My second week on my Divemaster internship ~ Harry

The beginning of the week I was still ill..........no diving for harry!

First day back and Melissa took Kim and I off to El Puertito, where we got to interact with the resident family of Turtles.

Today was a very cold day in the water (18 degrees, but felt colder). 1st dive was to observe a PADI Advanced Course, also acted as the students Buddy and make sure she didn’t just bugger off to Gran Canaria and forget to use their compass,  all was good.

2nd dive was PADI Peak Performance Buoyancy. but it was nippy. so on a safety stop the biggest jelly fish anyone could imagine sneaked up on me and stung me on the only exposed area it could find.....about an inch gap between my regulator on my left cheek to my wet suit hood,  little bugger (he was in fact a baby Jelly fish) but bloody hell its quite a sting.

Didn’t quite feel up to asking anyone if the “xxxxx” (urinating) on a sting really works, especially on my face!
Woke up the next morning and where i had got stung looked like my skin had melted off.

Came into work Monday and the ridicule started, my own stupid fault, as i should have just put vinegar on it not some random ointment the chemist gave me.

We also went back to Yellow Mountain for a few Dives, to get more familiar with the sites and fish!

This week is when i realised my 5-4-3mm wetsuit was just not keeping the cold out, I had to get an additional 5mm shortie with hood.  This made a dramatic difference.

We revisited El Puertito again at the end of the second week with Melissa, this was good as it gave us further knowledge of the topography and lay out of another dive site that is very popular.

End of week two and it was time for my PADI Dive Master Exams.

Dive Master exams complete.. 90% if only I had read the questions properly it would have been 100%.

This week I feel I gained more confidence with my skills and the ability to orientate myself at different sites.

More from me later

Harry

Week 2 of my PADI Divemaster Internship

I've been busy busy busy so the second blog is a bit delayed, and I don’t even know where to start, There is so much to tell..

Let’s start with the most important thing then; I’ve got my first certification! I am now a PADI Open Water Diver. I didn’t have any problems with the skills, and the diving seems to be going very well. Although I wasn't too sure about my ability to read English, but I managed to score 94% on my theory Exam. Next is my PADI Advanced Open Water Diver, I can’t wait to get started.

Meanwhile, I have already got 15 logged dives including a deep dive to 30 meters, as part of my PADI Advanced Open Water Diver course. I was a bit nervous for this dive, just because of the idea of going deeper. But as we were descending, my nerves were replaced by fascination and I really enjoyed the dive. The dive wasn’t much different than any other dive, although a bit more chilly and darker. We also saw a couple of larger fish I hadn’t seen before, and lots of the more familiar species.

Directly after the first dive, we were off to a second dive at a shallower depth, where we found some Arrow Crabs, Red Back Cleaner shrimp, Cuttlefish and a baby Angel Shark, of approximately 1.20m. At the end of the dive, we had a small invasion of Jellyfish, which was less fun.

Back at the shop, when I was hanging the wetsuits up to let them dry, I found (or to be more precise; it was clinging on to my hand brrr) a huge cockroach! Yuck!

Sunday I got on the bus and headed for the market in Playa de las Americas, where I bought some short’s for work and took some lovely pictures at the beach.

Later this week, Melissa and I did a little bit of shopping, because I was just feeling too cold on every dive. We decided it would be best if I’d buy an ice vest to wear on top of my normal wetsuit. I ended up with a very nice 5mm Mares ice vest with integrated hood, a pair of gloves and a pair of neoprene socks. My new gear makes a huge difference; I am no longer freezing while diving, which makes it much more enjoyable and comfortable.

Furthermore, I’ve seen the first cyclers here. Back in Holland you’ll see many more bicycles then cars. Here in Tenerife, there are almost no bikes, because the road pretty much almost goes up, or down.

Just for those who’d like to read some more maybe boring (or not!) details;
Most days are more or less scheduled as follows:
Every ones favorite moment of the day, alarm clock waking me up at 6.30am, breakfast and shower.
Then go to the Dive Center where we prepare the dive kits and everything we need to take with us on the boat.
1 or 2 dives starting at 8.30am , back at the Dive Centre by between 11 or 12.
Lunch (13.00), then the afternoon is always different, but activities can be studying my books, marketing, any additional assignments or skills in the pool, and some swimming.

We close the Dive Centre at 17.00, a little bit of relaxing or studying and then dinner at 19.00.
The rest of the evening I usually spend on some more studying, but mainly watching TV and then to go to bed, usually too late because Pete and Melissa are far too cozy (K)(love you guys). (22.00-23.00)

Until now, all of my dives have been boat dives, but very soon we will be off for my first shore dive.

