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

Mountain climbing and the arrival of Jesus!

I'm sitting in the shop with my laptop, doing this blog. I just got back from the pool where I did my 400 meters swim. I'm pretty tired and sore all over due to all the swimming.

I'm trying to reflect back on the last week; what went well, what went bad, and what went absolutely horribly wrong.

Right now I am at, this point of my internship, where Im beginning to understand why certain things are done the way they are. I'm really starting to see the bigger picture here!

I'm still a relatively inexperienced diver, which means that Im still enjoying every little bit of every dive I have, and everything I see, feel and experience under water, is a big deal to me - even in spite of strong currents, poor visibility and a 3mm. wetsuit (which provide pretty poor insulation from the relatively cold waters at 18 meters).

As long as I am under water, breathing from a regulator, Im as happy as can be.

Last week we went to a dive site called "Las Eras" where Sam was leading the dive. We had to fight some pretty strong currents, especially on the way back. 
Lydia, with whom I was buddy with for that dive, was struggling to keep up with the rest of the group (most likely due to her pewny muscles - oh them girls! :-) 
So I was towing her pretty much all the way back. I didn't mind at all, because that is what a buddy is there for, and I know that she would have done the same for me, had she had the strength.

One other dive that made a deep impact in my mind, was our dive at "StarfishBay". A site usually known for, yeah you guessed it, Starfish. Nowadays, however, the site is a vast underwater desert, nothing but sand and rocks, well almost, and... those damned sea urchins, who have taken over pretty much all of the site. 
I think during that dive, I saw two starfish, and to many sea urchins to count!

I have had some truly amazing dives for the past week, I think what stands out the most, is probably our encounter with a small "Common Ray".

I was surprised to find that a ray acts kinda like a friendly dog. The ray I socialized with, kept circling around us and bumping into my stomach.

Well, I conclude that it was friendly and attention seeking -  (who knows, after all it could mean that it was probing me for any soft spots, in which to lay eggs.:-)

Anyway (how do you continue a blog after a silly comment like the previous?) 
Right, we had a day off sometime last week and instead of resting, which would probably be the smart thing to do, we decided to go climb Montaña Roja (152 meters worth of cliff by the coast at El Medano).

Around 11 o'clock there was a knock on my door, and when I answered, I was meet by no one but our very own Egyptian  Moomin.
He was wearing a big leather cowboy hat, complete with fangtooths in real Indiana Jones style. The bar was set!

Andreas, Moomin and I went to Lydia's apartment to pick her up, all excited to see what kinda cool climbers outfit she would wear.

If Moomin looked somewhat professional in his crazy "(brokeback) mountain climbing hat", Lydia was his direct opposite wearing her flip flops eating a lollipop ready to go climb a freaking mounting!

A short taxi trip  later, we arrived at the bottom of Montaña Roja, ready to climb that badboy. Fifteen minutes later (and 20 meters up the mountain) I found out that my mountain climbing skills didn't really match the amount of bragging that I had been doing previous to the trip. 
However, my self esteem rose a bit when I saw Lydia trying to make her way up the mountain in her flip flops!

We had an amazing fun trip to the Red Mountain - but, more or less, the best part of our trip, was the fact that we had no one falling off the mountain smashing their bodies to a bloody pulp (being FUBAR).

Oh I almost forgot, - we have a brand spanking new room mate in our apartment  "The prince of peace, the son of god himself" Jesus Christ has blessed us with his divine presence. 
He has appeared before us in the form of a big cardboard figure, guarding the west wing of our apartment  
Him being there with us, is, obviously, the result of a wild night out in the town of San Miguel.

Tomorrow I do my first advanced dive (the deep one) so I'm looking very much forward to that!

The adventure continues, stay tuned ya´ll.

- Kevin out

HUGE Sting Rays and Small Sexy Shrimp

I am becoming more and more confident underwater.
The best part of this internship is when you wake up knowing you will be on the boat in the Atlantic ocean enjoying some sunlight on the way to your dive.

We have had 5 amazing customers this week, most of them are certified BSAC & PADI instructors so they were experienced divers. At first I thought this would make it much harder because they would notice tiny mistakes that you are not even aware of but they were actually quite laid back and easy going.

We had really amazing dives at Poco Naufragio behind the marina where we were just overwhelmed by massive and very curious rays.

There was at least 6 very curious rays hovering on top and beside each and every one of us as if they were blankets, they were so soft, felt just like a jelly like sponge and everything just became slower and slower till the silence took over.
The experience was intense and possibly the best I have had in years. I felt so lucky to be there, it was very relaxing and rewarding.

