On Monday Theiss met in at 10 am; Malene went to Abades with Trigger, Alice, Melissa and Cat, as part of the latter's Advanced course. They all had a couple of good dives, though with a rough entry and exit due to windy conditions, and despite of the not very impressive visibility, they saw a lot of cool stuff including a stingray and Malene enjoyed helping and buddying up with Cat.
Meanwhile, Theiss was helping Eric out with his epic rack-project, and to put it mildly, it turned out to be the most beautiful and solid rack we've ever put our eyes on...
In the afternoon, Malene did the monthly equipment check with Alice, and she enjoyed having a peek at how the equipment, we use every day, actually works and what it consists of.
Theiss went to Abades later that day together with Melissa, Hannah, Eric, Cassandra and Will. The conditions were way better in the afternoon and we had some very recreational recreational dives that both included skipping as well as limboing on a deserted rope stuck in the seabed in the company of the usual suspects of the Tenerifean aquatic life.
The next day we both went on a shore dive again, this time closer to "home": And the site simply provided all you could wish for. With Alice as the leader we, together with Casandra and Trigger, went along the left side of the small bay that encloses the beach, with the marina wall on the right hand side. Amongst the all-time present fish species, we saw a beautiful sea nettle anemone, black moray eels, a spiny fan-mussel, an annulated brittle star, cuttlefishes, octopuses and a big stingray - simply an abundance of interesting marine life, big as well as small!
In the afternoon, Theiss went to the hotel pool with Alice and Eric. There was a decent amount of interest, but it's always hard to tell whether or not it is serious. Theiss acted out the salesman-role, which he enjoys a lot. At the same time, Malene went to the marina beach once again, this time joined by Will, Trigger, Hannah and Cassandra in the hopes of replicating our excellent morning dives, but alas, that was not the way it was supposed to go. All points of interest from earlier that day weren't that interesting anymore, and all luck seemed to have let them down, so they were bitterly disappointed, especially Hannah and Will, who weren't around for the morning spoils.
Wednesday and Thursday were pretty similar in terms of our activity around the place. The days were packed with exciting fish quizzes, monthly/weekly duties, skill set sessions in the pool, with focus on the spoken skills, stamina tests and we got to familiarize ourselves really well with the content of the stack of magazines on the shop table.
On Friday we went with our snorkel equipment to a small beach nearby together with Cassandra and Trigger to do some urchin stabbing, but the conditions didn't allow that to happen. Instead of just heading home, we decided to conduct a 100% Project AWARE behavior by cleaning up the beach, and we managed to collect a decent amount of rubbish. The beach is situated near a frequented path, and is a popular place to go for moonlight and sunset sightings, so a lot of trash had piled up there.
Friday evening, Nemo and Bruce (aka. Will and Alister), two of the new interns, joined the rest of the crew for a very casual and chillaxing night out at an Indian curry place in San Blas.
The following day it was Malene's birthday, and what a blast it was! She finally went out to see the turtles in El Purtito, together with Melissa, James, Matt, Cassandra and Kathy, and the dives exceeded everyone's expectations. On their second dive while enjoying the gentle company of the "local inhabitants", meaning the beautiful turtles, a simply massive butterfly ray suddenly appeared from the sand just underneath the small group, and the sight was stunning - what a birthday present from Mother Nature!
In the afternoon Theiss went to the hotel pool with Alice and Trigger. The high season is quite clearly picking up and hence there was a lot of positive interest in our free Try Dive offer. It was very busy, and we actually had to disappoint some people, because we simply didn't have the time for everyone to try. Hopefully some of the holiday guests that did get to do it have now got taste for diving, so we hope to see some of them again.
In the evening we gathered in the shop for a piece of cake and a glass of sparkling wine, which was a perfect start to a lovely night out. We started out in a delicious tapas place very originally (and ingeniously) called "Tapas". Afterwards we hit a couple of the many bars in San Blas and ended up having an awesome time in a place called Taboo's for some games of pool, one liter pitchers of beer and a lot of dancing.
The Divemaster skill set was warmly embraced as a rich source of inspiration for an entire list of new dances, and especially the dance of the Five Point Descend might turn out to be the new theme dance of the Dive and Sea Tenerife.
Theiss and Malene
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