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