Last week on my Divemaster Internship

It's incredible, just one week to go and the internship is over!

This week started with Moniek's last two dives. For the first dive we were on our way to Nelson's Point, a for Harry and me new dive site. This dive was Moniek's third dive, with Harry briefing and leading the dive, while Moniek and I buddied up. 

The dive went well, we've seen a lot of different aquatic life and Moniek did very well. The highlights of the dive were Barracuda, Trumpetfish and a Black Moray Eel. Moniek has also held an Arrow Crab, what she enjoyed very much. Unfortunately, when holding the Arrow Crab, she landed with her knee on a Black Long-spined Sea Urchin, resulting in a number of painful stings... Auwgh!

The second dive it was my turn to lead the dive to Swim Through. As Moniek is a PADI Discover Scuba Diver, she is limited to a maximum depth of 12 metres. Because I am used to a limit of usually 18 or 30 metres, it was sometimes difficult to keep a close eye on our depth. We managed to stay within a neat 11.4 meters, and that was my own depth. One of the reasons we ask divers always to stay behind and above the dive leader, is that if the dive leader by accident descended half a meter deeper, the other divers would still remain within their depth limits.

Still tired from the previous day in Siam Park and our brief visit to Carnival, plus our skin still as red as a lobster, Moniek and I had another relaxed afternoon. We planned to go shopping in Los Cristianos, but since the bus had still not shown up after 40 minutes of waiting, we decided to go back to San Blas. In this small shopping centre within walking distance, we bought some souvenirs to take home.

Tuesday we were joined by Barry, an Open Water Diver from America. After picking Barry up at his hotel, we got on the boat for two dives to Alien Rock and Swim Through. The visibility was still pretty poor, and we got a bit lost on our way to Alien Rock. 

Thanks to our compasses we were able to find our way back to the boat, if only we hadn't encountered a slight problem. Harry had managed to use most of his air. Thanks to my Specialty course SMB (Surface Marker Buoy), I was able to let up my SMB, and get the attention of Pete, who had stayed on the boat. 

Thanks to Pete's excellent skipper skills, he was able to retrieve the anchor and pick us up by boat, without to much delay, we prepared ourselves for the second dive. 

Now it was time for me to brief and lead our next dive to Swim Through. During the dive we spotted an octopus, which allowed us to take a few photos. At the end of the dive we also saw a Wide-eyed Flounder and a whole bunch of Arrow Crabs. Meanwhile, Moniek, which we already said goodbye to in the morning at the shop, had begun her journey back to the Netherlands and was probably in her air plane by now.

On Wednesday, Melissa came back from England, and it was also Harry's last day of his internship. Harry and I did the last tasks to be completed, such as thoroughly washing the boat, which now looks spic and span again, and finish the last part of the shop clean-up. After a last drink at Big Al's, we raised our wine glasses for Harry, who now finished his internship as a certified PADI Divemaster. He will stay in Tenerife for another week as a little holiday with his girlfriend and son. They have picked the right week, as since Wednesday, it has been a lot warmer than the past few weeks, about 26 degrees. This is due to warm air coming from the Sahara desert, which also brings a lot of dust along. This makes the air look brown-like, and even worse, both the boat and the freshly washed car are all dirty again!

Thursday it was time for our medical statement, that we need for our PADI Divemaster certification to be valid. Harry came to the shop that morning, specially for his medical. After a brief medical examination and a questionnaire about our medical history, the doctor declared us healthy. Tim and Charlotte from Wales, who are friends of Pete and Melissa, arrived in Tenerife that morning and we enjoyed an English breakfast for lunch together. The rest of the day we updated our blogs, and did the usual online promotion activities. It seems that Harry doesn't really want to end his internship just yet!

Sara, from Belgium and James, from Australia accompanied us on Friday morning for two dives to Yellow Mountain. This was the first time I went diving without Harry along my side, what appeared to be quite a big difference!

The diving-kit preparation, packing, loading the car and the boat took a bit longer doing it on my own instead of with two people, like it has been like for the last 6 weeks. Not to mention the fact that I do not own a dive computer yet, and have gotten used to relying on Harry's computer too much. For the next dives, it was my task to brief and lead both dives. Pete came with us for the first dive to Alien Rock. Sara and James, both of Rescue Divers, formed a buddy team and proved to have excellent diving skills, having good buoyancy control and staying close to me. Without any problems we arrived at Alien Rock, where Pete soon spotted an Angel Shark.

We also saw an Octopus, Snake Cucumber, Barracuda's and many more little fish. We made our way along Alien Rock, and returned to the boat. On the boat we changed tanks and after another dive brief about our next location Swim Through, it was time for my first dive alone with two customers. As soon as we reached the bottom, I found out that my mask was flooding. This is usually a result of hair or my hood stuck under the mask. After a few attempts I still couldn't fully solve the problem. I wanted to avoid having to take my mask off under water, because it would be more difficult to keep an eye on Sarah and James.

After a few minutes of almost continually clearing my mask, I decided to ask Sara and James to settle down on the bottom and wait a minute, while I took off the mask, replaced and cleared it. The problem turned out to be in the band of the mask, which was twisted around my snorkel. Now I could see normally again. Meanwhile, we did see a lot of beautiful aquatic life during the dive, such as Cuttlefish, Wide-eyed Flounders, Atlantic Lizardfish, a Red Mullet and all the small fish that came to take a took when we culled a number of Black Long-spined Sea Urchins.

Saturday we had a nice and quite day in the shop, followed by a party night.We went to Big Al's again for a lovely dinner, and afterwards to the Premier Bar, which is a karaoke bar located in Amarilla Golf. 

With the seventeen of us, we had a great night, and everybody had a go on singing on stage, including me.

After sleeping till quite late on Sunday, I went to see the famous tree: 'El Drago' up North, along with a drive through the mountains together with Harry and Louise. We had a wonderful day and I took plenty of pictures of the beautiful views that seemed to change at every turn.

Let's hope we'll do a lot more diving next week. I'm on 55 dives now, so only 5 more to go for me to be a PADI Divemaster!!