Best Dive Ever?.............................. Probably :-)

This week started on a low for me this week, I had boat cover.

When I wasn't sitting in the middle of the boat sea sick, I’d be having stern hand gestures with inconsiderate French divers who were anchoring too close to our boat.

Luckily for me this week got considerably better as the week went on.

The first dives of this week was with Turtles, it really tickled my fancy so I had delayed my day off so that I could go. Definitely worth it. The first of the two dives was with the friendly Turtle, it was obviously used to being fed by other dive schools and thus spent a lot of time coming incredibly close, so much so that the Turtle would touch you, or its fins would hit my regulator hose.

The second dive was just as good if I’m honest, the next Turtle wasn't quite as interested in us but more so in the cotton spinner it was attempting to eat. In fact the Turtle was so oblivious to us being there that Melissa was able to clean the bits of line and plant off it. Two of the best dives I've had since being here.

Even when we weren’t looking for Turtles, there’s plenty of other things to see, the very bright blue Sea Anemone  or the incredibly large Trumpet fish. Saying that I’m very easy to please and even the Blue Finned Damsels that are a dime a dozen are still nice to see and just as colourful and impressive as when I first saw them.

My day off! Finally! Really wasn’t half as exciting as I planned it to be. I ended up spending it sleeping and working on my Divemaster book. That is literally it, I have nothing else to say about it, sad I know.

Next up, Poco Naufragio. Unfortunately for me and Lydia we were restricted to 18 meters as she hadn't quite finished her PADI Advanced course yet, but we still got an incredible view, others on the dive were Alice and a returning customer called Matt, whom is very bubbly and has a weird obsession with Sexy Shrimp. They went down a bit deeper than us and got to play with a Common Eagle Ray, it was swimming around them and it looked so comfortable around divers, which is just something I’m not so use to.

I don’t know why I’m complaining about not being able to get close to the Ray, the shelf that is at 18 meters, has a massive array of fish and lots to see. There’s bream, parrot fish, star fish and morays, all of which is easily enough to keep me entertained for the duration of a dive.

The final few dives of the week was with two customers named Anna and Thomas. Tom was doing his scuba review whilst Anna was starting her journey to PADI Open Water diver. The first dives of the day were in the pool and I got to assist Pete instruct the first confined dive with Anna. When I say assist I really mean prop up Anna in case she falls over, but it is great fun to see someone instruct the courses.

Once the pool dives were over we headed out to Yellow Mountain for a couple of dives, both went very well, and Anna has since completed all her open water dives with just the exam to pass before she is fully qualified.

That’s it for this week, I've now been here over two weeks and it has flown by, looking a head to another six more weeks of hard graft and hopefully good dives.

Sam ~ aka Popeye

Out with old.............. in with the New

Slow, slow, slow. The new interns are here, Lydia and myself (Sam, or Sonic depending on how Melissa is feeling). The old interns, the self-proclaimed all-stars are gone, and apparently have very little to worry about when it comes to being out classed, at least not yet anyway.

Lydia and I still have 7 weeks to prove how awesome we might be eventually, as it stands we are just hiding it very well.

As I said earlier we aren’t the quickest duo when it comes to kiting up or washing kit, we’re less Batman and Robin and more two Ronnies. We seem to amble from one job to the next, this really isn’t making us sound to good so I’m going to move on to something much more interesting the diving!

One of my first dives here, was on the RIB and of course I had forgotten seasickness tablets. In my attempt to find the pharmacy I had ended up at a golf course, anyway onto the important bit, we headed to Yellow Mountain and hopped into the water, the visibility was stunning and the fish even more so. There is just so much to see here, from the big ones like Rays and Fangtoothed Morays that everyone seems to enjoy, but even the smaller stuff like Cuttlefish and Arrow Crabs.

However, for me, none of these compares to the excitement of chopping up the Black Sea Urchins and seeing all the fish swarm around and start eating them. There appears to be a steep learning curve with this however, I found this out when I tried to pull it out the crevice with my bare hands, this was followed by about 15 minutes of shear pain in my fingers. At which point I realised Pete was using his knife to get them out. Me being me I’d forgotten to strap my proper knife to my leg. Luckily I had my back up knife that is attached to my BCD, so I whacked out my butter knife and quickly realised it was too small. I then received 15 minutes of pain in the other hand, but it did die, so I think I’ll take that as a win for me.

