Sad Goodbye's and Happy Hello's.......

Yep, I survived next week :D some people left us but someone just started his internship.
That was a week with one new person - Graham started his internship on Monday.
We called him a Tin Man ;) we started this week without Mel and Gerardo – oh, I miss that guy - very helpful and friendly person. Actually he was the first one who could understood my language :p during the week Melana and Theiss left us also.

To sum up it was good week for me I made some new dives at different areas  all of the dives were from the boat. I don’t have a problem with roll back entry anymore. Also my seasickness disappeared !!

On Monday we were at Yellow Mountain. My buddy was Dori. The dive leader was Pete. We had a chance to do some mapping and on the second dive we killed some black long-spined sea-urchin. That was fun and I used knife for the first time. This day I tried to dive with 7 kilos and was practising my air consumption.

In the afternoon Pete took us for the third dive. I was excited because all day went were smooth. My buddy was CK she is also like me a baby diver. She was after her night dive so she was a bit tired. She wasn’t able to do roll back entry in to the water. She panicked and Alistar (boat cover) decided that we are not diving. I missed my dive but I still did two dives

We spend most of the day in the marina. Me and CK were cleaning the anchor and a boat together with Sam and Alistar. Back in the shop I pass my Rescue Diver exam. It was quite hard one for me but I scored it with 98%  :D.

Two awesome dives at Poco Naufragio and El delfine. At Poco Naufragio my buddy was Alistar. The dive leader was Alice. I saw three stingrays. Two of them were huge and one of it was near me and in front of my face. What a great feeling and possibility to see them. Stingrays are really friendly but if you are on top of them they can sting you. During that dive I saw also two moray eels black and fangtooth one.
The second dive was at El delfin. It was a deep dive. We were at 26 metres for 28 minutes. I was there for the first time. We did not descent by using the anchor rope. New experience for me as well. I saw some fireworms. Actually Alistar drove a picture for me. Now I know how the fireworms look like ;)

I had a day off. I was sleeping till 10am :D made some shopping and cleaning the apartment. On Friday I was expecting the guest (Marta – my best friend from Poland). I went for a lovely dinner to Los Abrigos. I eaten the best and the biggest fish ever  I cannot remember the name because it was in Spanish unfortunately.
In  the evening we went for a dinner to some Mexican restaurant to say good bye to Melana and Theiss. It was good night but sad one. I will miss those people. Great couple. Melana was my little hero. She started as a baby diver and at the end of her internship she was one of the best. She was a queen of kit set up :D

Day of skills.
That day we were in the swimming pool all day long. We practised underwater skills. I cleared and remove my mask once again. What is more I had also swum without mask and with open eyes for 15 metres. That was awesome. I am awesome to be honest ;) and I am really proud of myself. After few times it is not as that scary at it was at the beginning. Practise makes you better!!
My hover is a disaster. That is one of the skills that need to be practise.
In the evening Marta came. It was really nice to see my friend and speak Polish :D

Two more dives at Yellow Mountain but this time with Melissa as a leader. We had a lovely young girl with us Jenny. She was practising her Open Water course. She has done well. She had some problems with pivot because of the strong currents but rest of the skills she done good.
During the second dive I consumed only 60 bars of air in 24 minutes. That is a good result. I noticed that when I am much more relaxed underwater I consumed less air. I found my recipe! Now I need to practise how to be chill underwater :D

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. 

Rescue courses, Diving and a bit of a bad day !!

The following is a recap of our fifth week on the Dive and Sea Tenerife Internship. On our Induction Day we were told that we halfway through our internship would have one bad day, where everything that could go wrong would go wrong.. And certainly, this whole week has been an emotional rollercoaster ride with ups and downs.

On Monday Malene went to Abades along with Trigger, Pearl, Nemo, Bruce and Melissa to lead her first couple of dives, so it was a big day for her. She gave a more or less perfect brief and the dives went really well, even though she was going way too fast on the first one. This is a very common mistake, because you're so obsessed of navigating, that you completely forget that you have a group of recreational divers behind you. On the second dive, however, she paced herself very well and she pointed a lot of interesting things out, including a beautiful octopus, so altogether it was very rewarding for her.

