Sunburn and Iron Burns !!

I can’t belive I’m more than halfway through my PADI Divemaster internship, it’s been going really quickly and the days are starting to roll into one.
We did two dives on Monday morning, the first one at Poco Naufragio was really good because there was so much to see down there, including a massive arrow crab and big shoals of fish.
We were introduced to the new interns, who have been renamed as characters from Finding Nemo, so we have Nemo, Dory, Bruce, Pearl and Gill.
We took Dory for her first dive of her internship on Tuesday when we had a girl day shore diving at Abades. It was Hannah’s last dive of her internship so we did some underwater filming of us dancing for her video. Dances included the Macarena and Malene’s 5 point descent dance.

I had my first dive with a customer as a buddy on Wednesday morning. I was with Craig, and on the first dive we followed Thiess around Alien Rock and then to the swim through on the second dive. They were both really good dives and it was nice to see that Craig was enjoying himself as well!
I didn’t go diving in the sea on Thursday, I had a pool session in the morning to do some skills practice.

In the evening I went to the supermarket and then ran into Iceland on the way back to grab some chicken for Melissa and it was the strangest thing ever. As soon as I went through the door it was like I’d been transported back to Britain because all the products had prices on in pounds and the staff were British. It was kind of a nice thing to be reminded of home, but also really odd.

We dived twice on Friday and when we were on the boat we saw some fish jumping out of the water which I liked because I’d never seen that before. I had some drinks and a pizza with a few of the other interns in the evening at the Aberdeen which was nice. I had a day off on Saturday which was kind of a good thing after the drinks the night before!
Gerado and Thiess wanted to go snorkelling at yellow mountain, and Malene was planning on sitting on the beach and relaxing, so I went along too, hoping to relax on the beach whilst the boys went out snorkelling. Unfortunately, it wasn’t the most relaxing day off I’ve had because the walk to yellow mountain took hours, we must have been walking for about 3 hours in total that day, in the sweltering heat. I was also not wearing the right shoes- walking to yellow mountain in flip flops is a bad idea. When we got there we were met by some nudists, which was a bit of a shock, but Thiess and Gerado went off and enjoyed their snorkelling whilst I sat in the shade, recovering from the massive expedition it took to get there! It was a good day though, despite the massive trek it took to get there. It was better lying on the sofa and watching the Harry Potter movie, which I was planning on doing.

On Sunday I started the day by burning my arm on the iron, and now I have a dark purple burn which looks pretty bad. Then we went diving at El Puertito to see the turtles, and I saw one, and a baby octopus and a cuttlefish. In the afternoon, me and Gerado helped Melissa clean Eric’s apartment. It wasn’t dirty, but smelled really bad because he left a bag of frozen broccoli in the freezer, and then turned it off, cheers for that Eric!

SKILL WARS......Return to the Pool

A long time ago (only a few days) in a pool far, far, away (downstairs from the Dive Centre)…

Five intrepid and idealistic people (immature interns) undertook their Divemaster Skills Assessment. After it being postponed due to the wrath of Darth Pete (entirely justified), they armed themselves with all the protection possible (a Scuba Review slate and a wetsuit) and waded into this monthly battle of wits.

Remembering the secret words of power (the values of surface skills) and the conventions of single combat (always deflate your BCD before an underwater skill), the first snorkel was drawn at 8.00am after an hour of preparation. The last fine-tuning was made as the Sun hit the chlorine soaked pool and Avicii’s “Wake Me Up” was whistled woefully across the orange wastes of Terraza de la Paz.

Wading into the arena came Darth Pete and Darth Melissa; chills went down the spine of all the interns waiting. This may have been because one of their number was wearing a 3mm Shorty (namely myself).

Up at the shop, hearing the water rippling, the other interns knew the fate of these latest challengers. It was now down to how exaggerated and slow their skills were, would hair be cleared from their mask, and could they exhale for the whole Controlled Emergency Surface Ascent?

As the battle cries began and the speeches ended, Darth Pete fixes his eyes on the first of the interns…

***Fade to black***

However it actually went OK! As a group we did really well and, despite portents of doom, did not have to do any skills again. That is not to say I could have done better but I was pretty happy with the overall result.

