The 7th week of our internship in a brief recap.

With all of our skills and stamina tests finalized, it was now only some minor formalities that was left in our PADI Divemaster course. 

One of those was to observe an Open Water Diver course in open water, and we were so lucky that Steve joined us to do his. 

So we went to Arrecife with Will, Cassandra and Trigger to get that sorted out. Unfortunately, conditions were not ideal with bad visibility and swell causing the most troubles. 

One really nice thing about the dives was to see Steve's reaction when he spotted his first-ever  Atlantic damselfish. It absolutely blew his mind, and his enthusiasm was very refreshing as well as a reminder to oneself of how it was to get the first couple of dives in open water under the belt.

The following day Theiss went out to have arguably the best dive of his stay here in Tenerife.
He went to Las Eras for the first time together with Melissa, Marvin, Nemo, Bruce, Village, Susanne and Frankie, and they basically saw everything you can ask for and more in near perfect conditions with a visibility that was very close to being 30 m.

First and foremost, the group saw a common octopus hiding under a rock, and from there it just got better and better, with the sight of hermit crabs, a glasseye, a school of barracudas, a common eagle ray, a decent sized round stingray, a black moray eel and a couple of beautiful streaked gurnards.

Meanwhile, Malene was at Yellow Mountain to do her Navigation exercise and her Search and Recovery: again only small details that had to be sorted out before we could get signed off.

In the afternoon, we had Ulrich, Elin and Joost in the pool for their DSD programme, 

They did really well all of them, and were very eager to go in to open water.

And that happened the next day. The five of us went to Abades together with Melissa, Will, Trigger and Susanne. The visibility and swell near the shore was bad, but once we hit the reef, it turned out to be a couple of nice dives, where we saw a barracuda and a black moray.

On Thursday all of us (even Pete!) went in the pool in the morning to do a so called DSD workshop, where the instructors acted as simulated students to get us prepared to handle the most common mistakes we can encounter when conducting a DSD programme. It was a lot of fun and everybody had a laugh, which is always a good thing to enhance the team spirit. On a more serious note, we all learned something and we're definately better equipped now to conduct a successful programme.

On Friday we went to the marina, and the objective was to get some of the stamina tests out of the way for the new interns. Malene was observing Pearl's and Oz' Rescue Course (the confined part) together with Nemo.
Theiss was cleaning kit and because we didn't have any time schedule, as we normal have when washing kit, we could do it more thoroughly than usual. Also, the boat and the cars got washed.

Saturday was a sad day, because it was the very last day for Cassandra and Trigger.
We went to Poco Naufragio to do Richard's and Steve's deep speciality. On the first dive we, together with Cassandra, observed Richard doing his exercises on 27 metres of water conducted by Will, which went without a hitch. On the way down we were met by a couple of curious common stingrays. The little wreck was teeming with life, and once we got back onto the shelf we saw a black moray eel, so it was an excellent dive all in all. But, then, on the second dive it really picked up.

I led Nemo and his dad, Gary, on a jolly, a once we got down we saw three massive rays (two round stingrays; one roughtailed) circling the site casually. One of them even had a live sharksucker attached to itself, and since they a pretty rare, our theory is that it must have been the same individual we've seen a couple times there now.
That was simply breathtaking, and the magnificent animals kept appearing on the dive as we went on.

Come Saturday night we all went out in Las Américas, which was obviously a lot of fun and a great way to greet Cassandra and Trigger a proper farewell.

On Monday, Malene went to the pool with Melissa to help out with Allan, a new Open Water student.
In the afternoon, we had a new intern arriving, Graham, and Malene showed him around the place. 

I am a PADI DIVEMASTER

I can’t believe this has been my last week of my internship, and now I’m a PADI Divemaster! 
I started this week observing my Steve’s Open Water course at Gijarro Arecife with Gerado, Thiess and Malene.
On Tuesday we went to Las Eras, I’d never been there before and the first dive was amazing. I think it was one of the best dives I’ve done out here, the visibility was really good and we saw loads of things, including a massive shoal of barracuda and a streaked gunard.