Meanwhile, Theiss went to Yellow Mountain together with Cassandra, Village, Dory, Will and Fruzsina, a Hungarian/Danish girl, who joined us this week for some great diving together with her boyfriend Johannes. And as always, the dive site of Yellow Mountain didn't let us down on this terrific day. We plumbed in as usual on what was going to be one of the most awesome dives, Theiss has done in Tenerife. Will led the small group of divers on the Swim-Through route, and once we hit "the main attraction", an amazing sight hit us: a big school of barracudas were circling the top of the swim-through rock, and with the sun in the background it was the perfect stage for Will's photographic skills to onfold. Buoyed (metaphorically speaking, obviously) by this amazing experience, we went along and as a very nice bonus a couple of octopi and a common stingray even crossed our "path" as well! The next dive to and around Alien Rock was also very, very pleasant, but even though we did see another octopus and a striped trumpetfish, the first dive was completely overshadowed by the second one.

On Tuesday, both of us went to Yellow Mountain, where Fruzsina and Pearl did the first part of the Peak Performance Buoyancy dive conducted by Will. Meanwhile, Theiss led Malene, Dory and Bruce on a lovely jolly dive going to the swim-through, admitted in the hope of getting a glimpse of another (or the same) school of barracudas, which obviously was a bit to much to expect. And true enough, the barracudas were gone, but that didn't stop us from having yet another wonderful dive. Among the classics of the local aquatic life, we saw a school of needlefish circling the surface just on the other side of the swim-through, an octopus, a baby eagle ray, red backed cleaner shrimp and an annulated brittle star. Actually, we were so preoccupied by exploring and enjoying our ourselves that we only just managed to do our safety stop and get on the boat in time. A decent sized cuttlefish crossed our path in the end of the dive, and that just wrapped it all up. Afterwards, we were observing the second part of the Peak Performance Buoyancy.

In the afternoon, it was hotel pool time, so we packed up all our stuff and headed to Hotel. Will and Theiss was once again in the pool, the latter one acting as a substitue for Alice. The high season is upon us, and we can really feel that when we go to the pool.

Last Wednesday, where Catherine and Andrew along with their two children, Phoebe and Inigo did their DSD experience with us. Phoebe and Catherine had a week or so earlier done the Free Try Dive with us at the Hotel, and they really got the taste for it then, so they decided to bring the rest of the family. They were joined on the boat with Theiss, Nemo, Dory, Will and Pete. Due to some pretty rough afternoon conditions, a little bit of seasickness unfortunately hit the little family, but despite that they seemed to have a very good time.

At this point of the week, everything was running smoothly, but then, on this day, a lot of silly rookie mistakes were made, and they snowballed during the day causing a lot of extra, unnecessary work for ourselves at the end, so we had a very long debrief in order for this not to happen again.

Luckily for her, Malene was off until 7 p.m., because she was finally doing her night dive, this time from the shore of Abades. She has built up a lot of confidence since her last try failed, so she was very excited, and a little bit nervous, for this experience. Will was leading his father, Bill, who's joined us for this week to do his Rescue Diver and some specialities, Nemo, Bruce and a couple of interns from another dive center, Chris and Cassy. The first dive they did was just a "normal" day light dive, with the following being the actual night dive. On the first dive they saw a fangtooth moray, whis was really cool. It seems to us that the black moray is much more frequent, so it's always wicked to spot the yellow cousin. On the following dive, simply the experience of diving in the dark was the main experience even though they did see some very nice things, including a golden spotted snake eel and a cuttlefish.

On Thursday we got to stay in until 2 pm, because we were going to the marina, to do the confined part of the Rescue Course: Malene as an actual participant and Theiss as an observer/stuge. It's a very enjoyable course, so everyone had a lot of fun while doing it. But once again, during some stages of the day it seemed like everyone of the interns had left their brains back home resulting in a lot of mistakes being made and a lot of things forgotten, like the tool box.