With most of the week revolving around this, I have also been fortunate to get some diving in.

I went to a site for the first time, Moon Pools, which was an interesting place. For the supreme positive of the dive, I saw my first Sea-Horse. This was absolutely awesome, as well as casually random. Almost as though our thought processes were:
“What is that?’
“Sea-Horse.”
“Cool.”
“Yep.”
“Wait, that’s A SEA-HORSE!”

Beyond that however we did see a lot of evidence of human interaction with the marine environment. There was a considerable amount of litter, large metal objects, and lost fishing gear around. Most sickening however was a fresh Stingray carcass, thrown back with its tail and wings cut off. A strange dive full of extremes.

I also led my first dive this week, luckily we saw something as I was paranoid that this would be the time where there was nothing to see. However a funky Octopus, Nudibranch, Red-Backed Cleaner Shrimp and little Stingray put me at ease. I was close to not finding the boat at one point but, with an intervention from the aforementioned Darth Pete, got there in the end. Our customer, Charles from Las Vegas, seemed to enjoy himself anyway!

PADI Rescue Course, EFR and DSD's.......... and days off :)

I can’t believe I’ve been here for two weeks already, it’s been going really quickly and I keep forgetting what day it is and getting mixed up on what day I did things!
I’ve not done as many dives this week as last week which is a shame, but I’ve done loads of other things that were exciting.

On Monday morning, I was in the pool helping with a PADI Discover Scuba diving session for the first time.
When the DSD students went out to do their open water dive, I stayed in the dive centre and started studying my PADI Rescue diver manual.
Later that afternoon, I watched the video for the Emergency First Response course with Gerado, Thiess, Malene and Ann.
I had a day off on Tuesday, I had a lie in which I enjoyed.  I treated myself to Mcdonalds as well because I hadn’t had one for ages and it has free wifi I could use. I hadn’t used the internet since I arrived so had loads of stuff to tell people and messages to reply to. I also took my laptop down to the Aberdeen steak house to borrow their wifi too, you can get a large beer there for a euro. I think that’s the cheapest beer I’ve ever seen anywhere. I don’t usually drink beer but it’s too good of a deal to not have it!
On Wednesday it was back to diving, we did a deep dive at Poco Naufragio. I enjoyed it , it reminded me of diving at home, which was kind of a nice thing because I was missing home anyway. The second dive we did at Yellow Mountain had much better visibility, and we could swim through a small cave like thing which I really liked. In the afternoon, we watched the video for the PADI Rescue diver course, it was useful because we could actually see for ourselves the things that the manual was describing.

We went to the Marina on Thursday to do the confined water lessons of the Rescue course, where we learnt how to respond to different diving emergencies like searching for a missing diver and bringing unresponsive divers aboard the boat. I was partnered with Ann, and we had to try and get each other into the boat from the water without using the ladder which was difficult, but everyone else thought it was funny to watch us. I can’t even get myself into the boat without using the ladder and I’m far too weak to drag someone else into the boat! We did the emergency first response course later in the afternoon which was fun. We learnt all sorts of useful things and then we had to react to an emergency scenario. When I got to be an injured person I was told to be a really drunk person. I got to run around sabotaging all of Ann’s efforts to be a good emergency responder (sorry Ann!)  It was really fun to do, but if I was really drunk in an emergency situation I would probably have just sat and cried because everyone was dying.

I woke up at 4.30 AM on Friday morning to do a night dive, which I was nervous about, I thought my torch might fail then I’d get lost in the dark. Thankfully this didn’t happen. The dive was an experience but I’m not sure if I liked it that much. After we did our night dive, we went out to do our open water section of the Rescue diver course, we had to find an unresponsive diver and bring them back aboard the boat. Me and Ann struggled again to drag each other onto the boat. My snorkel also disappeared today, I’m guessing it’s somewhere at the bottom of the sea at Yellow Mountain.  As we’d been up so early, we finished early so I decided to go to the pool and do some sunbathing to try and get some sort of colour in my skin because even though I’ve been here for two weeks, the only part of me that has a kind of tan are my hands.