The next dive we went to another dive site just before Yellow Mountain. Mark was my buddy and I made such good progress keeping close to him and Alice who was leading the dive at the same time.

I had an important discussion with Pete the other day of how and why important it is to be close to the one who is leading the dive but it was very challenging this time because Mark sometimes went to the opposite direction from Alice and I didn't want to call Mark and adjust our direction every time Alice does because I could see him enjoying what he was doing.
I always kept in the middle and as soon as Alice started to get a bit far I would tell mark to start swimming towards her.
I realised that I am starting to enjoy diving differently, not exactly how Mark was enjoying it but as long as I am making sure everything is safe and everyone is happy then I am happy :)

My next diving was with the group again.
As they really really enjoyed diving with the rays before so they decided to start their day by saying good morning to some of them and hopefully say hi to the big rays.
And guess what?! We were lucky again! These creatures are just wonderful and it just makes the day as perfect as it can be. If only all days start like that!

For their next dive, they wouldn't want to go anywhere else. I can quote "the dive was wonderful and anything else will just shadow this experience we just had" so they decided to jump on with the rays again in the same dive site.
There was a proper DVD camera underwater recording the experience and I am very looking forward to see it.

The week earlier I had problems with my brand new 7 mm wetsuit. It still wasn't that cold for me and I used to feel so warm and nearly over heated.
So Pete told me to use one of the shop's 3 mm ones. The first dive was OK but I was feeling cold by the end of the dive but the second dive I felt really cold so I had to switch back to my suit.
All of this caused me some trouble trying to figure out the exact weight I should put on my weight belt, I was fine tuning it until I reached my consensus 8 kilos with two extra kilos in my jacket's pockets. It was funny at one point because one time I was under weighted and I wouldn't sink so Sam pulled me down with him. As soon as we reached the bottom I tuned my buoyancy and the problem was solved.

Then came our mapping dives. Angela and I came out with magnificent maps of yellow mountain, Pete was giving us all the advice we needed and after a conversation that took at least half an hour between the two dives we were all motivated and ready to draw maps that were good enough to start leading dives using them. I am still waiting for Pete's comments and remarks concerning the map but I am sure if there are any, it will take us another dive just to perfect it and fine tune all the little details that are missing.

The EFR course Pete conducted was great, I felt like the studying I did was paying off. I wanted to answer all the questions he was asking and I liked how simple it was all put together from A to Z.

The scenarios was also good and gave us an impression of how it was different when you really want to put your knowledge into action. Then we took our tests and I scored 90% on the rest of them. So now I finished all the paperwork needed for my rescue diver certification.

I ended this week's dives with two of the dives Dennis, Andreas and Anne are doing for their advanced open water course. 
I missed out the deep dive because I forgot one of the shop's keys in my pocket which was very embarrassing. I had to wait for Melissa to come pick up the keys but there wasn't much time to waste so they had to leave for the deep dive and I waited for them in the marina till they came back to re-load the boat with full tanks and pick me up for the rest of the dives.
But it was not the end of the world, I learned the lesson and I don't think I will ever forget any keys in my pocket again.

The diving is great!
It's just what's making every mistake that you do under pressure bearable. I am still not 100% pleased from my performance above the water but then again its just my second week,
I am still learning a lot and I feel like I'm getting there one step at a time.

Mahmoud

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

The Three Musketeers.

The pressure is on now we are soon to be down to three interns.

We started our week by heading out for Yellow Mountain. The three musketeers being Geoffrey, Todd and Jess had two great dives stalking 3 Octopus’s watching them changing colour, crawl up rocks and finally swim off. The biggest must have been a good meter long.

Jess went of to El Puertito with Grace and Frankie. They had great dives seeing the turtles and an octopus whilst Todd and Geoffrey went to Poco Naufargio and Pequeno Valley where there where stingrays, black morray, fangtooth morray, nudi branks and all your local fishes.

The interns and Louie where off to Abades to do the Project AWARE dive, cleaning the ocean to make it a better place for everyone.  Luckily Abades doesn’t have to much rubbish and we came back with a few items each!

It was Gracie’s last day of diving so we where practising our peak performance buoyancy by floating on or heads and using each other as DPV catching a ride around the dive site.
We had to say farwell to Grace she will be missed she was a great role model and Divemaster.

Back to Yellow Mountain, the interns playground, where we practiced our navigation and mapping skills around Crocodile rock all went well and we made it back to the boat!

We where treated to going to Las Eras, with Mark a customer, a great dive site with tonnes of fish.
On entry there where hundreds of barracuda. We saw Stingrays, 3 moray eels, an octopus, cuttle fish and cleaner shrimp.