On Friday we were both off, so we decided to go to Las Américas to stroll around and shop a little bit.

The following day, Malene was off to Las Eras along with Johannes, Fruzsina, Bill, Nemo and Melissa. Due to a rough surf and swell, they decided only to do one of the planned two dives.
The local trigger fishes acted as crazy as the ocean on this day being very offensive and curious, which was a lot of fun nonetheless for the little group.

Theiss started out in the morning by going into the pool together with Cassandra and Bruce to observe Will conducting some of the confined parts of the Open Water Diver course. The OWD student was George (Giorgios), a Greek fellah, who's joined us to do his entry level certification. He was a natural and did very well on his pool skills, so that was a joy to watch.

In the afternoon we went to the Hotel, and we were once again the center of all the attention in and around the pool during our 1 hour session. Some of the interest seemed very genuine, but as always it's impossible to tell whether or not some of the participants actually decides to join us for some diving.

Sunday turned the streak of bad days around, so it was nice to get the week wrapped up in a good manner nonetheless. Theiss was in at 6 a.m. to be on boat cover for Pete, Will, Bill, Village and Dory for their night dive at Poco Naufragio. Afterwards, we were joined by Malene, Nemo and Bruce to do the open water scenario for the ongoing rescue course. It's very amusing to be a part, because the course puts the students on the edge and it's actually pretty physically demanding.

In the afternoon we went to the pool to run through the skill set together with Nemo, Dory and Village. It's been a long time since we've done them, so we both felt a little bit rusty, but we managed to introduce most of the underwater skills for the new ones in a neat manner. All three of them did well, and we're sure that they will pick it up sooner rather than later.

Afterwards, we chillaxed in the shop doing some daily jobs and proposed some upbeat song tracks for the new car CDs. So all things considered, we got the week well overwith and had a nice conclusion to it after all.

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

The Return from Marroco, back to training as Divemaster

The Return from Marroco
Adal aka Gary aka Gary Pineapple

This was another short week as I arrived on Friday and only could go to work two days.

As I arrived to Tenerife on Friday from my holiday, back to the glorious sunshine and as some friends wanted to go for a short walk on the Anaga Mountains, after landing, just a moment to leave my luggage at home and them just gone for the walk from Restaurant Casa Carlos to Taborno and back to the Restaurant, in the North of the Island

Nice walk, nice views and relaxing time to go for the rest of the week and recover some strength to go back to the work.

So on Saturday we started with a pool session with Simon, Connor, Deborah and Lucy from Brighton doing their Discover Scuba Diving experience with Pete, Alice, Sam and I.  The guys did really well and are already avid snorkelers, the girls were happy with the pool session, but decided to just opt for a boat ride out.

Later on Simon, Connor, Alice and I dived at Yellow Mountain and they enjoyed their dive, and Deborah and Lucy enjoyed their trip in the boat so it was good. As usual it was plenty off fish, some funny trumpet fish received as, the little sharpnose puffers and bandtail puffers going around, pass close to the garden eel and they enjoyed the dives.

This was my first full DSD from the beginning to the end with the dives acting as an Assistant I am looking forward to being able to teach the Discover Scuba Diving experience myself .

On Sunday we have a couple of Dives one in Alien Rock and another in Crocodile Rock with Molly and Dan, from USA, but living in London, Jean Pierre from Belgium and Che from UK, Alice lead the dives and I was Sam’s buddy. The dives were really relaxing and you could see some of those reefs and quite a lot of fish including an octopus and a few red-backed cleaner shrimp and also was able to realise how does the black-long spined sea urchings destroys the environment for other species.

Later on just common things from a normal day, and also my second timing with 400 meters swim, which I really have to improve from here to the finishing of the internship.
It looks like I still messing with the rope of the boat, but at least I’m doing much better with the anchor.

It was a good experience to meet Sam, a Spanish Divemaster that did his internship two years ago and is working on London and return to enjoy the sunshine and diving feelings. Good talks and another hard worker.