We started off in the pool in Saturday morning doing the PADI Divemaster skills practice. There’s quite a bit of work I need to do on my skills, especially the hover because my feet keep floating away from me. After this, we went to the Marina to practice some of the stamina tests which were a 800m snorkel, a 100m tow and to tread water for 15 minutes.
When I was snorkelling about in the Marina, I found it difficult to swim whilst wearing a wetsuit and I was terrified a boat would run me over and I’d get chopped up by the propeller. The 100m tow and the treading water went better, especially the treading water because I’m quite a buoyant person, I just sort of floated there. We also got to practice getting customers ready on the boat for when we get put on boat cover.

I had another day off on Sunday, even though I wanted a lie in I woke up at 7.15 by accident and couldn’t get back to sleep so got up anyway. I didn’t really do that much apart from go swimming and sunbathing, then go down to the Aberdeen for the wifi.
At the end of my second week I’ve learnt quite a lot of new things and experienced new things, like the night dive. I’m also starting to lose track of which day it is as we’re kept so busy!

Melissa (Cassandra)

Its my Birthday............ and i was late again!

Third Week, Gary leave me alone… He escapes for holidays! But Sam a PADI Divemaster who done his internship here arrive for two weeks. Is Spanish but he live in London and actually he look like an English because of the whiteness off his skin!!!! ahahaahh poor him!

So Pete bring Alice and I to El Delphin place, deep diving so a bit anxious …the deep blue was waiting me…30 meters is quite a bit off water on you… and quite far off the superficial!

But when I arrive on the bottom was so amazing all those big fish everywhere…and all marine blue colours, no horizon just infinite water… we have seen plenty fish.

The same day at the second dive we went to another site.
He was a new dive site for me and we have seen this strange fish a Streaked Gurnard, the can walk as a spider on the bottom swim as a any other fish in water and fly over the sea with those gorgeous blue pectoral fins… look like a butterfly…Super beautiful !!!

Sam had done the scuba tuned up!!! Naughty English skin Spanish guy ahahahhahah!!!
Joke…because I am mad ahahah!!! 
After we went straight away in Abades with Melissa  We enjoy a lot the dives Sam is very friendly and I like to speak a bit in Spanish with im to not forget… we seen a massive starfish something like 30 cm length.

Day next we went to Puerto De La Cruz, to met others divers. Jackie, Phil and Isidro to show us the new diving place off the area. Punta Teno this is the place where the north of the island meets the south, just super stunning landscape…. And Garachico, just amazing.

We did a 50-min dive! The longest time ever for me as i am not good with my air.
It was very amazing dive! I enjoy it a lot. We have seen big zebra bream and cow bream everywhere in shoal.

Furthermore as the sherry on the top of the cake we have seen a super massive round stingray over 2m of span … yes it was huge!
I was talking and screaming underwater even I had the regulator on the mouth!!!
Something Like: “OMG, Super beautiful…”

ITS MY BIRTHDAY!!!!!!!! Getting older nooo…!
So 27 years old like a dinosaur… so good!

The day starts very well, other me late yet again nooo!,  Melissa Pete and Alice offer me one birthday card each… so cute! Thank you SUPER very much for your cards… lovely!

We went to Montaña Amarilla and Crocodile Rock with Julie and Gerhard south African, They not talk much on trip but i make up for its!
We have seen tiny brown scorpion fish and sharp nose puffer.
We were surrounded by cow breams and sharped nose bream; swimming very close to us… such good feeling!

In the afternoon I baked the best chocolate birthday cake ever for the team without any recipe just my eyes …I am the boss off cooking yeah!

I have fallen back on the reading of my books and am very behind which cause many problems to get courses done. It is such a tiring day and at night i prefer to relax instead of study, i will get it done..... some time soon ahahahhahah!!!

To finish week i late again, i just can never be right time anywhere, but weekend finish with a great dive with Melissa and Sam we have seen the a big grouper for the first time so happy!!!

La vuelta de Marruecos

Adal aka Gary aka Gary Pineapple

Esta fue otra semana corta, porque llegué el viernes y solo pude trabajar dos días.