We went diving at El Puertito. Susanne drove the jumpy there and we got a little bit lost on the way, which I thought was pretty funny. When we finally got there, we got in the water in search of the turtles. On the first dive we saw a turtle pretty much as soon as we descended and we sat and watched it for a while. On the second dive, we didn’t see turtles at first, but we saw an octopus and two cuttlefish, then we saw a turtle. We had a DSD workshop on Friday morning, when the instructors pretended to be awkward DSD participants which was really funny.
We went to the Marina afterwards, some interns did their stamina tests and CK and Oz started their Rescue Course and I was a stooge. I got to pretend to be a missing diver twice, and I didn’t get found for quite a while, it’s pretty lonely sitting at the bottom of the marina with only an ornate wrasse for company!

On Saturday, I did my final two dives which were both really good, especially the second dive.

The conditions on the surface were pretty bad, but it was completely worth it.  We saw three huge rays, one of them had a live sharksucker attached to it. I think it might have been the same sharksucker that we saw a couple of weeks ago, because it was in the same place and apparently they’re rare. We also saw two smaller rays, a moray eel, barracuda and shoals of cow bream and roncador.

I don’t think I could have had a better final dive!
In the afternoon, I timed a 400m swim for CK , and she’s improved her time which is good. Then, on Saturday night we went out to Las Americas because me, Gerado and Will are leaving.
I’ve enjoyed my internship here at Dive and Sea, but I’m really looking forward to going home and seeing my family, friends and my cat.

Thanks for having me Dive and Sea!

Mapping, Skills and lots of fishes..........

Our second week in the Dive and Sea Tenerife Divemaster Internship

On Monday it was Theiss' turn to have a full day off and Malene went in the pool together with Will to conduct a DSD-course. Afterwards the three of them went to the Yellow Mountain together with the DSD's dad, Alice, Casandra, Eric and Pete for some good diving. They dove the Crocodile Rock, which was a great experience for Malene, for whom it was the first time there. After the dives they had a RDP-session (basically how to plan dives within no decompression limits) and practiced knots needed to do the following Search and Recovery scenario.

The next day was a sunny and a hot day, but then again, we don't have many bad days here! We went on the boat to Yellow Mountain with Cassandra, Trigger, Alice and David. Alice and Dave were in for a couple of fun dives; the rest of us had an exciting objective: To map Alien Rock.

Eric was on boat cover and he got Alice and David in the water without any problems. Pete then gave us a basic introduction to underwater mapping techniques. The procedure is to assign one diver to taking spot depths, another to do compass bearings, and have the last two to count kick cycles (distance). That went really well and we went in on another dive along the exact same route to swap roles and to double check the results from the first dive. As we went along we drew a simplified map which had to include recognizable features. These were our starting point, which is a small "valley", where the anchor is situated, and going out from there you have sand on your right hand and rocky features on your left. After a couple of minutes you'll eventually hit Alien Rock which is a massive boulder rising up in front of you. It's a spectacular view and on this day we had about 25 m of visibility, which we didn't mind at all. Diving along the northern edge of the rock, you'll then do a right hand turn approx. 90 degrees. At this point you're basically faced with a kind of naturally formed gateway and the sight is simply breathtaking (which then again might not be the most fitting expression for a scuba experience): Alien Rock seems to almost grow into another massive rock, though the most of the overhang that once combined the to features now lie on the sea floor and has transformed into the home and habitat of many different fish species (like damsels, wrasses and trumpet fishes), morays, beautiful anemones, small reef lobsters and octopi.

On Wednesday the 4 of us went to Yellow Mountain again, this time to do the Search and Recovery scenario. Our main objective was to find a hidden object using a certain search pattern, and then lifting it to the boat using a liftbag, which was a challenging and fun experience! In the afternoon we went in the pool to polish our Scuba Review Skills.

On Thursday we all had to go though a medical, which is required to act as a PADI Divemaster. We "slept in" because we weren't due to meet before 9 o'clock. And we think that was welcomed by all of us. Afterwards we hit the pool to practice and asses our 400 meter swim. The rest of the day we chillaxed in the shop with some small tasks and did the daily jobs.