Prior to coming here, I’d done about six dives in the last three years, so when it came to practising skills in the pool I was dreading it, and it went about as well as could have been expected. I didn't have any major issues but none of it was close to the standard that was demonstrated later on. I suppose it gives me something to aim for and I do have eight weeks to try and get them looking all professional, or at least as close to professional as I get.

Also this week was my first observation of a  DSD (Discover Scuba Diving) and was with a couple from France, Farid and Shiane. They were also the first customers I've dived with since starting, and both of them were lovely, I decided against trying out my school boy French, mainly because it ends at Je’m'appelle Sam and that really isn’t impressive by anyone’s standard. The actual session in the pool was an experience, and I probably wasn't as hands on as I need to be, at least I know for next time. It became apparent quickly that you need to help them kneel which is a skill in itself especially when they start to fall back and take you with them, but that was probably just the strong current in the pool, nothing to do with my inexperience.

Next up was Abades and this was my first set of shore dives, it is fairly shallow there so I don’t drink the air like usual. The diving here is just amazing, especially considering how close it is to the swarms of tourists on the beach. The big difference for me here, was that you can feel the swell of the waves take you in and out, which makes for exiting times when you try to look behind rocks. That being said there is a lot to see like all the different types of Bream, the Atlantic and Blue Finned Damsel fish, Cuttlefish and even the occasional Moray. For me the best part was seeing the Jellyfish, I’m not sure exactly why but I've never seen them when diving before, so I suppose it was new and different.

Back on the RIB, more long gazes with the shore line, and more nausea. Today was the day we dived with Ian and Olga. Ian works at the incredible toy shop that I've only had the pleasure of going to once so far, but they literally have anything and everything when it comes to diving equipment, unfortunately for me I don’t have the money for everything or anything. Anyway, back to diving, Ian and Olga both seemed like very competent divers. Ian especially entertained us all with his antics, such as biting Melissa’s fins or swimming around upside down, lots to see on this dive, with a Common Ray swimming about and lots of pretty Bream, Damsel fish as well as Parrot fish.

To finish the week we finally met the acclaimed ‘best intern ever.’ Melissa had endlessly said about how amazing Emma was. Whether there was any truth in the matter is still unknown. Emma and Rob, who was quickly renamed Ben, were both lovely people and very friendly.

We headed back to Abades for their first dives and it all went off without a hitch. Both dives had plenty of fish to see, with Wide Eye’d Flounders, Atlantic lizard fish, and even a Stargazer seen near the end of the dive.

It was a great way to finish off my first week of being here, and hopefully there is more to come.

Sam

1st Week and almost 19!

I just had my first week and I’m sitting with my laptop writing my First blog ever.

I will start with introducing myself. My name is Lydia and I’m 18 (almost 19) years young. I’m from Holland and started my Divemaster internship as a PADI Open Water Diver. 

It’s my first time here in Tenerife and I’m really exited about being here. I started diving in Turkey with my brother , and we also went diving in Egypt.

In my opinion, the first week here is a lot to learn and to remember. Lucky for me, the other intern Sam , who is already a Padi Rescue Diver, is very nice and has been helping me a lot.

I finished the chapters I had to do of the Adventure Diving book. It should be forbidden to use that many difficult words. Unfortunately English isn’t my first language!

On the first day Melissa took Sam and me to the toyshop (the diveshop) where I started trying on wetsuits. After a while I finally found a great wetsuit, perfectly fitting and really comfortable. It’s an Aqualung suit and Pete has one the same make as well, so I just know it’s a very good wetsuit.

Sam and I had 2 pool sessions. The First pool session was to see where we’re at with the skills.
The second pool session went way better, already improving our skills.
My first dive was a shore dive in Abades with Alice and saw a lot kind of fishes, I saw a Cuttle fish and I saw an Arrowcrab. Those are really funny animals.

We also went on a dive boat and it was so much fun, you need to hold on or you bouncing off the boat.

I saw a Fire worm, Cleaner shrimps and a Barracuda at the second dive and a Fangtooth Moray Eel.

The greatest dive was diving with Turtles, one Turtle came really really close and it was amazing!

Othe than learning everything about diving and equipment, I also learned a lot about cleaning.

1. I learned that sweeping and mopping are two different things and it’s not just a funny way to say mopping.
At the end of the day I just said sweaping and swopping.

2. I learned that you need hot water when you clean and it’s also a pretty good idea to use cleaning liquid.

3. I learned how to dust, this went pretty well.

4. And I learned how to clean windows. Well I’m starting to learn because I didn’t do a great job. I was standing, bending and boiling behind the windows in the hot sun.