Nada más llegar a Tenerife el viernes de mis vacaciones, de vuelta a la gloriosa luz del sol y como algunos amigos querían ir de caminata a las Montañas de Anaga. Fue aterrizar, dejar mis maletas en casa, descansar un momentito e ir de pateo desde el Restaurante Casa Carlos a Taborno y vuelta al Restaurante, en el norte de la Isla.

Un pateo agradable con buenas vistas y un tiempo relajante para coger fuerzas pare el resto de la semana y recuperar algo de fuerza para la vuelta al trabajo.

Así que el Sábado empezamos con una session de piscine con Simon, Connor, Deborah y Lucy de Brighton que estaban haciendo su experiencia de Discover Scuba Diving con Pete, Alice, Sam y yo. Ellos lo hicieron bien y eran avidos snorkellers, las chicas contentas con la session de piscine, pero decidieron solo acompañar en el barco.

Más tarde Simon, Connor, Sam, Alice y yo buceamos en Montaña amarilla y ellos disfrutaron de las inmersiones y Debora y Lucy disfrutaron su viaje en barco, así que todo fue bastante bien. Como siempre, había bastante pescado, unos pocos pez trompeta, las pequeñas gallinitas, tamboriles y sargos dejandose ver, pasando junto a las anguilas jardineras. Todos disfrutamos de las inmersiones.

Este a sido mi primer DSD completo desde el principio hasta el final, con las inmersiones actuando como ayudante, me encantaría poder enseñar la experiencia de DSD por mi cuenta .

El domingo tuvimos un par de inmersiones en Roca Alienigena y otra en la Roca Cocodrilo con Molly y Dan, de Estados Unidos de Norteamerica que vivían en Londres y Jean Pierre de Bélgica y Che de Reino Unido. Alice lidero las inmersiones y yo acompañaba a Sam. Las inmersiones fueron muy agradables y pudimos ver algunos de esto reefs y bastante pescado incluyendo algún pulpo y algunos lady escarlatas y poder observar y comprender de qué manera los erizos diadema(erizos de lima o erizos de puas largas) destruyen el entorno para otras especies.

Después las actividades para un día normal y también realizar la segunda medida de mis 400 metros a nado, actividad en la que realmente tengo que mejorar desde ahora hasta que termine las prácticas.
Parece que sigo liandola un poco con la cuerda para atracar el barco, pero al menos ya voy haciendolo bastante mejor con el ancla.

Fue una buena experiencia conocer a Sam, un Divemaster español que hizo sus practices hace dos años, está trabajando en Londres y volvió para disfrutar del sol y las sensasiones de bucear. Buenas charlas y otro compañero que trabaja duro.

Además para despedir a Sam, al terminar el día Sam, Peter y yo nos tomamos algo ya que Sam volvía a las frias tierras inglesas antes del miercoles cuando yo volvería a mis labores de buceo. Peter es un nuevo compañero en practices  que va a empezar este lunes y que a partir de ahora se llamará Patrick y que es demasiado joven para juvilarse de su actividad anterior.

Sigo leyendo mi libro de rescate de buceo



que espero terminar pronto, de manera que pueda empezar con primeros auxilios, nadar y otras actividades que tengo que mejorar estas semanas. De cualquier manera mejorando, pero mucho camino aún .

Y creo que esto es todo de momento,
Salu2 y mucha suerte,
Adal aka Gary aka Gary Pineapple ;)

New Dive sites in Tenerife :-)

Week 6! It is not even my favourite number but what a week it was!

Packed with diving and not just normal fun recreational diving, but fun new experiences!

First two dives of the week were Santa dives :)

I had never ever thought of diving in a costume and if I ever had I would have never thought it would be with a full Santa costume on a boat with 7 other Santas singing Feliz Navidad on their way to yellow mountain waving to other speed boats riding their way back to the marina.
And it was fun and the mood was great, can't wait to see the pictures of all the Santas underwater. Unfortunately I did not manage to keep anything from the costume to keep as a souvenir, but I guess the pics will do just fine.

The following day was just a very short day at the shop. Everyone went to San blas after the santa dives to properly celebrate Alice's new instruction certification and I heard it was so much fun.

