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

Our sixth week into the internship in a brief summary.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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!

Diving with friends, LADY GAGA STYLE

The weekend started with a scuba tune up for Lewis, a 10 year old open- water diver. Me and Sam/Village did a review of his skills under supervision of Melissa. It’s great to asctually go over the skills with an actual diver instead of just practicing by yourself. In the end, this is what I’ve trained for the past 3 weeks and the 4 weeks last year so it’s nice to be given the trust to work with a customer. Sam and I did pretty ok, we remembered to keep close contact and executed the skills to our best ability. Lewis was awesome under water with an amzing buoyancy control, conciderd he hadn’t dived over a year!

The next day it was time for the dives with Lewis at Yellow Mountain (Aliën rock and the swimthrough). It was my first time doing the dive brief this year. I had practiced it quiet a bit with then other interns, so I was spot on! On the dive we were accompanied by a small Common Eagle Ray and again, Lewis was a little star, being really comfortable in the water on both dives and loving the dive sites and little creatures out there.

This week I also completed my nitrox speciality. I think nitrox can be a big advantage for recreational divers and is often used in certain diving areas, so when Pete and Melissa gave us the opportunity to get this speciality I was definatly keen on trying it. The course itself was really interesting (difficult aswell if English is not your first language and when your reading about the ‘partial pressure of O2’, ‘equivalent air depth,’ and some random dudes called ‘Lorrain Smith’ and ‘Paul Bert’ at 8:00 in the morning….). Somehow I expected the dives with nitrox to be really different, some pigeon-lover told me the fairy tale that; ‘you don’t feel tired after a nitrox dive and that it’s the best thing in the world….’. Well, that is quiet an overstatement. It just all felt….well….normal I guess….didn’t notice any difference except for the longer bottom time my computer indicated ofcourse!

Thursday was the best diving day of the week (can’t get any worse after the little pool-incident on Tuesday, which I’m sure the other interns will mention in their blogs!). For the first dive we went to Poco, an all- time intern favourite, because of our lovely rays there. I buddied up with Jenny and as soon as we touched the shelf, the rays started to swim in from our left hand side. One ray would pass us and we would see the next one appear straight after, just amazing! They were stalked by a Rémora (spanish name for a Shark Sucker). Three common rays passed us before we went on to spot big groups of bream, needle fish, a baracuda, octopus and yellow tail goat fish. Then on our way back to the anchor line, another small eagle ray decided to say hi! Definatly one of the best dives I have done this year!
The second dive of that day was starfish bay. Jenny and I spotted quiet some starfish, Nemo and Village enjoyed themselves trying to set up a sea-urchin graveyard and left the divesite with some good urchin souvernirs in their fingers.

The final dive of thurdsday was an intern-only dive to the moon-pools. It was supposed to be the first time I’d dive at the moon- pools, it’s supposed to be beautifull when the sun is out and the light is beaming in….but…unfortunatly we didn’t make it to the moon-pools…. We ran short on air and had to turn around while the moon-pools were in reach. We did however see a SEAHORSE! YAY! First time here in Tenerife that I spotted a seahorse, they are pretty rare and difficult to spot aswell. This one was bright green, about 8 cm. Big and holding on to a piece of string.  He/She did not swim away and waited patiently to be photographed, but ofcourse, on moments like these, the camara does not work! Big bummer, but still a really nice spot!

On the weekend Marloes, one of my best friends started her open water course, with a full day of pool sessions and DVD’s. It’s funny how you know someone for such a long time, in and out, through good and through bad times, BUT once you put them in some scuba kit and toss them in the water, you get to know a completely different side of them. To be honest, Marloes was really comfortable under the water, she was fine with her skills, but somehow she decided to sit on the bottom of the pool with her hands in a doggy-like position (or Lady-gaga style, whatever style you prefer!) for both of the pool sessions, which got me laughing so much I had a couple of near- drowning experiences and a flooded mask for 80%. It’s definatly more fun when diving with friends!

