Just what is "Only Fools and Horses"?

On Friday the 28th of June around 6 pm we, the Danish couple Malene and Theiss, two innocent and excited new Dive and Sea Tenerife-interns arrived at Terrazas de la Paz, only to find our new colleagues and employers sitting in the nearest bar, called Big Al's, having a cold beer after what seemingly had been a good day at the office - what a welcome!

Moreover, we were given our mandatory nicknames: Marleen and Boyce, which apparently have their origin in some obscure British television programme.

The next day we had our induction day, conducted by Will. We went through the "Induction Day Presentation Slides"; he then showed us around the place and we were presented with some of the many daily duties. We were immediately taught that all the gear, systems, plans and routines might well enough be idiot proof, but certainly not necessarily intern proof (or, for that matter, as we saw on the EFR practical part, instructor proof, but that's a different story all together...)

The first week on the Dive and Sea Tenerife Internship has been an exciting learning curve for the both of us, with new stuff to learn and remember being "thrown (though, gently and compassionately) in our faces" all the time.

Our very first dives on Tenerife were carried out on Sunday  in sites called Moon Pools and Los Abrigos Steps respectively together with all the other interns and on the instructor front Alice, Pete and Will. Unfortunately, the visibility (or simply, "vis") was not impressive, and the conditions were pretty rough. But on the plus side: it was good getting in the water again and we got to familiarize ourselves with some of the creatures commonly sighted here in Tenerife. These include: the colorful ornate wrasse, the very territorial damsel, the sneaky lizardfish, the excellently camouflaged wide-eyed flounder, the peculiar trumpet and puffer fish together with the elusive parrot fish.

In the afternoon we were introduced by Will to the art of demonstrating the Scuba Review skills, which we enjoyed - there's a lot to work on, but we'll definately get the hang of it sooner rather than later!

Monday Marleen went out to do an awesome dive at the Yellow Mountain site together with Ann and Pete, which was a lot of fun. Among other cool stuff they saw an octopus hiding in a tight crack. Theiss observed DSDs having their first pool session, which is always rewarding seeing people take their first few breaths under water.

Malene went to Las Eras with Paul, Chloe, Ann, Melissa and Will on Tuesday to do her Navigation and Fish ID dives as part of the PADI Advanced course. Unfortunately, they only got to do one dive due to rough conditions. A grim-looking barracuda and lots of fire worms crossed their wet path on a very nice shore dive! On this day, Theiss actually had the day off, but decided to meet in around noon to do his EFR-exams. Later on, we were introduced to the kit set-up for Discover Scuba Diving by Hannah and Eric, which went okay. Nonetheless, it's another thing to practice and improve on.

The next day we did the Deep Dive scenario in Poco Naufragio together with Trigger and Casandra both for the sake of Malene's PADI Advanced Course and for the other three's Divemaster.
We saw a very curious (and threatening) fangtooth moray. Theiss had his monster torch with him and was randomly probing cracks and holes, when this big fellah of a fangtooth put his head out, probably to let us know that we had disturbed him in his morning routines... or something.
Afterwards we hit Yellow Mountain, and during the very nice dive we made our way through the swim-through, which is simply stunning! You basically swim through this narrow overhang, where not much light enters, but as soon as you "hit the other site", you see trumpet fishes, damsel fishes and breams (among a lot of other species) going peacefully along with the rhythm of the underwater community, dictated primarily by the gentle but steady current - a must-experience, if you ever go to Tenerife for diving!

Later that day we did our EFR practical part together with Ann, Trigger and Casandra; it was very intense and dramatic, and it definately peaked when Trigger killed himself during a primary assesment of Malene's electrical shock injuries leaving Ann to rescue both those two and Theiss's broken arm. Meanwhile, Casandra's character was drunk and narced and annoying, which didn't really help Ann in her stressful situation. Poor Ann.

On the contrast, it definately didn't peak when Will desperately tried to start the AED only to find out that he hadn't connected the machinery to the main Tenerifean electricity network (instructor proof? Think again...).

On Thursday together with Trigger, Ann and Cas, Theiss did the confined Rescue divers skills which bascially teach you how to handle an injured (responsive or unresponsive) diver. It's a really fun and beneficiary course, so we enjoyed ourselves a lot. At the end of the day, we set up kit for the next morning's night dive.

We got up at the absolutely inhuman time of 4.30 in the morning on friday to do a night dive, which you have to have experienced as a Divemaster: We were a little tired, but also very excited. Ann went together with the rest of the interns, Will and Pete to Poco Naufragio to do a great night dive in excellent vis. Among the very special experience to dive in total darkness with only a flashlight to rely on for some light, we saw some sleepy puffers and a baby moray. Unfortunately, equipment trouble kept Malene out of this dive.

When we got to back to the Marina, Malene, Eric and Hannah did the kit and chillaxed, meanwhile the rest of us went out in open water to do our mandatory rescue scenarios. In the first scenario, the instructors (Melissa and Will) hid two conspicuously coloured object for us to find. Trigger and Theiss took a wee bit too long to get kitted up in the boat, but found the object very quickly.

Will then swapped in for the object and acted as the unresponsive diver, whom we brought up in a controlled manner and at a safe ascent rate. The second scenario consisted of finding an unresponsive diver at the surface and then bring him back to the boat while providing rescue breaths and undoing his kit. It was a pretty tough challenge but also a very good experience! Because of the early meeting in, we got off early in the afternoon.

On the following day we started off in the pool for the skills, supervised by Will and Melissa - we're definately progressing but there's still some way to go. Afterwards we went to the marina to get our stamina assesed in the 800 snorkel and the 100 tow.. Again, there's definately room for improvement!
Later on, we got to practice being in the boat handler role and get people kitted up and in the water - to summarize we had an excellent day where the mood was high and the jokes were flying about!

On Sunday Malene had her long-expected day off, while Theiss went to Abades with Paul, Chloe, Trigger, Hannah and Melissa. We had a couple of awesome shallow dives (5-8 m), where Hannah was leading and Melissa pointing out a lot of cool stuff, which included a baby cuttlefish, a cuttlefish fast asleep, beautiful anemones, octopus and even an eagle ray!!
It was a magnificent experience and especially the way the sun rays hit the colorful reefs on the second dive was simply breathtaking.

When we got back to the dive center we chillaxed a wee bit while having a RDP-session and practiced knots - simply a wonderful day!

Until now it's been hard work, but also great fun, and we're definately looking forward to proceed and improve.

As they say in Tenerife (and other Spanish speaking locations): Hasta la vista!

Boyce and Marlene