We all showed up at 2:00 pm in the shop the next day for our kit set up and pre dive safety check skills, I scored 5 in the first but had to repeat the other one another day because I did it too fast. I practiced it a couple of times though this week and I will definitely do much better next time.

Pete and Melissa took off for their holidays on Monday.

We headed to Abades for 3 dives.  Dennis led the first dive by taking us to a different route where Andreas somehow managed to see a severely disguised octopus that was even hiding under a rock.

Then, we saw a big cuttle fish sleeping and burying itself under the sand. There were lots of lizard fish, scorpion fish and the very territorial blue damsel fish.
I was leading the second dive Where we went to the small caves up north and saw the cardinal fish and I loved the anemones
Lydia was leading our last 40 min dive.

The day ended with a great debrief, everyone was happy for a smooth, easygoing and fun day.

I woke up the next morning getting myself ready to dive in las eras. the first time I ever been there was on my first day of my internship.
The horizon was just so beautiful with the sun shining above us.
We found some cuttlefish, Andreas found yet another hiding octopus then we reached a current but we managed to swim our way through it.

On the third dive though we found the pipeline in the first 5 mins. The visibility was excellent and it was nothing like I had imagined really, was just a medium sized pipeline in the middle of huge blocks of concrete placed next to each other and it spread for as far as I could see for the whole duration of the dive. Was an exceptionally great experience as you just glide effortlessly guided by the pipeline just beneath you. And between each concrete block and the next you find something great, loads of scorpion fish of different sizes, lots of morays (black and brown) there was an amazing moray that was so curious and kept getting so close could almost touch my mask's glass.

We found out that we are going to El Puertito during the debrief after Las Eras diving experience.
We were all so excited for doing another project aware dive and hopefully see the turtles if we were lucky.
We were supposed to collect as many rubbish as we can from the shallow waters where the turtles live, it was for the sake of the environment, the turtles and the future of the dive site.

You would be amazed of how much rubbish you could find, it's just a sad thing that we are the enemies of our own environment. Many people forget that without the ocean there would be no life as we know it on planet earth.
After one hour of collecting rubbish and playing with turtles we came out with 4 sacks completely filled with rubbish.

This was apparently very inspiring for all the locals sitting on that cafeteria down the beach to find 5 divers very early in the morning coming out of the water with bags full of garbage.
They even asked me why we do that and an answer as simple as to clean the beach and have a good impact on the environment put a simple yet genuine smile on their faces and a rewarding feeling for myself.
On the third dive we were followed by the turtles, swimming right next to us for at least 50 metres then going and coming back to check us out every now and again. Could have never asked for more :)

We wanted to discover a new dive site.

It turned out to be a very nice dive site. There is a lot of octopus there and many huge starfish and a few cuttlefish. It's not that deep,  the deepest I guess was 10 metres where the cool rock formations were.
We even took some fun pics sitting there next to each other all the interns. We ended the day by snorkeling in the rain and doing some fish ID.

All in all this week was one of my most favorite weeks, everything was running smooth and everything was easy and we all had a lot of fun. Looking forward for the next week!

New Dive sites in Tenerife...... well for me anyway :-)

I was surprised when we went on a different path on our second dive in yellow mountain. We went west instead of east to a place called Swim Through. It is actually called swim through because we swam through a cave like structure only very shallow and wide open so that you can swim through it to the other side. It was the first time I have ever done anything like that and I really liked it so much. This time I was buddy with Dennis. We were following the group from behind making sure everything is ok and everyone is close to Alice as she leads the dive from the front.

The next day we took Gee to Abades where Melissa was leading the dive. It was the first time we go to the shore from the right side instead of the normal left side from the coast. It was such a beautiful dive where we saw a family of cuttle fish and some morays.

The second dive on the other hand was definitely a very significant dive in my life. I had never seen so many creatures in one dive and was the first time I ever saw an Angel Shark. I thought it was a big one but Melissa told me it was still very young, in any case it was very fast and ran away from us contradicting my expectations as  I thought they were very curious creatures. We also saw Black Moray, Fangtooth Moray, an Octopus, a few Cuttle fish and a lot of different fish.