On Friday we had a day off. We basically stayed in and tried to sort out some Divemaster stuff etc.

The following day, Malene went to Abades for the first time with Hannah, Cassandra, Will, Melissa and James (a DSD). They had some wonderful dives, and a little competition was established between the girls: Who could spot the most species during the two dives. Abades is abundant with both small and bigger aquatic life forms, so it was a perfect site to do this and good practice as well to recognize the most common species.

Theiss went with the other guys (Trigger, Pete (boat), Eric, Alice and Davied) to El Delfin. We don't go there very often because in order to dive the site safely, the conditions has to be near perfect. And they were on this day. It's a massive rock sitting very lonesome in the deep blue, but at the same it's pulsating with life. We went down to approx. 20 m, and then swam towards the rock. When we hit the site, we saw a small eagle ray seaching for food in the sea grass. It didn't take notice of us at all, so we just watched it for a little moment while he was doing his ray-things, you know whatever a ray gotta do. Buoyed emotionally we went a long and probed the many cracks and holes. Doing this we saw a couple of very shy red reef lobsters and a Glasseye infected by large Isopods. Curious Trigger fishes were following us and one of them even tried to manhandle Alice's torch. Bad Trigger fish!

After an awesome dive at El Delfin, we went to Star Fish Bay, a small boat ride away. That was simply a depressing sight. The long spined black sea urchins have more or less conquered all the cracks and potential hiding places on this site leaving it a very desolate place. Eric and Theiss got a little bit carried away stabbing and killing as many individuals of this invasive species as possible, so Alice had to rattle fiercely to get us to follow the group. But Star Fish Bay is definitely a good candidate for a future Project AWARE dive.

Back at the shop we had a session of sale techniques with Pete, and that definitely created some hilarious situations.

On Sunday the whole team went for three jolly boat dives, which we all enjoyed. First site was El Delfin, following more or less the same route as the other day. We saw morays and a decent sized round stingray chillaxing on the sea bed. Next stop was the Pipeline. It's only the bases from the pipeline that are left, but it's lot of fun to probe the small spaces beneath them. We saw some pretty big roughtailed stingrays hiding in the sand underneath some of these bases. Moreover we saw a baby black moray, flat crabs and big schools of breams. We had two excellent dives here before returning home. Hannah and Eric are now officially Divemasters, so congrats to them!

In the afternoon (guess what?) the four of us (Trigger, Cassandra and us), the aspiring and hopeful Divemaster interns, went to the pool to do the demonstration skills.

It's been a good week with a great atmosphere around the place. Meanwhile, we are starting to get the hang of the different routines of the place, so hopefully in a week or so we can act as decent mentors to the new interns arriving.

Chat next Time

Theiss & Malene

Una realmente corta!

Adal aka Gary

Esta semana ha sido realmente corta porque trabajé en mis labores educativas lunes, martes y viernes y además no tuve que ir el jueves porque me dieron día libre.

Al fin terminé los capítulos de mi libro de aventuras y el miercoles fuimos a Pequeño Valle y Moon Pools con una pareja Alemana Jan (instructor y Eleonora y tuvimos unos magnificas y relajadas inmersiones, el primero fue especial para Jan ya que con esa inmersión hizo las 400 y pudimos ver un chucho y vimos como Alice despertó a una manta raya que estaba cubierta de arena y muchas otras cosas porque la visibilidad era excelente y disfrutamos el recorrido por estos increíbles lugares.
El Sábado tuvimos 2 irlandeses Niall y Emmet que realizaron su Discover Scuba Diving (DSD)  y mi primera vez con Alice y Emelyne en la piscina impartiendo un DSD. Después de la sesión en la piscina y como Emelyne iba a recibir a su tío, fuimos a la Marina Pete, Alice, los irlandeses y yo, para sus primeras inmersiones en Montaña Amarilla.

