Unlike my fellow British interns, Alice will agree that Dutchies are much more humble, modest, discreet (also pretty, awesome, kind and lovely. But we’re not really focusing on the details now!) , so I’ll start by introducing myself before I declare myself part of the All-star-team!!
My name´s Susanne (female, 25 and Dutch; so from Dutchieland, Germany or Poland according to Pete). On the 1st of September I’ve started my 8-week Dive-master internship in lovely Tenerife, already being qualified as a PADI Rescue diver.
So far I've been diving in Vanuatu, Fiji, Australia, Indonesia and some sort of foggy-lake-kinda-puddle in Holland.
From today on I also will be writing a blog every week to keep everyone updated about the high’s and low’s of DM internship at Dive and Sea Tenerife.
So far, the first week has flown by!
Getting to know the other interns (Jess, Jeffrey (George) and from today on Wonka Todd), the bosses, daily chores, location of the materials, daily routines, beer-fine system etc. has been interesting, but also pretty exhausting.
The 30+ degree weather and British only able of mumbling are not helping the focus!
Most days this will result in a sunburned face and back and an English-language-button that switches off somewhere between 14.00 and 15.00, which sometimes can be used as a good excuse for a screw up!
The last week a lot of pool-skill-practice was scheduled; The self-pronounced All-star-team is close to the end of their internship and needed to fine-tune their skills. Got a little jealous looking at the level they were already performing at, but then at the daily debrief I would get my chuckles for all the beer-fines they are paying while I’m still off the hook for being in my first week!!!
Skills like hovering, ascending using the 5-point method, the pre-dive safety check, 400m. swim and 800m. snorkel and many more were practiced.
Even after a few days I’m happy to announce that hard work indeed pays off.
Skills are improving and it is really motivating to watch and learn from the All-stars.
After the morning pool session, there would normally be one hour of absolute total chaos (how is that possible All-stars?? ), in which we try to get all the equipment sorted and loaded into the cars to go out to the marina or the shore dive site.
The next week we’ll have to work on some sort of structure to get ourselves organized and make our lives easier!
My first dives at Yellow Mountain were awesome; almost flat water, great visibility (20m.+), good diving conditions and apparently very few naked men strutting their stuff at the nude beach where the boat is moored (according to Jess on boat duty; the number of naked man was concerning low….).
We saw heaps of trumpet fish, moray eel, bream, black-long-spined-sea urchins (zee-egels in Dutchie-language) and much more marine life of which I still have to learn the English names.
Assisting the DSD-students on one of the dives was a great experience. Not only is it great and very rewarding to be able to help others to have the best possible diving experience on their first dives ever, it’s also very eye-opening to realize you can focus on a job that much, that in a 30 min. dive you don’t see a single fish. (and yes I was underwater, and yes I had my eyes open!!)
On Friday I did my first dives at Abades beach, buddying-up with an open-water diver. I absolutely loved this shore dive (even though Alice made us do an 800m. swim before we were allowed to descend and we didn’t even make it to the pretty side of the dive site due to the number of pictures being taken by the customer!). There was a lot of marine life along the rocks; heaps of pufferfish (one of which was very curious, swimming up to us), a cuttle-fish, again some moray eels and some beautiful soft coral.
To end this first blog, a summary of things I’ve learned so far:
1. When Dutch and reading your English-274-page Divemaster manual and you stumble upon a difficult pronounceable word, don’t ask Jeffrey for help. He is British, however there is a big chance he doesn’t know the word either!
2. When coming back from a skill-practice in the pool and after 30 min. you haven’t located your scuba-review slates, there is a big chance they’re still at the bottom of the pool!
3. Alice = Kim, Charlotte = Alice, Jeffrey = George, Sam = Amy, Gareth = either something with a T or an F, but both not appropriate to mention online and Pete = always right!
4. When going on 2 dives, cleaning all the equipment at the marina and washing the boat (about a 1.5 hour job) in 35 degree weather, no shade and the middle of the day; there is a slight risk of dehydration when all 3 of you forget to take any water to drink at all!
5. PADI’s most favorite words are: ample and err (which is posh American, really annoying when being used on every single page of the manual and can only be explained by Jess who is a posh-word-maniac!)
Time for my well-deserved day off!
Suzanne
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