Also to say good bye to Sam, Peter an I went for a beer, as Sam was leaving before Wednesday when I’ll return to the diving duties. Peter is a new intern that will began on Monday  from now on nicknamed Patrick that is young to just retire from his previous duties.

Still Reading the Rescue Diver book, hope I’ll finish soon so I can work with the First Response, swimming and other skills I have to improve in those weeks. Anyway, improving, but a long way to go ;).

And I think this is it for now,
 Take care and good luck,
Adal aka Gary aka Gary Pineapple ;)

Night Diving WOW! Oh and im a Rescue Diver :-)

PADI Open Water - Check

PADI Advanced Open Water - Check
Emergency First Resonder - Check

PADI Rescuediver - Check

PADI Divemaster - Not quite there yet.

Woah, time really flies by here. One of the few indications that I´ve been here for quite some time, is the fact that my pale (practically fluorescent) butt, appears whiter by the minute, whilst the rest of my body is getting a healthy tan!

"Blog icebreaker" - Check!!

I finished my PADI Advanced Open Water this week. Had some truly mind shaking dives. Especially the night dive was one to remember.

We got up around 04:00, zombie walked down to the shop and arrived at 05:15, prepared the kits and drove off into the night. 
Im quite sure that my brain was still sleeping this whole time - but it certainly came back to life the minute i back rolled off "Cometa Chica", and into the chilly blue.

We all meet up by the front of the boat, and began our slow descent into what seemed like nothing at all. The only source of light was our torches and, besides from the bubbly sound in my ears, the water was pretty much as quiet as it was dark.

At one point i actually forgot that I was diving, and that the soft pressure I felt all over, was actually caused by water. I felt like I was flying, weightlessly through space.

As we got deeper, the darkness seemed thicker and more dense.

All of the sudden, out of the darkest of dark, sporadicly illuminated by our torches, came the very stuff that many an old sea-dogs tale is based upon: The biggest Ray that I´ve ever seen, swooped elegantly towards us. 
At moments like this, when you fortunate enough to be around to see these amazing sights, its hard to believe your eyes!

Besides from my night dive, I had an additional 4 adventure dives: Peak Performance buoyancy dive , Navigation dive, Deep dive and Fish identification dive.

The peak Performance Buoyancy dive, consisted of some fairly easy exercises  hoovering for a couple of minutes and swimming through a couple of hoops without adjusting your buoyancy through your BCD.

The navigation dive went great as well. Measuring kick cycles and navigating around yellow mountain in squares and triangles. (What's up with these people and shapes?)

The deep dive was a pretty cool experience. It didnt really feel different that your ordinary 10-18 meters dives, but just the fact that you have been down to around 30 meters, is an achievement in itself - in my book at least!

Before the deep dive, we were presented with a few small tasks that we were to complete while Pete was timing us. Tasks like; write your mothers maiden name backwards, some simple fractions and fit these different shaped (there it was again) blocks into the right of a box. 
At the bottom we had to solve the same tasks again on time, to see if we were affected by nitrogen narcosis (A syndrome occurring when the pressure of the water compresses the air in your tank, and therefore letting you inhale more nitrogen molecules pr. breath than at the surface, causing you to go to "lala-land") Although happy that I wasnt affected at all, I still feel like I missed out on a psychedelia underwater experience (nah just kidding) (Or am I) (Yes i definately am) (Perhaps).
The fifth and final adventure dive, was the fish identification dive. Not much to say really. A dive at yellow mountain equipped with a slate intended for writing up the all the different names of the fish I saw.

Sam left us this week - So now Lydia is next in line to rise to the status of PADI Divemaster. This means that she is doing more predive briefings and leading a few dives here and there. 
We went to Abades one day and Lydia was leading. I think she did an amazing job! 
She lead us in and out of that dive site, taking crazy routes and I really dont know how she could find her way around the place.

After thrashing the place in three dives we headed down to the marina and cleaned the kits.

This week was also the week I completed my PADI Rescue diver course. 
After chewing my way through the big sleeping pill that is my rescue diver manual, we did some confined water exercises. 
It was pretty fun to simulate being a panicked diver, trying to climb on top of the other interns rushing to help me.

