Room for improvement........

This week was very important for some of our more experienced interns, and a glimpse into the future for the novices. Last Friday four of them (Malena, Theiss, Gerardo and Mel) undertook their Divemaster Practical Skills section of their assessment and we were able to observe. Whilst they were not perfect, we got to see some very strong displays that will act as real inspiration for us. Tough but achievable was certainly the outcome from my observations! Alongside this the skills also entail showing a ‘student’ how to conduct a proper pre-dive safety check and how to assemble (and disassemble) scuba equipment for a Discover Scuba Diving experience. Quite frankly there is a lot to remember! The important thing is to ensure the language is as precise as possible, which is difficult when surrounded by experienced divers using more verbally friendly names for things like Low Pressure Inflator Hose and Submersible Pressure Gauge.

I was able to undertake my Divemaster Deep Dive at one of my favourite sites, Poco Nufraigio. Being just outside the marina it is nice and close; a big positive for Aiden (a regular customer). However, my own fondness is due to the resident Round Stingray. This huge example flies around the sands at just below 30 metres and really surprised me this time! As Will (a fellow intern) and I were doing a reciprocal bearing we turned 180 degrees and found ourselves face to face with it, hugging the bottom in the relatively low visibility. The Live Sharksucker that accompanied it really made the dive, as well as it being one more step towards Divemaster.

One afternoon the interns were also able to see the documentary film “The Cove”. This harrowing story about the capture and killing of dolphins in one small area of rural Japan was simply disgusting. The numbers murdered are believed to be in tens of thousands and lack of action by the International Whaling Commission is severely hampering efforts to stop it, along with state protection for those involved. Some positive steps appear to have been taken, but soon it will probably be too late.

This week I was also able to observe a Discover Scuba Diving pool session. It was interesting to see how Will, our instructor, was able to help a customer who was both unconfident and without a strong command of English. As is often the case, it appeared that it was a case of a ‘mental block’ rather than an actual physical issue. It was really quite gratifying when I heard that she was able to complete the open water section of her DSD with only a couple of problems.

The final part of this week was a number of stamina assessments for our Divemaster qualifications. Ranging from the relaxing 15-minute float to the torpedo role-playing involved in the 800-metre snorkel, these are necessary and sometimes tiring parts of the assessment. Along with an improving time in the 400-metre swim, these seem to be working well for me at the moment. However, like the rest of the assessed skills, there is still plenty of room for improvement.

Bruce (Alastair)

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

El Puertito.... Best Dive ever?...........Probably :-)

Once again I began a week with my favourite dive site, El Puertito. This was another chance for me to prove myself as I was given the chance to lead the dives.

Melissa usually leads these dives and if I’m honest we usually see more when she leads, but this is in no way a criticism of me as just about anyone here will tell you I’m pretty professional and not to forget perfect, or maybe they would disagree?

The first dive really couldn't of gone much better we descended and within five minutes were playing with turtles. Another brilliant experience and I truly believe it is impossible to become bored of this dive site. I mean even if you don’t see the turtles, just as we didn't on the second dive, there is always plenty to see.
As usual for the second dive I aimed for the sea anemone, alone this is beautiful, but as I've previously mentioned it is also the home to sexy shrimp. There is also trumpet fish, cuttlefish, cleaner shrimp and parrot fish on this dive, which just makes for some of the best diving around.

More dive leading! I never should have mentioned to Alice it’s something I felt I’d struggle with.
This time we went to Yellow Mountain with George, Allen, Sue and Stuart and Alison. The first dive site was Alien Rock which is one of three dive sites at Yellow Mountain. This one went well with the usual fish about, such as damsels and bream.
However, it wasn't nearly as good as the second dive. After briefing I would lead the group to Crocodile Rock I decided to unintentionally go to Swim Through, but in all honesty the dive was so much better because of this, and thus I still maintain that it was a success. After heading through the big hole in the rock (I think this might be why it’s called swim through) we ended up swimming close to crocodile rock where we saw a baby common ray, which was a first for me, and another great experience.

Shore diving to Las Eras with Julia and Frank and for once I didn't have to lead the dive so I was already happy. This dive site is quickly becoming a favourite for me, mainly because of the massive diversity of fish you can see here, if you head left out of the bay you can see an abundance of shoals of bream, barracuda and even my personal favourite sexy shrimp.

However, if you head right to the pipeline you can see the big things like morays, rays and octopus. This is exactly what we saw on our dives, the first dive was brilliant, but for me, it can’t compare to the second dive. To start with the brown moray hiding in the pipeline was stretching a fair way out of its hole to try and snap at Melissa. Then there was the two rays sleeping in gaps and not to forget the octopus in the rocks that were incredibly grumpy if you moved any of their rocks.

Last diving day of the week and I was instructed to lead a dive without any supervision, so it was my first time flying solo, just like Maverick only better looking. The first dive was to Alien Rock and it went off without a hitch and we managed to get all the way round and even see a large colony of sexy shrimp on an anemone.
The next dive was to swim through and after obviously going to crocodile rock on the way back I managed to get lost around five to ten meters from the boat. So we just swam around in a big circle, after about five minutes I was relieved to find the anchor line and finish the dive in perfect timing.

If I’m being honest and I usually am, it’s becoming fairly tough for me here. After seeing me work for five weeks everyone just expects me to be my usual perfect self, which is a big burden to carry, but I do have off days, obviously not as many as everyone else, but it does occasionally happen.

