Friday 13th, despite its reputation for being an awful day for the superstitious people among us, was a pretty good day.
Us interns were in the pool for some skill circuit training. The required skills are getting easier now and practicing them can be quite good fun as well as beneficial. After the skills session it was time for some more swimming stamina training. My time is now down to about 7:30 (ish), which I’m quite pleased with considering I couldn't swim 100m when I first got here!
A well received fry up courtesy of the Aberdeen was next on the agenda, which is never disappointing, unless they forget to include hash browns! Sometimes they do this and as we all know, a breakfast just isn’t the same without hash browns! This was washed down with a practice at demonstrating kit assembly and a 5 minute presentation on ‘What I plan to do with my Divemaster qualification’.
Note to self; Never make a fry up with out hash browns.
Saturday had arrived…… A day that Zippy and I had been waiting for and talking about for the best part of 3 weeks…… That’s right, it was the day when we would be eating our ‘BIG AL’S MIXED GRILL’. An early celebration of Zippy’s birthday next week, which was being held in the place where the food always smells soooo nice!
I was on duty in the shop in the morning while everyone else was out diving. I put my sales techniques to the test and really enjoyed selling dives and also a couple of PADI Scuba Tune-ups, as well as a Padi Discover Scuba Diving course. In between customers, I was going through kit assembly, preparation and disassembly with Rodders, which was getting close to demonstration quality. As soon as everyone was back from diving, My kit set up demonstration was scored and I got a 5/5. The practice definitely paid off!
I spent the rest of the afternoon constantly reminding everybody in the shop that I was looking forward to my mixed grill later on in the evening, which couldn’t come soon enough!
Later on we met Phil, Jackie and Lauren from Teide Divers, Lauren’s dad Barry and Dave from Pro-sub for dinner. I had my mixed grill and was in no way disappointed, which was topped off with a few cheeky pints and a bit of karaoke.
Note to Pete and Melissa; Did I mention I was having a mixed grill?
Sunday = A bit hungover. Enough said.
Monday morning (HAPPY BIRTHDAY ZIPPY) I was leading the PADI Scuba Tune-ups (with Monica and Shaun) and the PADI Discover Scuba Diving (with Catherine) pool sessions, that I sold on Saturday. Putting my skills to the test aswell as the ‘dealing with customers’ part of the process was good fun and good practice. Helping the customers brush up on their skills went quite well for a first attempt and they were quite happy with their performance, as was I.
We got out of the pool and changed kits over, then Melissa and I headed off to El Puertito with Monica and Shaun, in the hope of finding some Turtles. I led the way on the dives and knew where I was (most of the time), which meant my knowledge of dive sites was getting a lot better. We also found a Turtle and spent a little while with him, which never fails to be an amazing experience.
Note to self; If dive career fails, fall back on sewing skills.
Tuesday, 4 weeks and 5 days into my internship. The day I became a PADI Divemaster! A scored skill session in the pool, with Jackie and Phil from Teide Divers in attendance, went really well. I managed a 5/5 on every skill apart from three of them, which I scored 4/5 on. I for one am not going to argue with that!
I completed the 15 minute tread water exercise and didn’t drown which is always a bonus, which completed the list of everything that was required for the Divemaster certification.
The afternoon was spent typing up a list of Do’s and Don’ts for Pete and Melissa, which I found quite amusing. There are certain things you learn about how the shop is run, how everybody takes their tea and little tips that can help you along the way that will hopefully will be beneficial for future interns. A little bit of reading and studying thrown in for good measure finished the day nicely.
Wednesday morning Zippy, Alice and I were down in the pool to have a go at filming our own take on the PADI skills videos. Alice was on camera duty while Zippy and I performed skills in a demonstration manner, some were serious, some had rather funny and obvious mistakes and some were simply outtakes.
Zippy for example filmed an entire skill underwater with his snorkel in and holding his breath! It was good fun doing these videos, hopefully soon we will have a complete set of skills recorded and ready to use in the shop, to show future interns how it is/isn’t done. Alice on this occasion held the camera the wrong way round, which meant our videos were on the side and too difficult to rotate. We will get it right next time!
We spent some time in the afternoon taking old Divemaster exams, seeing how much we knew and what areas needed some work. Thankfully I have been doing a LOT of reading recently, which paid off as I didn’t do too badly.
Note to self; Think of more stuff for video outtakes.
Thursday Pete gave Zippy and I the pleasure of cleaning the boat in the morning. In a weird way I find it rather therapeutic! We were joined down at the marina by Phil, Jackie and Lauren from Teide Divers.
Jackie was finishing off the last couple of bits and pieces that she needed for her Divemaster qualification, while I timed Lauren doing her 800m Snorkel stamina test. We left there and headed straight for the Aberdeen for a cheeky breakfast, to celebrate a successful week of Divemaster certifications.
The day had been going well up to this point, but then it all went massively wrong. NO HASH BROWNS!!!
I spent the afternoon on a little errand run with Melissa, dropping tanks off to be filled and picking up some things and doing some stuff. A trip to Pro-Sub to see Dave for some things, was as painful as it always is. Walking into that shop is like going to Toys’R’Us when you are a young child.
You want to buy EVERYTHING but you just can’t. The stuff we picked up included my IDC pack, which is the paperwork for the Instructor Development Course. I start training to become an Assistant instructor next week, which I am really looking forward to. Hopefully this will lead me on to the path of becoming an Instructor sometime soon!
Note to self; Wait outside Pro-Sub next time we go.
Bungle
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