We went through procedures for handling everything from panicked divers to tired divers and unconscious divers both at the surface and at the bottom.

A few days later, we headed up to yellow mountain to do the open water scenarios. 
Up until now, the things that I have learned have been things that were nice to be able to do and know, simply because I enjoy doing it. But the rescue diver course have taught me things that makes me able to, potentially, save somebody's life if such a situation ever occurs.

Thats it from me for now, more next week.

Dennis (PADI Rescue Diver)

Gnasher the Diving Wonder Dog, aka Andreas

Hey yall

Now it's time for another exciting blog from the very one and only Andreas, Perry, Poochie, Gnasher and 'erry, or any other Nickname the Team keep giving me!
Due to Melissa, Pete and common Dutch language I've had the pleasure of getting four new names in only a week and a half. Personally Gnasher sounds the coolest, but it's probably due to the fact that I don't know who the real Gnasher is. 
Except for the obvious confusion I meet whenever somebody calls one of my names, I really start to get the hang of it at this place of hard work, learning, wonders, adventures, downsides and upsides. 
The work is getting easier because of the growing knowledge and confidence in what I'm doing is right. 
Like assembling a customers kit, or even worse, Pete or Alice's kits.

I really feel I'm learning a lot and having some great experiences both on dives and off work. The last dive I had previous to this blog was a dive at Poco Naufragio which was incredible. We sat on the bottom playing with a Common Ray while  surrounded by fish of all sizes and shapes. 
From Ornate Wrasse and Zebra Bream, to Barracudas and Parrot fish. After a while playing with the ray, we got further away and Alice fed Black Morays and FangTooths while we were watching  Simply Incredible. 
Next dive that day were at Starfish Bay. A site normally known for the massive amount of, yeah you guessed it, Starfish. 
Well we saw a lot of starfish, but due to the amount of Black Sea urchins there ain't that many any more.
Well not to bother because me and Dennis brought our knives and have a 'Confirmed Sea Urchin Kill Scoreboard' on our fridge and he's in pole position, so we had a little bit of fun "cleaning" and watching all the different fish that comes with. 
Though it took a bit of convincing myself into doing this, since I have no previous history of genocide or anything like that, and spend a year before coming here working for Greenpeace, But still the Black Sea Urchins are a plague here and have no natural enemies. The rest of the dive we were looking at all the beautiful and funny small creatures.

This week I've also had my first shore dives with Melissa. I really like these dives because they are so different from the boat dives I've done the other days. I especially liked one dive we had at a site i don't remember the name of, I think Las Eras ,but there was a big pipeline going from shore to... Yeah well... Cambodia. 

Anyway, between every concrete block along the pipeline it was packed with fish, crabs and different kinds of critters. I saw some of the biggest Arrow Crabs I've ever seen, the biggest Trumpet fish ever ever seen and the biggest cuttlefish ever!

Apart from all the diving we got a day off on Saturday  despite being exhausted, hungover and just plain tired, both me and my roomy Dennis committed ourself (on our own initiative) to climb Red Rock, Punta Roja, with Mahmoud and Lydia. 
Mahmoud being prepared in a way that not even Indiana Jones or Mr. Dundee could have done better, Lydia turned up in flip flops and with a lunchbox consisting of ice cream.
In the end we made it to the top, and despite the fact that we were tired me and Mahmoud decided to the some real climbing on the cliffs facing the water. A real manly experience.

On a completely different topic, we all just passed our EFR (Emergency FirstResponse) course today. It was all in great fun with all of us interns trying to save each other from nearly every possible incident and injury we could get into, and Pete consistently educating us switching between the real first aid course and all of his stories from 'back in 'Nam' or whatever war he was in.

Well that must be all from me for this time.

Hasta luego - Andreas (Perry, Poochie, Gnasher 'Erry)

PADI Rescue Course. EFR and of course more diving

What a week, what a week , oh you should have been there.