Then comes the thing I enjoy the most in diving. Night diving is amazing I love the nocturnal creatures they are just so beautiful and all the creatures become less shy in the night. I also never knew cuttlefish can glow in the dark after you point the light to them. And you gotta love the planktons!

We ended our week with a very productive day in the shop. Pete made our skill assessment in the pool, I will have to repeat the CESA and the hovering and we also did the kit exchange which I never thought would be such a beautiful experience.
Gives you much confidence and trust with your buddy. We had to change the scuba unit in addition to the mask and fins all underwater with only one functioning regulator while not allowing anything to touch the water. After doing the normal daily jobs in the shop there was still some time left and Pete allowed us to go snorkelling for an hour.

We spent 45 minutes snorkeling, free diving and doing some fish ID which was  the highlight of my closing day.

Avery productive and enjoyable week.

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)

   

My First Halloween Party Ever!

What a lovely week, 3 days off and my first Halloween party ever.

I’m going to try my best to write an interesting blog for all those millions of people who are probably reading my blog every week, or maybe at least my mom.

The best thing of the week was to meet the new interns. We have Mahmoud from Egypt, two Danish guys Dennis and Andreas and we have a lovely girl Angela from Germany.
Mahmoud and Angela are starting as PADI Advanced Open Water divers so I can’t wait to practice the Rescue diver and EFR skills with them.
Dennis and Andreas are starting their PADI Open Water diver course, so that’s going to be very exciting for them since Dennis hasn’t been diving before and Andreas told me he did dive 2 dives a while ago. I hope I can teach them something as well without making them earn beer fines.

So I had 3 days off thanks to the new interns. I had a lot of fun during these days off. Thursday I just spend most of my day reading and relaxing. Saturday I took Mahmoud to El Medano where I finally had the churros which I wanted for week, and in the evening we went with all the interns to the Chinese wok where we had a very nice diner and we went to a few bars.
On Sunday I had a day off with Dennis, Andreas and Angela. So we all took our books and went to a nice place where we could read our books.

Melissa took me and Frank to Abades point and Abades beach. It was a very cold, grey and rainy day. The visibility wasn’t very great and when you get out of the water you don’t really want to take of your wetsuit because it’s so, so cold. But since I didn’t dive for quite a while I enjoyed every part of it. We saw an Octopus and we saw a lot of Scorpion fish.

My first Halloween party and I was very excited about that. So after a day of ‘’work’’ we all went home to dress up and we had a delicious and fun dinner at Big Al’s.
Everyone looked amazing in there Halloween costumes. Pete was dressed as Zorro, Melissa was a very sexy miss devil, Alice looked amazing in her army outfit, Sam was of course dressed as Popeye, Dennis was Harry Potter, Andreas was a dangerous Pirate, Angela being even more dangerous being a witch, Mahmoud was Mahmoud with a red wig, an axe and a very, very big mustache and I was dressed as super girl.
We all had lots of fun and I’m sure we have some great pictures. After diner we went to a few bars where we had some drinks and sang karaoke  after a very fun evening we all took a taxi back, since nobody was able to drive us back.

On Friday I had boat cover while Dennis and Andreas where doing their first open water dive with Pete which was very exciting for them and Alice was diving with some costumers from Morocco.

It was cold and it was raining and the wind didn’t make it any better to be on the boat, but as people say; ’after rain comes sunshine’. When we came back in the marina, Melissa and the other interns were already back from the shore dive they had that day and they were already washing their kits.

What a messy time was that, trying to wash kits with 4 new interns. It’s great having new interns but Sam and I really have to get used to it because we have been doing it together for the last 4 weeks.

Oh, and another good thing this week, Sam and I did our 100 meter tow  (even though it was in the rain) and we did our 400 meter swim and our 15 minute float, so that’s done.

And I did my EFR Exam which I unfortunately failed at the first time, but the second time I passed with a great score

Lydia

Out with old.............. in with the New

Slow, slow, slow. The new interns are here, Lydia and myself (Sam, or Sonic depending on how Melissa is feeling). The old interns, the self-proclaimed all-stars are gone, and apparently have very little to worry about when it comes to being out classed, at least not yet anyway.