Only 4 more days to go till I finish my internship. The past week I passed my skill- circuit with good scores and stupid little mistakes I would not make any other day of course! Now I only need to successfully complete my search and rescue dive and I’m a Divemaster! I’m also very close to finishing my MSD specialities and my DSD-leader so heaps of little celebrations ahead in the next few days ahead!

Cheers to Dory and Bruce who already became Divemasters this week!!

Nightdive, Turtles, Turtles and….Turtles

After a heavy weekend in which we said goodbye to Trigger and Cassandra, our next diving adventure started with a night-dive at Abades at 5 in the morning. We were with 6 people, Big and little Will, Steve (Advanced student and big Wills friend), little Wills dad aka Gary, CK and I. Half of us never done a night dive, which made everything even more exciting. I buddied up with Steve, who reinsured me he was absolutely NOT scared AT ALL (ofcourse). However, once we descended it became pretty clear to me that Steve really just wanted to be with his friend big Will…. So there I was, bobbing around behind Will who had CK hanging onto his left arm and Steve on his right leg! Let’s say the buddy contact was over- appropriate at that time. I have to say that we didn’t see as much on that night dive as we had on previous ones, but still it’s the thrill of diving in the dark that really motivates me!

After the night dive it was time to watch the sun rise until we headed back into the water to assist Steve on his Navigation and Fish ID dive. I’m pretty sure Steve was just testing us when he asked us to write down and identify all the fish, instead of completing the exercise himself! Highlight was the little common eagle ray we saw when heading back to our point of descend. A good spot by Gary and little Will (and thankfully our Fish ID student recognised the ray as actually being a ray)

So on that day, even before it was midday, we done 3 dives. In the afternoon Pete had the unusual surprise of yet another dive at Yellow Mountain. How exciting we all were (NOT) but then again, we are here for the diving and the experience so we just went along, gave it out best and I it was the best dive at Yellow Mountain so far! The vis. Was absolutely awesome, like swimming in an aquarium (well, not Pete’s aquarium, that’s a whole different inside-story). Frankie and Jamie went along for Jamies first dive in the ocean, he did great, the divesite was awesome so a good end of a very very long but ‘enlightening’ day (those are the words of an actual English speaker aka Bruce ;-))

The rest of the week existed out of visiting the turtles a couple of times. To be honest, I’m at that point in my internship were it is hard to get excited about turtles. I reckon it’s a great experience for customers and you have to have done that dive at El Puertito. Don’t get me wrong, please come and see the turtles, but at the moment I’m actually thinking that I’ve been there so often that the turtles are starting to recognise the lady with the yellow mask, orange snorkel and Cressi- lady wetsuit.  You can easily say that the turtles and I have a complicated relationship….(Unlike me and the octopus! There was an explosion of octopus at El Puertito on Tuesday, a lot of them being out on the rocks, instead of hiding).

Next wednesday Pete will try to get into a wetsuit again and head down to the pool with some of us to score us on our skills. The last days we have been in the pool a couple of times to practice by ourselves and with Alice. I’m doing ok on most of the skills, except for the hover, but still a few more days and pool sessions to go before we have a face off with the big boss under water!

To finish this blog a little conversation that takes place so many times with new divers, but it is a funny part of our job right here, and demonstrates an important DM skill  patients (and knowledge of the aquatic life)!!:

Student: Did you see ALL THOSE EELS under water? I’ve never ever seen so many eels in
  my life!! They were all over the place, I think they were just sleeping or
  something, it was amazing….
DM intern:   No, actually I didn’t see a single eel today….
Student: Well they were all over the place, brown, with white dots…. Just great!….I’m all
  excited now!!
DM intern: Sorry to tell you, but I think you saw a cotton spinner, they are eel-shaped but they
                are actually no eels
Student: Ow… ok, how about the one I pointed out when we descended???
DM intern:   No that was a cotton spinner…..
Student: Ow… ok, how about the one that was in between those rocks???
DM intern:   Pretty sure that was a cotton spinner…..
Student: Ow…ok, and the one I saw in the end…..
DM intern:   Nope, just a cotton spinner…..
Student: And…..
DM intern:   COTTON SPINNER!!