The biggest surprise this week, probably the biggest surprise in my life happened last week. I was focused on listening to Alice when two people walked in. I had a quick look and realised those two people were my Mom and my Stepdad visiting me in Tenerife.

I was in shock for a few minutes. They came to surprise me for my birthday which is on the 12th of October.

I’m really happy with my parents being here. It’s gonna be hard to see them leave again.

I hope you enjoyed reading it. I surely enjoyed living it.

Lydia

The Professionals at work

Now certified as PADI Divemasters, we had the week to use our skills and at last take our snorkels off!

We all started the week going to Las Eras, our favourite dive site. Two great customers and two great dives.

Melissa who has been diving here for 4 years or so now agreed that it was the biggest Octopus she had ever seen.............. it was rather large.

We were scared it would eat us. It gave a lovely display swimming in front of us we where rather lucky.
We continued to spot many more Octopus and Moray Eels, as well as Barracuda, and two Gurnurds, who have beautiful wings stretched out when the swim or fly.

We all spent the next day at Yellow Mountain where we went to Alien Rock lead by Geoffrey with our customer  Peter,  seeing a Common Ray and all the locals at the mountain.

As our time with Dive and Sea was coming to an end we all went out for a lovely dinner paid for with Beer Fines .
It was a great night with some individuals drinking a little too much. The next day we where left to recover.

The next few days where left to us to re arrange the shop and moving all the diving equipment to our new storage facility and now the shop is much more spacious and airey. It looks great.

Todd and Jess’s last day was leading dives at Yellow Mountain and cleaning the boat and shop.

It has been a roller coaster ride and a great experience we thank Pete and Melissa for putting up with us and all there help gaining us our Emergency First Responder, PADI Rescue Diver and PADI Divemaster qualifications.

Good Bye from us. Geoffrey is still here for a few more days so you will still be hearing from him!

3 New Divemasters :-)

Masters of Diving. Jess started the week leading dives at Abades, as part of her Divemaster internship with some great customers seeing a range of cool stuff from Sea hares to Moray eels and our favorite Octopus’s.

Not a bad dive in all for Jess. Geoffrey took his older sister Shontelle on a DSD dive, Discover Scuba Diving. Where they first started off in the pool progressing to the open water.
She had a great time and had done really well it was lovely to see brother and sister diving together.

Wednesday we all looked forward to the night dive.
With an early start of 5.30 am we made off to Yellow Mountain to see the creatures of the night. We saw many Octopus out of there holes wandering the sea bed. They had such great colours completely different to the day, which was cool.

We had found a Moray Eel that was out of his home who decided that we got to close and swam at Geoffrey.

Towards the end of the night dive we surfaced in the middle of no where with an enjoyable swim back to the boat due to some navigational errors.
Geoffrey, as part of his Divemaster stamina, completed his 400m swim and 15 minute float gain some good grades with a 4 and a 5.
Geoffrey also went to Las Eras to do his Deep Dive as part of his Master Scuba Diver certification.
He also had the bad luck of seeing a dead Turtle and an Octopus eating a Trumpet fish giving it the name Death Row.

Things where getting serious now. We completed our Divemaster skills all of us getting at least 100 out of 120 a great effort from all involved.
In the Afternoon we sat our Divemaster Exams all getting great scores ranging from 94% to 97% everyone was well chuffed.

As part of Project AWARE we all went out knife in hand and stabbed up some urchins making plenty of fish food. We must of killed over 250 between us ridding that section of the ocean of the pests it was great letting all that frustration out.

Todd completed his stamina test’s doing well in his 800m snorkel and 100m tow.

Our last skill to complete was the Kit Exchange where our buddy and us had to work out the best way to swap all our items if kit whilst breathing through one regulator.
It went without one mistake and we all smashed it getting 5’s.

We are now all Certified PADI Divemasters WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Not a bad week at all.

Urchin-killings and a new Dive Site ~ El Delphin

Week 3 of my internship has just passed, which means I only have 5 more days to go till it´s back to freezing Dutchieland. (Actually thinking about it, I don’t think it will make such a big difference whether your soaking wet because of the rain or soaking wet because your sweating like a pig all day!)

On Sunday we went to Las Eras for my and Geoffrey’s PADI Deep Speciality dive and my SMB Speciality dive. 

Las Eras is a really nice dive site, with a great underwater world. On our way out everything went really smooth, just bobbing around in the water, letting ourselves be carried away by a current, checking out the Needle fish, Octopus, Barracudas and all the little critters along the rocks. 