We are planning to go to El Puertito, which is a shallow shore dive in a bay, where a family of Green Sea Turtles lives. Let’s hope we’ll see them!

Lots of kisses,
Xxxxxxxxxx
Alice

My First week on the Divemaster Internship in Tenerife~ Harry

Induction on day one, done, and out of the way we could get cracking on our internship.

I arrived as a PADI Rescue Diver, and my fellow intern Kim arrived with no previous experience other than a try dive in Holland.

So straight in the water we get, on the second day, with Kim's PADI Discover Scuba Diving experience.
Brilliant experience for me as I plan to go on to be a PADI Instructor. (and also good practice ironing out some "creases" in my own skills).
I managed to get 7 dives in this week, it would have been more but unfortunately i had a cold and was told to take time off so no one else would catch it :-(
This is where my nick name of "Sick note" came from, fair enough i suppose :-)
The Dive sites we visited were as follows:

Alien Rock

Yellow Mountain Swim Through

Abades Point

Abades Beech

San Miguel North

All brilliant sites. with an abundance of aquatic life, far more than I had ever seen before.

But then reality hit, we weren't here just to look at all the fish, we soon realised we needed to be able to identify all the fish we saw in case a customer asked us what a certain fish was!


And this, at first was quite a task, but i feel we managed it, with lots of checking in the fish identification books available at the Dive Centre.


It was an exciting and eye opening experience.

http://www.diveandseatenerife.com/

Week 1 of my PADI Divemaster Internship with Dive and Sea Tenerife

What a stressful and restless start! The hours before my departure were, to put it mildly, chaotic and very, very early in the morning.
After almost not making it to the airport, due to a slippery, frozen road, my parents and me managed to get there in one piece.
The flight itself, took around 4,5 hours and went well. I even had a whole row of 3 seats to myself, thanks Ryanair!

Arriving at the airport (at 09.30, it is one hour earlier here in Tenerife), I immediately pulled off my thick winter sweater and coat. It took a while to get used to the temperature, going from minus two, with ice and frost, to 19 degrees and sunny. Not that I’m complaining though, haha, it has been at least 19 degrees since my arrival.




Melissa, the Boss, picked me up from the airport at Tenerife, and just 10 minutes later we arrived at the Dive Centre, where I met Pete, our PADI Instructor, as well. After relaxing a little bit, and sorting out my luggage, the next day it was time for the induction day.


During the induction, I met Harry, the other Divemaster intern who is doing his internship at the same time as me. Pete and Melissa talked us though the most important things and gave us an idea of what the internship was going to be like. We also received our PADI materials and diving equipment, half of which, I didn’t know what it was!

Next day, it was time to really get started. I did my PADI Discover Scuba Diving session in the pool, immediately followed by my first two dives in the ocean.

We went to Yellow Mountain, and from the boat we saw a Sea Turtle taking a breath, but it disappeared as quickly as it came up. We got into the water, and once on the bottom, my first thought was; Wow!

The visibility was great, and there were so many fish to see. We didn’t have to chase the fish at all, to be able to see them properly, because they just follow you around. We saw a Snake Cucumber, Garden Eel, Trumpet fish, Fangtooth Moray Eel, Red Sea Star, Wide-eyed flounder and hundreds of long-spined black Sea Urchin’s. I also got a manicure from a Red-Back Cleaner Shrimp.

Pete and Melissa are super friendly, funny and very British. They quickly decided that my name couldn’t be Kim, and therefore, they started to come up with lots of other names. Due to several different reasons (trust me, you don’t even want me to get started), eventually my new name turned out to be Alice (or Allie), which everyone now uses :-)

I have a busy schedule ahead of me, starting with getting certified as a PADI Open Water Diver, and doing lots of diving and studying. I’ll keep you updated, you keep reading!

See you later!

Love, Kim aka Alice

Harry ~ PADI Rescue Diver to PADI Divemaster

My name is Harry, a 24 year old PADI Divemaster in training.

This is a little about how I got introduced into the dive world and what I am planning on doing.

I have always had an interest in diving since the age of 15 when I went on my first dive in Lanzarote in the Canary Islands.

University did not appeal to me so after one year on an "Architectural Engineering" degree, I decided to go travelling.

This is where the underwater realm was fully opened up to me, completing the PADI Open Water course, followed directly with an PADI Advanced Open Water course in 2007.

Returning to Northern Ireland briefly, I was not content with my Advanced Diver status, so in 2009 I completed my Emergency First Response  and PADI Rescue Courses.

Since then I have become a Father (to a boy who is coming up to the age of 3 now)

Continually wishing to progress my diving, this year I decided to bring my girlfriend and son along whilst joining the Divemaster internship at Dive and Sea Tenerife.