El domingo para empezar el día Alice, Emelyne y yo fuimos a la piscina para prácticar nuestras skills(habilidades???) durante un rato. Yo ceo que lo hicimos bastante mejor que la primera vez que fuimos a la piscina, pero aún nos falta bastante para hacerlas correctamente, y hay tantas cosas en mi lista de cosas por hacer para llegar a ser Divemaster, pero se conseguirá llegado el momento ;).

Después de ir a la piscina Melissa nos llevó a Abades y mientras nos preparábamos para las inmersiones Alice encontró un nuevo apodo para mi Gary Pineapple, o dicho de otra manera Gary Piña, porque se me ocurrió la brillante idea de hace una cola con el pelo en la parte superior de mi cabeza, en vez de en la parte posterior.

Otra cosa que sucedió mientras nos preparábamos para las inmersiones fue que nos tocó caminar por el parking durante un rato, de una manera extraña y algo alocada, mirando nuestras brújulas e intentando que no nos atropellaran coches, porque íbamos a realizar nuestra inmersión de navegación.

Realizamos dos inmersiones allí, en la primera Alice lidero la mitad de la inmersión y Emelyne nos llevó de vuelta al punto de encuentro nos indicó Alice al principio de la inmersión, esa también fue nuestra inmersión de identificación de pescados (FID) en la que pudimos ver viejas (parrotfish), fulas negras (blue-fin damselfish), fula blanca(atlantic damselfish), sargos blancos (white bream), chopas (black bream), pejeverdes (ornate wrasse), lagartos (Diamond lizardfish), lagarto (Atlantic lizardfish), gallinitas (sharpnose buffer), tamboriles (bandtail buffer), tapacubos (wide-eyed flounder), estrellas (blue starfish), cangrejo araña (arrow crab), abanico/peineta (spiny fan-mussel), holoturias/pingaburros (cotton spinner), gusanos de fuego (fire sworms), erizos de mar comunes (sea urchins), and much more.

Otra cosa a nombrar fue también que ese día Emelyne y yo hicimos nuestro primer intento a hacer la presentación previa a la inmersión briefing, espero de verdad que llegue a parecerse más, porque tendremos que trabajar bastante porque nos faltaron bastantes cosas que decir y también tener en cuenta el orden adecuado.
De cualquier manera los dos lideramos por primera vez lideramos una inmersión correctamente, no como la parte de la inmersión de navegación en que por una de mis mal interpretaciones y alguna de Emelyne, la liamos un poco, de cualquier manera fueron unas magnificas inmersiones en las que vimos bastantes peces, con buena visibilidad y también la locura que significa ver por primera vez un club de buceo o lo que fuera que fue, teniendo algún momento con algo de masificación subacuatica en nuestra segunda inmersión.

Esta semana fue bastante buena en la que los clientes fueron muy agradables y ayudaban y también una semana extraña porque estaré fuera durante casi 2 semanas, porque después del lunes y martes en mis labores docentes, me voy unos días a Madrid y mi primer viaje al África continental, visitando Marruecos hasta el día 29 de marzo.

Adal aka Gary aka Gary Pineapple ;)

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

PADI Advanced course and more Dolphins

So, that was already my third week and I accomplished a lot this week.

Since this week I am a PADI Advanced Open Water Diver, I got my Navigation Specialty, my Fish Identification Specialty and I only need one more deep dive to get my Deep Diver Specialty.
I got my 60th dive this week, I saw dolphins and I was finally able to dive with the stingray.

Tuesday was actually my first time ever to have 3 dives in a day.
The first dive was Pequeño Valle and I saw a beautiful Common Eagle Ray. The second dive was at El Delphin, this dive site got this name because there is a Dolphin statue on the bottom of the sea. .  And the third dive was at Starfish Bay, and you all can guess how this dive site got its name.
And finally after searching and searching I found the Garden Eels, Sam told me about this eels and I didn’t see them on the dive where he saw them a few times. So it was really nice to finally see them, they’re really funny. They stick out of the sand and when you swim closer you can actually see their eyes and everything but when they notice you, they quickly hide in the sand.

