does not exactly shine.

LX10 and LX100 are more popular among video shooters rather than photographers - I'm not 100% certain about LX100, but LX10 has vignetting issues with wet wide lenses, which go away with the cropping that the camera automatically imposes while shooting video.

E-PL10 is a decent entry-level ILC, with a good budget housing available for it from AOI, but it's hampered by contrast-detect autofocus. It shouldn't be much of an issue in reef scenes, but fast-moving pelagics, macro, blackwater, etc, can prove challenging.

If I were building a new setup right now, I'd probably go for a Sony RX100VA or a Sony RX100VII. The latter has considerably better macro capabilities, but at the expense of interchangeable port complexity and higher price. With a higher budget, I'd look at Olympus E-M5 III (same sensor and AF as E-M1, but at lower cost and smaller size), or Sony A6400/A6600 (better AF and sensor, but not as good a selection of lenses specifically for underwater photography as the M43 platform offers). I wish Sony ZV-1 had more housings than just the one from Ikelite - it's the equivalent of RX100VA, except that it has a hot shoe, which removes the constraints of the slow-recycling pop-up flash for triggering strobes.

As for instructors, I would recommend @alextyrrell (http://dive4photos.com/), but he's based on Koh Tao in Thailand, which is outside your friend's normal travel route. Otherwise, liveaboard photography workshops are quite useful, as you not only receive lectures, but also observe a number of other photographers in action.

In Europe I've had a great experience with booking Arturo Telleman (austrian photographer living on the canary Islands) as a private photography instructor. It wasn't too expensive and he really knows the canary islands (in my case Lanzarote) inside out. Not sure if he does courses in english though. 

In addition to hands-on training, I would suggest that she obtain a current copy of Martin Edge's excellent book, The Underwater Photographer. I believe it is in the 5th edition. Many people consider this the ultimate bible for UW photography.

Wetpixel runs trips and workshops...

You often bump into the same helpful people that inhabit these forums

You might have her look at a book called "Photography Masterclass".  Its written by this guy named Alex Mustard, there are rumors that he visits these forums.  I review the book before my diving days so that I can review the techniques I want to use.

8 minutes ago, Dann-Oh said:

Its written by this guy named Alex Mustard, there are rumors that he visits these forums

Fake news

Thank you all.  I will organize the info and send it.  I have Alex's book (don't we all?) and two editions of the Martin Edge books, but I  doubt my friend's interest includes reading those at this point.  I am pretty sure she wants to take pictures of what she sees more than engage in photography as an art form, but that is a guess.  I think the rx100 can be a bit intimidating to use for a causal person, but that is just a feeling from reading others' comments.  It may also be that she was enthused at the idea while on a dive trip and the interest may not carry over to actually buying anything.  But I said I would get information and so I will.