Sharks, Drinks and Mountains

Boom! I haven't had a lot of dives this week, but the ones I had was some of the most awesome dives ever!

I had a couple of days off, more of that later, first onto the actual dives of this week.

My first dive this week was at Abades. It was just Mahmoud, Dennis, Lydia and me.
I spend my whole morning in our balcony under a blanket, eating doughnuts  spilling coffee and pumping cigarettes. Then we went to the shop, prepared our kits and went to Abades.
There was nearly no visibility at all and we were to lead one dive each. I know I've been at Abades a couple of times before, but I've never really figured the site out.



Anyway, we went there and it actually went well. When we descended the visibility was somewhere in between zero and nothing, but I of course used my enormous wisdom of tides, waves, surf and surge to figure out that if we went into the reefs the visibility would be better.

To my surprise it worked and we had a great dive. We saw three Cuttlefish at the same time. All entangled in each other and swimming around. Pretty cool.
Of course after swimming around all over the place with me being really confused about our position, but me playing it cool, we actually surfaced two or three meters from the place where we descended. Nice one.

On our third dive, which Mahmoud was leading, we were down a bit longer so we spent the last five or six minutes just playing around. It was probably like seeing a couple of children seeing a scuba-kit for the first time. Just until we saw some other divers heading our way.
Mahmoud was quick to signal and write on his slate that we needed to look pro.
In those minutes no diver in the world has ever looked and acted that professional under water as we did.

Then we had some days of and after that a new dive at Abades. This time with a Dutch customer replacing Dennis. You could say a lot about this dive, but really everything would be nothing compared to the one and single fact that I SAW AN ANGEL SHARK!!!

I saw a freaking shark! Not just far away or out of the corner of my eye, I saw the shark swimming and we all started following it to see more of it.
Unfortunately no one got a really good picture of it and therefore of course no one will actually believe it because everyone will be too jealous to recognize it. anyway. I SAW A SHARK!
All in all that dive was pretty awesome 'cause we didn't just see an ANGEL SHARK!
We also saw Cuttlefish, Morays  Cardinal fish, Octopus, Pearly Razor fish, Scorpion fish, Atlantic Wrasse and much much more.

When that is said, the first dive we had that day was actually pretty cool too. We swam along the shore from Abades Beach, which I've never tried before, and I kinda liked the new site. At this single dive we managed to see five Cuttle fish which of course is always a good thing.

This week I also passed my PADI Divemaster exam which was a relief and I did my 400 meter stamina test. That went pretty well. I guess I've never been the best swimmer in the world and when I first got here and did the practise 400 meter swim my time was without doubt one of the worst ones Dive & Sea has ever seen 15-something for swimming 400 meters... Yeah I know, pretty bad.
Well at least I improved and my final time was 9 minutes and 30 seconds so that is not all bad.



Now we just need the other stamina test and the skills in the pool, then I'm a PADI Divemaster.........  Yeah and well some more dives, but still.

This week I also had a couple of days off. The first evening after work I spend with my buddy Dennis, making Los Christianos and Playa De Las Americas a dangerous place to be. I can't remember the last time I had such a serious night out. Name a bar in Las Americas and we've been there. As I recall it, we ended up taking a taxi to Adeje or something to find ourself in at a very large and very local salsa disco. For two people who've studied Spanish for three years each, it is incredible how little Spanish they speak what must have been between two and six hundred beers. We had a great time and ended up sleeping in the sofas in our balcony.
Next day (gladly after our hangover) we all went out to dinner back in Adeje. I really enjoyed that and it was nice seeing everybody off work for one evening.

The day after that Dennis, Lydia, Mahmoud and me cocked-up big time. at one o clock we decided to climb a mountain we've been looking at for quite some time. Unfortunately instead of taking a bus, we decided on walking there. Well to make a very long story short, we got there around five thirty and after walking for five and a half hour we would give up at the foot of the mountain even though the sun was about to go down.
We decided to climb the mountain as fast as possible and the run down. Well of course skilled mountaineers like us made it to the top, but only to see the sun go down and us standing on the top of a huge mountain in complete darkness.
It took us more than 4 hours to find just a somewhat safe path down, only after hanging in darkness on a vertical cliff side with nothing to hold onto but a small rock, a flimsy branch or a cactus.
When we finally got down we were in the middle of nowhere with cuts and bruises and had to walk to the nearest ghost town called El Roque, just to find everything closed.

No need to say that Pete and Melissa wasn't glad to see us in the shop without any sleep next morning.
Let's never do that again, not in the dark anyway.

Well that's all for this week so
May the force be with you young padawan