Lydia and I still have 7 weeks to prove how awesome we might be eventually, as it stands we are just hiding it very well.

As I said earlier we aren’t the quickest duo when it comes to kiting up or washing kit, we’re less Batman and Robin and more two Ronnies. We seem to amble from one job to the next, this really isn’t making us sound to good so I’m going to move on to something much more interesting the diving!

One of my first dives here, was on the RIB and of course I had forgotten seasickness tablets. In my attempt to find the pharmacy I had ended up at a golf course, anyway onto the important bit, we headed to Yellow Mountain and hopped into the water, the visibility was stunning and the fish even more so. There is just so much to see here, from the big ones like Rays and Fangtoothed Morays that everyone seems to enjoy, but even the smaller stuff like Cuttlefish and Arrow Crabs.

However, for me, none of these compares to the excitement of chopping up the Black Sea Urchins and seeing all the fish swarm around and start eating them. There appears to be a steep learning curve with this however, I found this out when I tried to pull it out the crevice with my bare hands, this was followed by about 15 minutes of shear pain in my fingers. At which point I realised Pete was using his knife to get them out. Me being me I’d forgotten to strap my proper knife to my leg. Luckily I had my back up knife that is attached to my BCD, so I whacked out my butter knife and quickly realised it was too small. I then received 15 minutes of pain in the other hand, but it did die, so I think I’ll take that as a win for me.

Prior to coming here, I’d done about six dives in the last three years, so when it came to practising skills in the pool I was dreading it, and it went about as well as could have been expected. I didn't have any major issues but none of it was close to the standard that was demonstrated later on. I suppose it gives me something to aim for and I do have eight weeks to try and get them looking all professional, or at least as close to professional as I get.

Also this week was my first observation of a  DSD (Discover Scuba Diving) and was with a couple from France, Farid and Shiane. They were also the first customers I've dived with since starting, and both of them were lovely, I decided against trying out my school boy French, mainly because it ends at Je’m'appelle Sam and that really isn’t impressive by anyone’s standard. The actual session in the pool was an experience, and I probably wasn't as hands on as I need to be, at least I know for next time. It became apparent quickly that you need to help them kneel which is a skill in itself especially when they start to fall back and take you with them, but that was probably just the strong current in the pool, nothing to do with my inexperience.

Next up was Abades and this was my first set of shore dives, it is fairly shallow there so I don’t drink the air like usual. The diving here is just amazing, especially considering how close it is to the swarms of tourists on the beach. The big difference for me here, was that you can feel the swell of the waves take you in and out, which makes for exiting times when you try to look behind rocks. That being said there is a lot to see like all the different types of Bream, the Atlantic and Blue Finned Damsel fish, Cuttlefish and even the occasional Moray. For me the best part was seeing the Jellyfish, I’m not sure exactly why but I've never seen them when diving before, so I suppose it was new and different.

Back on the RIB, more long gazes with the shore line, and more nausea. Today was the day we dived with Ian and Olga. Ian works at the incredible toy shop that I've only had the pleasure of going to once so far, but they literally have anything and everything when it comes to diving equipment, unfortunately for me I don’t have the money for everything or anything. Anyway, back to diving, Ian and Olga both seemed like very competent divers. Ian especially entertained us all with his antics, such as biting Melissa’s fins or swimming around upside down, lots to see on this dive, with a Common Ray swimming about and lots of pretty Bream, Damsel fish as well as Parrot fish.

To finish the week we finally met the acclaimed ‘best intern ever.’ Melissa had endlessly said about how amazing Emma was. Whether there was any truth in the matter is still unknown. Emma and Rob, who was quickly renamed Ben, were both lovely people and very friendly.

We headed back to Abades for their first dives and it all went off without a hitch. Both dives had plenty of fish to see, with Wide Eye’d Flounders, Atlantic lizard fish, and even a Stargazer seen near the end of the dive.

It was a great way to finish off my first week of being here, and hopefully there is more to come.

Sam

The week of the sore ass, the proud daddy and more diving!

