PADI Divemasters.............. almost!

Our sixth week into the internship in a brief summary.

Monday was a busy day, where everything had to run smoothly, but unfortunately we were still having trouble as a team to do even the simplest of tasks. Some pieces of customer kit was forgotten and Theiss' entire kit (except for his dear socks) were also not brought, so we got a rather late start to the day.

After we got everything sorted out, Theiss went off to Yellow Mountain together with Will and Pete to lead Fruzsina, Johannes, Richard, Frazer, Bill and Marvin on a couple of jolly dives. Will was conducting Giorgios's Open Water part of his Open Water Diver Course.

And the party started before we even got to the actual dive site. As we took off from the marina, a couple of dolphins together with a baby individual crossed our watery path which obviously bouyed the group, customers and staff members alike. To be honest, why bother going on dolphin sightings with expensive tourist charters when you can go and dive with Dive and Sea Tenerife?

The actual dives went really well, and the group stayed nice and close during the fun dives, which was important, especially since Theiss was "on his own". The group saw a school of barracudas on both dives (it might have been the same), which was really awesome. Theiss has now been on three dives with Fruzsina, our Hungarian/Danish visitor, and on every one of these they have seen a school of barracudas, a fact she found very peculiar herself as well. Moreover, they came across a common octopus and a scrawled filefish.

In the afternoon, Malene did her DSD Kit Set-Up Presentation and scored a 5, so she was obviously buoyed by that! Theiss was acting as surface support for a couple of DSD students in the pool.

Wednesday was a quiet, but an important day for the senior interns, because we all got one step closer to the DM sign-off. In the morning we had our final pool session before our exam, and it went all right, we reckon. Afterwards, Malene and Trigger did their final 400 m swim in the pool super-speedily and they both got a solid 4 score, which definately was impressing considering that Trigger lost his swimwear all together halfway through the race. Let's just say it was good thing that we didn't have any kids snorkeling around in the pool at the same time.. Then we headed back up to shop, preparing for the final DSD Kit Set-up Presentation and Predive Safety Check. We both nailed it to a 5 despite some minor mistakes, but apparently that is allowed, because English is not our first language so our margin of error is bigger than the English native speakers.  

All the new interns were observing and commenting on all of our attempts, and even though they probably got fed up with it at the end of the day, it's really good for them to learn off of our mistakes. We definately expect no less than perfection from these guys now!

The following day we both went to the pool in the morning together with Melissa and three DSD students, Hallie, Cynthia and Harrison, who were actually people we had had through our free try dive a couple of days earlier. They all did well in the pool, and afterwards we went to Abades for their two Open Water Dives. The sea was rioting, so it was rough conditions for three brand new DSDs, and even though they struggled with a couple of minor psychological issues prior to descending, they all managed to complete and, more importantly, enjoy the dives, so well done to them!

Friday was again a very important day for the "senior interns". Due to bad weather conditions, all open water diving was cancelled and that offered the perfect opportunity for all of us to go to the pool first thing in the morning to perform our final skill set. And it was both a pleasant and a nerve wrecking experience. Some of the skills went without a hitch, while other skills went... hmm, let's just say that it was a good thing we didn't get through the entrie set on this day so we had to have one more session to complete both the missing and the failed skills. It was a really good experience for the new interns to watch our final skills and afterwards participate in the brief of the critique, good and bad, so they now know what "traps" to look out for.

Afterwards, we went to the marina to finalize our stamina tests as well. The newbes also had a go at the 100 m tow, 800 m snorkel and the 15 minutes float, so that was once again nice for them to get a primary assesment of what to work on during the following weeks. We, the senior ones, all got our finals, so that was really nice to get some more tests checked off. All in all a very enjoyable day: though only a small step for a dive center it was a giant leap for a couple of divemaster-aspirant.

