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

Warning - Diving is hard work!

The second week just started, but I can tell, that to be a customer at a dive center isn't comparable at all with working in one. 
I'm physically soooooooo exhausted. I'm a sporty person and three month before I started the Divemaster internship, i went at least two times a week in a gym to extend my condition, but we are swimming 400 metres, carrying a lot of heavy equipment around to the car, out of the car, in the boat, out of the boat in the car..................... 
I go to bed at around 8 pm with the sandman and fall asleep like a stone, but it's 100% worth the fun and experience!!!!!!

I stayed at the shop together with Sam and the rest of the interns went on a dive. I swam 400 metres in the morning what is definitely more fun than after two dives and lunch. I swim 400 metres in around 8 to 9 minutes, so can be pretty sure to pass the final swim test.

On the next day I went with Pete, Alice, Sam and the English customers, that were already on a couple of other dives with us, on a deep dive to a new dive site called El Delfin. 
We didn't set the anchor there, just rolled in the water and got picked up later by giving sign with a surface marker buoy, what I have never seen so far. 

This buoy is rolled together, so small and comfortable to carry around under water and as well attached to a reel so that you don't loose it. Pete filled the buoy with air of his regulator and it floated to the surface where it sticks out of the water, so that the boat guard can see it and other boat driver can also recognize that there are divers in the water. 

The second dive led us to the dive spot Pequene Valle, which was beautiful because of a huge fish school of approximately around 50 fishes that were sliding over the bottom of the ocean and rocks like in a beautiful studied performance. Apart from that I was still tired and exhausted.

A little bit more rested I started the next day. It is nice to see that all the interns are getting faster and faster with the daily duties like preparing the kit in the morning. Now we can more focus on things that have to do with actual diving practice.
I went on a shore dive this day with Melissa, Lydia who was leading her first dive and Dennis and Andreas. I brought my camera, what always makes me really excited because I love it to make photos and it is actually the second time that I practice with my underwaterbox. I made a couple of pictures that are really nice. 
My biggest problem under water is to stay steady when I want make a picture, because their is always a little bit of a drift that is moving you around, except when you are lying on a sand pool, but that might bring the problem that your visibility gets crappy because you stir up the sand. I am looking forward for more chances to bring my camera!

Lydia was leading both of the dives we did there. The second one even without Melissa and she did well and can be very proud of herself.
Without the guarding eyes of Melissa we even did a couple of fun pictures underwater..... "HELLO MELISSA :))))) " maybe shown on this page later :).

FINALLLLLLY a day off. But no time for actual rest, because I am still behind with my homework. I started reading the Open Water Manual and AdvancedManual as well, because my first two certifications are so long ago, that I have to refresh my knowledge. In combination with the ongoing education for the Rescue Diver and Divemaster it is so much more work, but on the other hand everything makes so much more sense as well and because of that more fun to learn and practice and experience!

Pete and Alice took me and Mahmoud on a navigation dive to Alien rock. We dived there before, but I have to admit that I have never spend actual thoughts about my orientation of this dive site so far, because I am still so busy with myself under water. So that was the dive we actually had to spend attention. 

Mahmoud and me separated our jobs under water. If you want make a map of a new dive site, you have to measure the different depth you are diving through, the brezels of your directions ( one of a divers standard equipments is a compass for orientation ) and the distances that you measure with your fin kicks. We shared the informations, but were drawing the maps both by ourselves and the results were.... quite surprising :). 
I am sorry that I couldn't make a picture *hihihi*.

On Tuesday Mahmoud and me had a day off again and catched up in the morning for the homeworks, that we got the evening before from Pete. We had to write down an emergency action plan for a special dive site, that includes the fastest way to get a dive victim to medical professionals, numbers to reach them and other medical centres that are more specialist in dive accidents and so on. I am looking forward to actually lead a dive on this site!!!

Back again and we were all together in the shop to practice our first response skills, including rescue breath and CPR on a unconscious victim and how to care for a person with bleeding injuries. 
We had a lot of fun simulating the different situations in role plays. I am still asking myself how Sandra alias Sam :) could actually appear in the dive shop with multiple bleedings after "hesheit" went water skiing in the marina ???????????

Today I felt so sick in the morning *sobsob* that I didn't go to the shop. Hopefully tomorrow will be a better day!!!