The other dive site there was the Pipeline where the underwater creatures have made home. There we saw a fangtooth morray, an octopus and a streaked gurnard our first one so it was great!

Off we set to try and earn our SMB speciality. It was great fun trying to erect our sausages. After many attempts we got there with Geoffrey’s looking abit limp! A sting ray even turned up to say hello.

On the last day of this diving packed week we started our PADI Rescue course in the marina joined by Martin another returning customer, playing dead and giving each other the kiss of life.

We finally then attempted to snorkel 800m, attempted being the main word. Work to do on that one!

More next week.

Nervous, excited and being the "New Kids"

Waking up at the start of something new is a difficult feeling to describe. A mix of excitement, nervousness and intrigue at what is to come is the closest I can get. Unfortunately we did not get off to a spectacular start, as we were 15 minutes late for pick up…

At least we could only improve right?

The rest of the day went reasonably smoothly; not having to do anything trying contributed to that.

Alice and Pete ran us through the ins and outs of what is expected of us new little lambs which by confirming the looks on the other two faces seemed a tad daunting, with the complex system of organization.

Our first pool diving session by Pete and watched the other interns give some reassuring, informative skill demonstrations that made me perfectly confident in being able to do them after.

After that we went to do our first open water boat diving experience in Tenerife. (and was assured by Pete that a RIB was definitely a boat after some of Matts questions).

After returning from the dives, washed the kit, and returned everything to the shop for the end of the day.

Tuesday was a nice relaxing day to begin with, then we were introduced to the big ugliness that is the 400m swim. It did not help that we were so unfit that eating a chocolate bar is tiring. Needless to say, our times were slower than a legless horse at the races.

We then experienced what cleaning kit with Melissa is like and I am now in the process of developing schemes to take revenge for nearly being drowned with a hosepipe.

After a quick pint at the pub it was time to churn through some first aid reviews with Conan the Destroyer on the tele in the background. At least dinner tonight wasn’t as big a disaster as last night.

We practiced doing briefs for Bubble makers using the other interns as eight year olds which turned out be not that dissimilar. One or two things to remember for next time first is that an eight year old will not listen to you for twenty minuets and will not be entertained by one game for very long (To be fair, Foster could bore the paint off a wall –Matt).

We then spent some time filling toys with sand so we could play with them under water, and according to Jake it looked as though I was having the most fun I’ve had had all week (I wouldn’t exactly put it like that)

Pool Skills. Coming from a BSAC background, Foster and I had different experiences with pool skills and gear.

Some of the PADI skills we had never encountered before. Cue hilarious stupidity during the hovers. If someone had just tuned in to watching this underwater fiasco I would dare say a sense of pity and bemusement would cross their minds. I was also daft enough to underweight myself as I forgot I was not using a shorty so occasionally I decided to float up to the surface during weight belt removing and the like which probably did not help my scores.

Regardless, the day passed and I even managed to meet some Chinese people that reminded me of home in a lovely restaurant which was nice.

Second time doing the 400m swim and first time doing the 800m snorkel one after the other (thanks to Jake for that one). And did much better all around.
It is true that once you learn you cant forget how to swim, but you can forget how to swim well.
Luckily I think it coming back to me… a bit.
And in the 800m snorkel Matt and I got good times considering it was the first time we did it.

The morning started with setting up two DSDs kit for their pool dives which took far too long for some reason. Leaving the training to the more experienced people than us, we started watching the Advanced diver video.

One of the things that I am set on doing is getting hold of a Diver Propulsion Vehicle and tearing through the underwater world as if I’m flying a Eurofighter. It genuinely looks like a massive laugh. Shame about one costing more than my current life savings.

We were joined after by a customer going through her Rescue diver course and we then hit the marina in the afternoon with Jake and Jamie to go through their practical rescue skills.
Unlucky for them, we got to play the hapless victims. Needless to say when Jamie attempted to subdue a certain panicked diver, she did not expect herself to turn into a climbing frame for said diver.

Started the day by setting up our kit ready to go out on the boat to help with the rescue divers again.

We had to help find a “lost” diver and pretend to be unresponsive and got lifted to the surface before getting pulled on to the boat. It’s a shame we cant get on to the boat that way every time, its much easier than doing it yourself.

Only one person "fell out" of the boat on the way back, luckily enough the newly qualified rescue divers on the boat leapt to his aid with a rope and BCD.

We finished the day early as everyone was keen on getting home to watch the formula 1.

A rewarding but tiring week, but ready for more.......

Matt & Foster