Saturday, we both went to Poco Naufragio where Malene, Oz, Suzanne, Nemo and Bruce did there deep excercise together with Will and where Trigger led his first dive with Theiss, Alex, Aidan and Cassandra. The vis reminded of us diving back home, so even though it's normally an easy site to dive in Trigger did very well navigating in the bad conditions. The first 15 minutes of the dive were not very dramatic even though we did see some very colorful anemones. Then, we managed to point out a beautiful black moray eel and from there the dive only got better and better. We headed back to the anchor line and were met by an elegant, curious (and desperate?) live sharksucker, aka. rémora, which was really, really cool. It's nature is to attach itself to big pelagic animals, and hence it was clearly trying to attach itself to us. But suddenly, during our safety stop, it took off. We followed it with puzzled eyes, until we realized the reason of this strange behavior: it had found it's host again, which turned out to be a massive stingray, around 2 m wide, searching the top shelf for dinner. It was simply the most amazing sight, and it was so difficult to take our eyes off. To be honest, the last 10 minutes of the dive saved the whole day.

Afterwards we got back to the marina, changed tanks, dropped off Aidan and headed back out again to Arrecife. The conditions were terrible: the visibility was around 3-5 m. and the swell was strong. Practically, it reminded us of being back in Denmark diving. We did, however, see a stargazer, which (kind of) saved that dive...

In the afternoon we headed to the hotel pool together with Will, Nemo and Cassandra. It was a busy day, and we had a decent amount of people through, where a couple of them seemed very interested in joining us for some "real" diving soon.

Sunday was our day off, which we spend together with Theiss' parents in Los Christianos. Moreover, we're now very close to achieve what we came here for: the Divemaster Certification.

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

1st Cuttle fish, 2nd Night Dive and should I eat fish?

Week two of my internship has just came to a close, and I am finally beginning to feel like there is actually solid ground beneath my feet. I am slowly becoming more and more used to the daily routine, and do not feel completely like a “Twat”, half a twat maybe, but not a full blown twat. I am not ace perfect star intern, but I am better off than last week... I hope.

Now that the boring stuff is out of the way lets talk about CUTTLEFISH! I have finally seen two of them. All in the same day, and it had made my day a very good day. One was about the size of a mouse, just swimming around on the bottom of the desolate floor. The second one was napping on the reef paying no mind, to us the divers. It was a great day to be me.

Same dive same day I also saw Octopus again. The only reason I actually saw this octopus is because it was reaching out for a sea shell just 2 feet away from its den. Once again it was a great day to be diving.
Last but not least on this epic day of diving we saw a Eagle ray swimming off into the distance. Where it was going, we will never know, but I hope to see one a lot closer soon.

Next topic I would like to mention was the night dive. This was one of the gnarliest things I have ever done.  I just have never dived in night time conditions. I did a simulated night dive in a bayou once and that just does not compare at all. On this dive I saw an nudibranch, and that is also one of those creatures that I was completely ecstatic at seeing.

Call me a sucker for invertebrates, but they are just the craziest alien looking beings ever, and for that reason I find it safe to say the coolest animals alive. Seeing all the bioluminescent plankton lighting up at our kicking fins and swaying hands was something out of a dream.  It will probably be a memory I never forget, and will cherish for life.

I have also verified that fish at Yellow Mountain do in fact rush to a diver who happens to have a knife out. Which is really cool, it shines a new light on the brain dead fish concept.
The draw back to this newfound discovery is it is making me not want to consume fish any more. Which is a bummer, but it will start weighing heavily on my conscious.
AHHH decisions, decisions.

I have really enjoyed this second week of my internship, and I am beginning to feel more comfortable with all the tasks assigned, and the work. It should really only keep getting better as time progresses, and if by some miracle I see a shark, then I can die happy. I would prefer not to though, but just an expression. 6 more weeks of this is something that can hopefully go a little slower, because time is really flying me by.
I really enjoy exploring the island very much, I got my self a bike from the second hand store which is the most convenient thing ever. YESSSSS !

Trigger