The next day I had 2 very nice dives at Yellow Mountain and Crocodile Rock, at the first dive I was using natural references to sort of lead the dive with Pete. And we had a beautiful ending of those 2 dives. We saw the dolphins and it was awesome to see them, all the customers were very happy, and so were Pete, Alice, Sam and I.
That was a very special moment of the day. But unfortunately this day has a less good side as well, this day my mommy and stepdad went back to Holland and I was really sad to see my mommy leave, but I’m a big girl.

Thursday was a very, very, very nice day. We only had 1 customer Matt so we only had to prepare 4 kits and there were just 8 tanks and washing only 4 kits. We had 2 great dives at Abades, it was Sam’s first time to lead a dive so that was exiting, but it was sad that he got a bit lost. Lucky for him Melissa was there to point him the right direction and I’m sure next time will be better.

The dives themselves were great, we saw a Fangtooth Moray Eel and a Hermite Crab with a very big shell. We also saw a Frog fish, first I thought it was a crab but it was a fish. Unfortunately the Frog fish wasn’t really interested in being photographed. Melissa, Matt and Sam saw a lot more great things but I was focused on a very cute Pearly Razor fish. The dives really were very nice, I liked seeing the Cardinal fish because I don’t see them a lot and I always enjoy seeing Wide-eyed Flounders.

The next day wasn’t so easy, Sam and I had to draw a map of Crocodile Rock. My map really failed, if someone would ever use it they would get lost. They would probably end up in Cran Granaria. Sam's  map looked way better than mine, even though I wouldn’t use that one either!

But we did have a very funny pool session. Pete took Sam and me to the pool so that Hannah could practice her Discover Scuba Diver skills towards students. So we pretended to be students and we had never dived before. So Hannah was trying to teach us skills and Pete, who was behind her, signaled Sam or me to do the skill wrong. So we kept doing it wrong until Pete signaled ’OK’. Apparently there are really students like we pretended to be.
It was a lot of fun and it was very helpful as well.
Sam and I definitely saw a lot of water today because we also had to do an 800 meter swim.

Saturday we were diving at Poco Naufragio and this time I could go deeper than 18 meters, so I could look at the Stingray. It came really, really close and I could touch it very carefully. I specially took my gloves off so that I could feel the Stingray too.

And Sunday I had a day off again. I finished my Rescue book, made my Emergency Action Plan and I gave my map another try but that didn’t really work out.

Lyida

Leading Dives and living with an Australian Girl !

This week started with me being in charge for this week and it didn’t get of to the best start with being a busy day there was a lot to try to make sure it was getting done.

So we went for a nice relaxing dive in the morning at Abades as the next group of  interns were doing there induction.
This would be the first dive I have done with the new Divemaster, Gaz, that was back for being an intern last year, and out here to complete his PADI Instructors course.
 
There was a lot more people in the shop due to the new interns arriving and Hayley, Will, Jamie, Gaz and me were down at the marina for a while after cleaning kit. I learned a valuable life lesson that barnacles are much sharper that you might think, and if you were to jump into a marina don’t push against something covered in them unless you think it might be fun to limp around for a few days with a sore foot!

Alex and me were spending a day trying to get though a lot of the skills for our Divemaster course so it was sure to be a very busy day.
So we were straight in the pool with Pete to go through our skill sets. The skills went ok but I think I could have done a bit better with some things.

Then we did our 400m swim and I got my fastest time yet so I was happy with that, and then we did the treading water for 15 minute's. Now this I had never tried before and it was quite a bit harder that I thought it was going to be but it was over soon enough.

Then it was of to do our 800m snorkel and 100m tow.

The week finished with a shore dive with Alex, Todd, Jess, Hayley, Melissa and me at Abades. And I suspected that Alex and me would be leading these dive and my suspicion turned out to be true with Alex leading the first dive and me leading the second.

Although it was just four of us that were on the second dive , the dive went ok and we didn’t get lost but we did have a bit two long of a surface swim to get to and from are descent and assent points.

So its just me and Hayley in the apartment now that Matt has departed for the UK, but has been great sharing with an Australian and I am learning lots of new things !

Foster