PADI Advanced course and PADI Rescue course!

Well, my third week at Dive and Sea Tenerife. 

This week has brought a lot of different dive, studies and experiences.

For starters I had my first deep dive as part of my PADI Advanced course. great dive with Dennis, Pete and Ann.

We got down to 26 meters where we had to do some different tasks. Putting squares and triangles into a for-the-purpose-shaped box seems easy for my one-year old nephew, but it sure ain't that easy when you're sitting on the bottom of the Atlantic, with a playful Common Ray trying to push you over!

Next dive that day was my navigation dive. We went to Yellow Mountain where we got down with compasses and tried the best we could to do some different swim patterns using our compasses.
Last dive that day was our fish-ID. Great dive. our objective is to go down and try to spot as many different fish as possible. 

We tried to sketch some, and then find the names and such back at the shop. Maybe me and Dennis, my buddy, cheated a bit by just swimming to the nearest reef, splitting a few Sea-Urchins and waiting for the fish to come to us. Luckily for us our plan worked out just fine, and we saw loads and loads of beautiful colours all around us.

The next day was our time to become PADI Advanced divers. 
A day with a night dive and a peak-performance buoyancy dive.

Well beside the obvious physical pain in my body by getting up that early in the morning, it was probably the best dive I've ever had. 

It's a completely unique feeling when you are descenting into dark water with only a flashlight to keep you just a little oriented. Well the most amazing thing of the dive was after a couple of minutes down hanging a few meters off the bottom, when a huge two and a half meter Sting Ray come gliding our of the water. One of the most incredible sights I have ever seen.

After that experience the next dive that day has to have a serious thrill to keep up, but none the less we really enjoyed ourself at the next dive, swimming through hoops under water and trying to establish good buoyancy  Piece of cake if you ask me.

With my PADI Advanced course completed I was going straight on to the PADI Rescue course. At first it took a lot of reading to get ready for exams and stuff, so that we could finally all get onto the fun part by splashing around in the water.

The rescue course is really one of the funniest courses you can take of all the PADI courses. Even picking a non-responsive diver up from the bottom, it really gives a lot of laugh. people passing by stopped just to look at seven crazy people swimming around, half of them giving their best efforts to act like panicked divers, and the other half trying to rescue them to the boat six feet away.

Anyway the course went great and I can now call myself a certified PADI Rescue Diver.

After that the rescue course I had a few days just working in the shop. Cleaning kits, reading and things like that, so I was really thrilled when I went on a dive at Abades again with Melissa, Dennis, Lydia and Mahmoud. We had three dives with Lydia leading and they all went great. 

Just swimming around looking at funny and pretty creatures with no stress at all. Abades Beach is a really chilled place to dive. Just to walk to a beach with sun bathing tourists and disappear into the waves to find a quiet world just outside reach of the regular sun tanners.

Yesterday I had a great dive. Dennis and me were doing our first mapping divers which we need for our PADI Divemaster certification. First we got a really nice tour around Alien Rock together with Pete, where we tried to draw our own maps. 

The next dive we had to find our own way around leading Pete who got lost for the first time at Yellow Mountain and had to rely on his two new favorite interns. But after all we led Pete safely back to his beloved little vessel and he could climb safely aboard. I'd like to say that we tried to calm him down and then sailed the boat back to shore and smoked cigarettes while Pete washed the kits,( Or was this all just a dream!!)

We went to help out at some pool sessions with some new costumers, preparing them to their first dive in three years. all in all it went quiet well and we all went to Yellow Mountain for three dives. 
We had three very good divers. spotted a lot of Cuttlefish and Common Octopus, aside from all the more regular, but still beautiful fish, at Yellow Mountain.

Well I think I'm gonna end my blog for this week, 'cause I'm in the lucky event of having my girlfriend being here to visit me for a few days, so at the moment I feel that I got more important things to do before my next day start tomorrow at seven. For a freaking wreck dive. That sounds pretty cool!

Hasta luego, which is Spanish for see you next week... Or something like that.

Andreas