My week started with 2 dives at Las Eras, where I have never been before. The visibility during the dives wasn’t the best and there was a little current, especially on the first dive. 
But I enjoyed both dives. I think the second dive on the pipeline was really fascinating.

Next day I had 2 dives, the first at Poco Naufragio and the 2nd at Starfish Bay. I really enjoyed the dives, Alice was leading the dive and we had a very nice customer with us, Ann, who really enjoyed herself during the dives as well.
At Poco Naufragio we saw a Common Ray and I especially liked the two Black Moray Eels and the Fangtooth Moray who where together, and Alice was feeding them which looked pretty scary to me.

Wednesday was definitely a fun day and we learned a lot as well. 
We started at 10:00 o'clock which made everyone very happy because we didn't have to prepare kits and tanks in the morning because we were not going diving, we had our EFR(Emergency First Response) course. 
Pete was instructing Dennis, Andreas, Mahmoud, Angela and me, and even Sam was there even though he already is a Divemaster since this week. 
We had a lot of fun, especially during the scenario’s Pete gave us to do, I think the best one was when we all came back from our 5 minute break and Sam was laying on the flour and Canadian Dave was laying on a bench and nobody was responding to that because we all thought they were just laying there for no reason!
So we were sent back outside while they told us this was a real scenario. 

We went back in and lucky for us we saved Sam, but Canadian Dave is still recovering from the fact that Andreas was giving him mouth to mouth breathing. 
After our fun EFR morning we had lunch and went to the swimming pool to do some swimming. I finally broke my 11 minutes, only with 3 seconds, but I broke my 11 minutes. 
It’s a shame that Alice or Pete wasn't timing because now it doesn't count for real. 
And in the evening I practiced kit assemble and disassemble with Dennis.

Thursday I had my day off so I cleaned my entire apartment and I did some shopping because I invited the interns that were working that day for lunch at my place. So when Dennis, Andreas and Mahmoud walked in they didn’t even recognize my apartment any more because it was so clean. 
Then I made them some lunch which they really enjoyed, lucky for me. Angela was sick that day so unfortunately she missed our fun lunch. But I saved  fruit salad that I made for our vegetarian Angela and she ate it in the evening after we practiced kit assemble and disassemble with Dennis and Andreas.

Friday was really, really exciting because I had my first night dive ever. I was a little scared and I was so nervous, but everything went all right. Actually it was really beautiful and I just tried to enjoy myself as much as possible and just look at the fish and follow the group. I really liked the Parrot fish, I saw one with really bright colors and it was so beautiful. I liked the plankton as well, when you move your hand in the water you can see them light up which is really pretty.

Saturday really was a messy day. We made so many silly mistakes on everything! So I hope everyone that was working that day, including me, just learned from the mistakes we made so it won’t happen again. 
Apart from that I really liked my dive at Pequeño Valle even though it was a pretty short dive because there was a little current which became stronger while we moved on. 
And now the best part of the day was that we practised Rescue skills in the marina, and that was so much fun. It just becomes so much more real when you practice them, especially with the panicked diver. 
While practising the panicked diver I found out that it’s more difficult than I thought. I started practising with Alice and she started easy on me just being a little panicked diver, but then it got real and I found out that a panicked diver can be pretty, pretty dangerous.

After doing the rescue skills we washed the kits and nobody know how it happened but I lost one of my fins, and the bad part was that it was the fin with my mask and snorkel in it. So that situation made me a little sad, as soon as we found out that my fin was missing Dennis jumped in the water but he didn't find my fin back.

Sunday was a relaxed day. I took Dennis, Andreas and Mahmoud to the swimming pool to practice our skills and I could really see that the boys are improving on their skills and I could practice at the same time helping them. 
Unfortunately Angela couldn't join us because she had a little injury on her leg/foot. We washed the cars as well and that was a lot of fun. And we did our 400 meter swim and this time I really wished that that the time counted because my time was 10:22 which is my fastest time ever.
But I'm really happy with my time and I'm just hoping that I can do it again, or maybe even better.
Oh and the best part of today, Mahmoud went diving in the marina under supervision from Melissa to find my fin and he found my fin, my mask and my snorkel back!