If all goes to plan after completion of my PADI Divemaster internship, I wish to further my education within the professional side of diving by becoming a PADI Instructor.


Blog to you all soon


Harry

Hello everyone, and welcome to the new Dive and Sea Tenerife Divemaster blog!

My name is Kim, I am 21 years old, and I am a Divemaster intern at Dive and Sea Tenerife.

I am from Holland, and I grew up in a big, cozy family of five children. Since I was little (well, I’m still little, but anyway) I have always loved animals and water.
At a very young age, it was already clear to me that I wanted to do a job that, ideally, involved both.

Therefore, I did everything I possibly could to become a sea mammal trainer. As soon as possible, I quit high school and started my education in Animal Care, directly followed by Animal Management.

I did many internships at companies like a zoo, a dog training school, a farm, a sea mammal research center and finally two internships at the dolphinariums in Belgium and Tenerife.

At the end of my internship in the dolphinarium in Belgium, they offered me a job in which I now work fulltime during summer, but it is only a seasonal job.
I quickly fell in love with the Dolphins and enjoy working with them very much. In wintertime, I had to find something else to do, and so I decided to do an education as a swimming teacher. Another job that involved water, and I loved doing it.

The second winter, again, I had to find something to keep me busy. This time, I decided that I’d like to learn more about Scuba Diving.
It would also be a very useful addition to my résumé. I started looking at the Internet and found a PADI dive center that seemed very interesting.
It was located in Tenerife, where I had lived before during my internship at Loro Parque. I booked my internship, along with many Scuba Diving certifications, and I’m looking forward to learn yet another job in an industry that involves water.

Thanks for reading,  I’ll keep you updated!

Love,

Kim

PADI Divemaster Internship Blog

Welcome to our all new PADI Divemaster Internship Blog.

We will be encouraging our Divemaster Interns to add comments , pictures, videos and just about anything they want to the Blog during their Internship.

If there is anything you would like to see available on our Divemaster Blog just let us know and the Interns will do their very best to help.

If you want any information about our PADI Divemaster internships just drop us an e-mail to pete@diveandseatenerife.com

Starting of this Divemaster Blog will be Harry and Kim.

PADI Divemaster Internships in Tenerife

Sea-Changers, Dive Briefs and leading Dives

Week 3 of my Internship by Harry

This week started with two dives with two amazing girls, Adele and Karina. These took place at Alien Rock and the Swim Trough at Yellow Mountain. The girls were given the chance to pick their buddies. I buddied up with Adele, and Karina buddied up with Kim, with Pete leading the dive. We all had a great time exploring the underwater world once more. Kim and I were shown up by the girls knowledge of aquatic life, another thing we needed to get to know quickly. We saw a Brown Moray Eel, a multitude of Blue Fin-Damsel Fish, Garden Eels, Zebra Bream, Parrot Fish, Arrow Crabs, Ornate Wrasse amongst many more.

The next day, we were joined by "Sea Changers" Rachel & Helen from Leicester. We got to accompany them on their dives. This was the first chance I got to do my dive brief and lead a dive. All went well and we found our way back without any problems.

The completion of the PADI Emergency Oxygen Provider in conjunction with the EFR course was also part of this week. For these activities, we were joined by Teide Divers, Phil and Jackie. A great laugh was had by all. I played the victim in the scenario section of the course, with a broken leg and multiple lacerations. Luckily, the brand new Emergency First Responders managed to save my life, they can be proud of themselves!

On Friday, Rachel, Helen, Jackie and Phil joined Pete, Kim and me on a Dive site cleanup. This took place at the Moon Pools, once a very popular dive site. It was only 10 minutes by boat, East of San Miguel Marina. We all kitted up and got in the water, descending together as we made our way along the sea bed, picking up any rubbish we could. Amongst cleaning up, we saw several Black Sea Hares and I saw my first Octopus in Tenerife. We took our underwater bags, now filled with loads of rubbish, back to our boat and were delighted to have done something to help nature.

The second dive that day was a Sea Urchin culling dive. Pete manned the boat and Melissa took his place, joining us on our next dive. Off we went, killing 100's of Black Long-spined Sea Urchins.

Rachel, Helen, Melissa, Kim and I ended the week with a pleasant shore dive to Abades Beach. For this dive, I gave the Dive Brief and led again. Rachel and Helen had a fantastic last dive with us, exploring yet another new dive site. The dive was followed by a cup of Hot Chocolate and a chat about their week of diving with us. We asked the girls if they had a favorite dive during their stay, to which they couldn’t answer, because they enjoyed them all. Job well done I think.

More from my adventures soon.

Harry