To round the week off I had a day off, and after heading to the pub to watch the formula 1, I quickly realised the pocket where my keys usually are, was feeling awfully empty. Thus I was locked out of my apartment, as the keys were actually on the table inside.

So to finish the week nicely I slept on the sofa of Kevin and Perry (new interns) and forgot to close the balcony door and am now covered in mosquito bites.

Sam (Popeye)

Urchin-killings and a new Dive Site ~ El Delphin

Week 3 of my internship has just passed, which means I only have 5 more days to go till it´s back to freezing Dutchieland. (Actually thinking about it, I don’t think it will make such a big difference whether your soaking wet because of the rain or soaking wet because your sweating like a pig all day!)

On Sunday we went to Las Eras for my and Geoffrey’s PADI Deep Speciality dive and my SMB Speciality dive. 

Las Eras is a really nice dive site, with a great underwater world. On our way out everything went really smooth, just bobbing around in the water, letting ourselves be carried away by a current, checking out the Needle fish, Octopus, Barracudas and all the little critters along the rocks. 

At around 30m. Gareth made us play a little game to check if we were effected by gas narcosis, writing our names backwards. No trouble for me there, Geoffrey on the other hand seemed pretty narced, having trouble remembering and writing the correct letters (although he did had some trouble spelling his name backwards at the surface as well, but we’ll blame the early morning for that!).
After our little play-time, it was time to return to shore. By then we realized that the current was quiet strong and we struggled to swim back.
To be honest we did really well, considering we did a 30m. dive for 43 minutes in a current that strong! Really cool detail is the Octopus we saw eating a big Trumpet fish (with the Trumpet fish still sticking half out of the Octopus….I’m realizing now without a picture this description is missing a bit of X-factor, not sounding half as exciting as it actually was, you should have been there…). 

A little less cool was the dead baby Turtle we saw, lying on the bottom, all white and with his head ripped off, starting to deteriorate (again, you should have been there for the visual effect with this description…or maybe not).

We also had some time this week to go exploring! Pete decided it was time to check if he still had it, so along with Gareth, Geoffrey and me, we went to a new dive site called El Delphin (named after a Dolphin statue we passed while descending) for another deep dive. 

Star of the day was the huge Atlantic Ray that swam towards us as soon as we arrived on the bottom. A beautiful start of the dive! 

Gareth also decided to take some breakfast food from his fridge to play yet another game. Playtime was over pretty fast (which is actually a good thing at that depth)…The boys were not able to crack the egg under water so I had to show them how (pretty pathetic guys that even under water the woman has to handle the food like in the kitchen) and Gareth didn’t really knew why he brought the tomatoes (other than they were mouldy anyway and taking up beer-space in the fridge) so we squeezed them all up and prepared a nice little breakfast for the Bream and Trumpet fish.

The second dive of that day was a project Aware dive. We went to Starfish bay to do some urchin-killing. Somehow everyone was really exciting about this dive, it didn’t bring up the best in all of us. 
In the beginning I felt a bit sorry for the urchins, especially the little one's, so I have to admit that in the beginning I did let the little once get off the hook.

When I looked to my left and right side, I saw my team-members who turned into psychopaths; tossing the urchins up in the water slicing them like Japenese sushi-chefs or Samurai soldiers. 
Some of them would put them on a rock, watch them walk away, toss them over, making them think they could escape the massacre and then give them the death sentence anyway. 
I just thought they were weird and British….UNTILL….I got stabbed by one of those sneaky bastards (talking about the urchins again not my team-members)! 
Then my finger hurt, a little drop of green blood dropped out of it, my mind went blank…. From that moment on it was Die Urchin Die!!

(Again for the people not familiar with the urchins, they are a pest in this area, not native to the area and are sucking the life out of this part of the ocean, they don’t have natural enemies so we need to kill them to protect the underwater life).

Also the past week, the All-stars turned into the All-blacks after they all became PADI Divemasters by completing the exams and kit-exchange, which makes me the odd one out in my red T-shirt. 

I did the kit-exchange together with Geoffrey. 

Before the exercise we had 5 minutes to practice in which we agreed / learned that:

1. We were just going to see what was going to happen

2. You should not clear your mask when you don’t have your reg. in your mouth because yes, you will run out of air and yes, you will try to breathe water.
3. We’re awesome anyway so this is going to be easy as!

The kit-exchange went really well, Geoffrey was in a bit of a rush which made it a challenge to keep up with him. Trying to take my fins off and put his "fins-fit-for-a-giant" on wasn’t that easy, made me tip over and sit on my backside at the bottom of the pool…..BUT….goal of the exercise was to make it look smooth and easy so I took my time (trying to fool the big boss that this was all part of mine and Geoffrey’s brilliant plan of preparation), and had a little moment for myself before Geoffrey helped me back up, proceeding the exercise in lightning-speed. In the end, like we expected, everything went awesome and we could be proud of ourselves.

I also had a go at doing a pre-dive safety check and the kit-set-up. Toughest part was to pronounce the word ‘Knurled Nut’ without laughing. I also need to remember to actually put on a weight belt when showing the student how to check for a weight belt and to actually turn the air on when I want to check my air!

At the end of the week, we went to a very informative presentation of Pro-sub, The Dive Centre's supplier of dive equipment otherwise known as Toy’s R Us for divers! 

Here we gained some useful information about the latest equipment and some sales- and business techniques.

Like I said in my intro, only 5 more days to go with hopefully a lot of beautiful diving!

Susanne

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