So I’m really happy and Mahmoud is the hero of the day.

Up to w

Good Diving, hard Diving and saying goodbye to Diving

The big thing for me was last week I got lost when leading a dive, and it felt like my perfect record of performance and effort had been ruined. I did slightly redeem myself by leading the dive later in the week to my usual incredible standard. However, it felt like I still had to prove that I’m still the outstanding young individual that everyone here has come to know and love.

So I decided that to do this I would offer to lead Las Eras, which I’d never lead before, obviously this would be done under Melissa’s supervision. So we jumped in and swam out to the usual point of descent.
What I’m trying to say is that up until minute two of the dive I was fine, just after this everything fell apart. Obviously none of what followed was my fault, we were battling against some of the worst conditions anyone has ever seen at Las Eras, or at least that’s my opinion.
There was an incredibly strong current and visibility must of dropped to at least five meters, then when I went in the wrong direction I didn’t really help the situation, so by around minute five Melissa had taken over. After this the dive went fine, although it was a very short dive due to such extreme conditions.
Ann who was on this dive with us as well as the interns Andreas, Kevin, and Lydia got to see all sorts of exciting fish like a tiny Octopus and fabulously colourful Parrot fish or incredibly long Trumpet fish.

As I’ve undoubtedly mentioned before the second dive at Las Eras is to the Pipeline. We saw Octopus and other interesting fish on this dive such as Blue-finned Damsels. The second dive was much more of a success and we ended it a little early in case we had trouble with a current, on the way back we did get to see a small Common Ray hiding under a rock.

Next up we took the Ann to Poco Naufragio, with the simple intention of playing with the Rays like we had done the week before. This time the big Rays didn’t come out to play for very long, Stumpy appeared briefly, but it was mainly the small Rays that entertained us. Apparently, the Rays took such a liking to us that one of them decided to stay with us for the length of the dive. The three Morays were in their usual space, which is always good to see. Next up on the agenda was Starfish Bay with lots of interesting fish to see like Lightfoot Crabs, two-striped bream and obviously many many starfish.

One hundred dives! The big milestone, or so I think anyway. To celebrate I didn’t do the dive naked, but instead did a night dive, not that I had much option as it was part of my Divemaster requirements. Pete lead the dive and what I did see entertained me, especially the phosphorescence that when you wave your hand it will begin to glow and if you have your torch off it is particularly pretty. There was also lots of particularly interesting fish on this dive such as Atlantic damsels and Ornate wrass and even the odd Pufferfish .

Since I’ve been here I hear a lot of people talk about putting their hand near a cleaner shrimp and letting it clean you, I’d never done this before until we went to Pequene Valle for Ann’s final dive. I was  happy as it really is an experience to let a shrimp clean your hand. Obviously there was lots of fish and crabs on the dive, brightly coloured arrow crabs, plentiful sexy shrimp sitting around one sea anemone, even a slick moving wide-eyed flounder.

The other interns who apparently have been slacking finally got around to doing their rescue course this week. I was given the opportunity to join them and help out, I remember how fun the practical aspects were when I did mine back in England so figured it must be more fun when you’re not shivering or can see more than three meters in front of you.  I especially enjoyed doing the panicked diver skills and trying to pull someone’s mask off.

I am prematurely going home so unfortunately this is my last blog. All of which is kind of depressing as it means I’m heading back to five degree’s being the peak of the day and frost on the windscreen in the morning. It also means I’m leaving behind sun bathing, swimming outdoors and wearing shorts.

I should probably do a brief summary of what I’ve learnt, and it really will be brief, as lets face it I pretty much turned up perfect. However, the main thing I guess is that if something is worth doing it’s worth doing well, and it really applies to everything.

The internship really is what you make it, and if you want to get the most out of it you have to make sure you put everything you can into it.

Hopefully it won’t be long till I’m back here, sort of relaxing again.

For now its Adios.

Sam (Popeye)