At around 30m. Gareth made us play a little game to check if we were effected by gas narcosis, writing our names backwards. No trouble for me there, Geoffrey on the other hand seemed pretty narced, having trouble remembering and writing the correct letters (although he did had some trouble spelling his name backwards at the surface as well, but we’ll blame the early morning for that!).
After our little play-time, it was time to return to shore. By then we realized that the current was quiet strong and we struggled to swim back.
To be honest we did really well, considering we did a 30m. dive for 43 minutes in a current that strong! Really cool detail is the Octopus we saw eating a big Trumpet fish (with the Trumpet fish still sticking half out of the Octopus….I’m realizing now without a picture this description is missing a bit of X-factor, not sounding half as exciting as it actually was, you should have been there…). 

A little less cool was the dead baby Turtle we saw, lying on the bottom, all white and with his head ripped off, starting to deteriorate (again, you should have been there for the visual effect with this description…or maybe not).

We also had some time this week to go exploring! Pete decided it was time to check if he still had it, so along with Gareth, Geoffrey and me, we went to a new dive site called El Delphin (named after a Dolphin statue we passed while descending) for another deep dive. 

Star of the day was the huge Atlantic Ray that swam towards us as soon as we arrived on the bottom. A beautiful start of the dive! 

Gareth also decided to take some breakfast food from his fridge to play yet another game. Playtime was over pretty fast (which is actually a good thing at that depth)…The boys were not able to crack the egg under water so I had to show them how (pretty pathetic guys that even under water the woman has to handle the food like in the kitchen) and Gareth didn’t really knew why he brought the tomatoes (other than they were mouldy anyway and taking up beer-space in the fridge) so we squeezed them all up and prepared a nice little breakfast for the Bream and Trumpet fish.

The second dive of that day was a project Aware dive. We went to Starfish bay to do some urchin-killing. Somehow everyone was really exciting about this dive, it didn’t bring up the best in all of us. 
In the beginning I felt a bit sorry for the urchins, especially the little one's, so I have to admit that in the beginning I did let the little once get off the hook.

When I looked to my left and right side, I saw my team-members who turned into psychopaths; tossing the urchins up in the water slicing them like Japenese sushi-chefs or Samurai soldiers. 
Some of them would put them on a rock, watch them walk away, toss them over, making them think they could escape the massacre and then give them the death sentence anyway. 
I just thought they were weird and British….UNTILL….I got stabbed by one of those sneaky bastards (talking about the urchins again not my team-members)! 
Then my finger hurt, a little drop of green blood dropped out of it, my mind went blank…. From that moment on it was Die Urchin Die!!

(Again for the people not familiar with the urchins, they are a pest in this area, not native to the area and are sucking the life out of this part of the ocean, they don’t have natural enemies so we need to kill them to protect the underwater life).

Also the past week, the All-stars turned into the All-blacks after they all became PADI Divemasters by completing the exams and kit-exchange, which makes me the odd one out in my red T-shirt. 

I did the kit-exchange together with Geoffrey. 

Before the exercise we had 5 minutes to practice in which we agreed / learned that:

1. We were just going to see what was going to happen

2. You should not clear your mask when you don’t have your reg. in your mouth because yes, you will run out of air and yes, you will try to breathe water.
3. We’re awesome anyway so this is going to be easy as!

The kit-exchange went really well, Geoffrey was in a bit of a rush which made it a challenge to keep up with him. Trying to take my fins off and put his "fins-fit-for-a-giant" on wasn’t that easy, made me tip over and sit on my backside at the bottom of the pool…..BUT….goal of the exercise was to make it look smooth and easy so I took my time (trying to fool the big boss that this was all part of mine and Geoffrey’s brilliant plan of preparation), and had a little moment for myself before Geoffrey helped me back up, proceeding the exercise in lightning-speed. In the end, like we expected, everything went awesome and we could be proud of ourselves.

I also had a go at doing a pre-dive safety check and the kit-set-up. Toughest part was to pronounce the word ‘Knurled Nut’ without laughing. I also need to remember to actually put on a weight belt when showing the student how to check for a weight belt and to actually turn the air on when I want to check my air!

At the end of the week, we went to a very informative presentation of Pro-sub, The Dive Centre's supplier of dive equipment otherwise known as Toy’s R Us for divers! 

Here we gained some useful information about the latest equipment and some sales- and business techniques.

Like I said in my intro, only 5 more days to go with hopefully a lot of beautiful diving!

Susanne