Let´s start this week’s blog with a little quiz:
- Is your body starting to look like a female bodybuilder a little more every day??
- Do you find yourself suffering from muscle pains 24/7??
- Do you find yourself almost falling asleep during your 15 min. Float stamina test??
- Do you find it difficult to keep your eyes open after 4pm.??
- Do you find yourself ordering half a pint instead of a ‘big pint’??
- Do you find yourself ordering water instead of half a pint??
- Do you find yourself skipping the after work drinks for some nap-time??
- Do you find yourself on a boat at 9 in the morning, praying to god the day would end soon and you would not puke over or near any customers??

If the answer is yes to all of the above: CONGRATULATIONS, you just survived your second week of the DM-internship!!

Actually, my second week into the internship started pretty awesome: I had my well deserved day-off! After that, again, my life has known its ups and downs.

First day back to work, I decided to see if the stairs leading towards the pool were really that slippery when wet. And yes, I can confirm that now. After slipping down the stairs, the day only got worse. 

For the dives that day, I was scheduled on my first boat duty. With a lot of confidence and excitement, I loaded the gear on the boat, untied the mooring and rushed into my wetsuit….. so far all good. 

Once out of the harbor I started to realize that the waves were just a tiny-little bit bigger than the week before, which actually made the boat-ride out awesome, bumping around on the side of the RIB. 

Once we arrived at Yellow Mountain and all the divers were in the water, my staring contest started, looking at the horizon for 30 minutes, taking deep breaths, fighting the sea-sickness, asking myself out loud why I ever started this internship, swearing silently inside, and praying to god for the day to end, or the boat to sink (when you’re sick on the sea, there are only so little solutions)! 

Tuesday was course-day for myself, doing my fish-ID speciality dives at Alien Rock (Yellow Mountain). On the second dive I was able to take the camera, which is certainly a challenge in the beginning. The fish started to frustrate me by not sitting still, so the sea-urchins (who we normally kill) became my next models/victims, at least they were good for something. In the end I got the hang of it and really started to enjoy the dives and taking pics!

Talking about sea-urchins, I’m proudly to announce I killed my first two sea-urchins in the last week. I was a bit reluctant, but after you killed one, it’s easy as to become a serial killer (gives me actually a good insight in the minds of the boys at the juvenile prison I work at home….strangely we’ve got more in common than I thought!).

For the record, the black-long spined sea urchins are not native to the Tenerife waters and suck the life out of all the rocks and corals. They don’t have any natural enemies and are a threat to the underwater area, so killing them is a necessity for the preservation of these waters and the sea-life!

This week I also finished the first dive of my navigation specialty, which was pretty easy and fun to do, and also the first dive of my SMB-speciality. Thanks to our self claimed very-very-ill (not mentally) instructor Gareth (he can make a sore throat sound like he’s dying), that dive has to be repeated (but I’m not complaining! More diving and more practice sound good to me). 

Assisting Gareth on a couple of other dives and courses has been a very interesting learning experience (not only because we spotted tons of octopus this week). Every customer is different, which makes it a real challenge to provide the assistance they need to an awesome dive experience! It’s not just about the dive-skills, but a lot has to do with ‘reading’ your customers behaviour and actions.

The highlights of the week were the stamina tests that were all done on Tuesday and Wednesday. I’m very proud of myself and the All-Stars for getting awesome results and even getting compliments from the big boss himself, who was ‘very proud of his children’. We all had wobbly legs and trouble walking the stairs the next day, but we all scored fours on the tired-diver tow and the 800 m. snorkel, threes on the 400m. and fives on the float! We rock!!

Second highlight of the week was spotting the Dolphins on a boat ride out of the harbor towards dive sites Poco Naufragio and Pequeno Valle. It makes your day when it’s 8.30 am., your ass is still hurting from the fall down the stairs, your legs can’t carry you because of the tiring stamina tests and you can just sit on the boat, watch the sunrise and spot some Dolphins 3 m. away from you!

Summarizing: It’s been a busy week, with looooong working hours, but I was able to gain a lot of assisting-experience, finished my stamina tests, been to a lot of new (shore) dive sites and only gained 3 beer fines!!

Looking forward to next week!

Suzanne