Turtles.....and Tears.......Goodbye Tenerife

My final week in Tenerife was about as fun as it could possibly be.

We went diving basically every day and I got to see turtles more than once it was the bomb.
This week really was a lot of fun though and when I left Monday I was a bit sadder than I thought I was going to be, this summer has been really fun even though parts of it were less than stellar.

I had a really good time and got a lot out of the entire experience. Working as much as we did was a completely new thing for me and I ended up getting really sucked into diving which made every dive so much more fun, especially after all the books and courses were done.

Even though after we got through all the courses the days seemed longer because we had less to do.
At the end of the week we got to spend our beer fine money which was glorious and went out for Malene’s birthday and that was hilarious.
Malene had this really super cool dance move that went through the 5 point descent skill.

All in all I had a great time and they sent me off wanting to come back so that’s good.

Alice wasn’t there though because she was “sick” but it was really probably just because she knew she would burst into tears and didn’t want to embarrass herself :)

Thanks and Goodbye

Eric (Banana Man)

Happy Birthday to me..... :)

The third week of the internship has gone down, and here's a summary of all the exciting experiences, we've had.

On Monday Theiss met in at 10 am; Malene went to Abades with Trigger, Alice, Melissa and Cat, as part of the latter's Advanced course. They all had a couple of good dives, though with a rough entry and exit due to windy conditions, and despite of the not very impressive visibility, they saw a lot of cool stuff including a stingray and Malene enjoyed helping and buddying up with Cat.

Meanwhile, Theiss was helping Eric out with his epic rack-project, and to put it mildly, it turned out to be the most beautiful and solid rack we've ever put our eyes on...

In the afternoon, Malene did the monthly equipment check with Alice, and she enjoyed having a peek at how the equipment, we use every day, actually works and what it consists of.

Theiss went to Abades later that day together with Melissa, Hannah, Eric, Cassandra and Will. The conditions were way better in the afternoon and we had some very recreational recreational dives that both included skipping as well as limboing on a deserted rope stuck in the seabed in the company of the usual suspects of the Tenerifean aquatic life.

The next day we both went on a shore dive again, this time closer to "home":  And the site simply provided all you could wish for. With Alice as the leader we, together with Casandra and Trigger, went along the left side of the small bay that encloses the beach, with the marina wall on the right hand side. Amongst the all-time present fish species, we saw a beautiful sea nettle anemone, black moray eels, a spiny fan-mussel, an annulated brittle star, cuttlefishes, octopuses and a big stingray - simply an abundance of interesting marine life, big as well as small!

In the afternoon, Theiss went to the hotel pool with Alice and Eric. There was a decent amount of interest, but it's always hard to tell whether or not it is serious. Theiss acted out the salesman-role, which he enjoys a lot. At the same time, Malene went to the marina beach once again, this time joined by Will, Trigger, Hannah and Cassandra in the hopes of replicating our excellent morning dives, but alas, that was not the way it was supposed to go. All points of interest from earlier that day weren't that interesting anymore, and all luck seemed to have let them down, so they were bitterly disappointed, especially Hannah and Will, who weren't around for the morning spoils.

Wednesday and Thursday were pretty similar in terms of our activity around the place. The days were packed with exciting fish quizzes, monthly/weekly duties, skill set sessions in the pool, with focus on the spoken skills, stamina tests and we got to familiarize ourselves really well with the content of the stack of magazines on the shop table.

On Friday we went with our snorkel equipment to a small beach nearby together with Cassandra and Trigger to do some urchin stabbing, but the conditions didn't allow that to happen. Instead of just heading home, we decided to conduct a 100% Project AWARE behavior by cleaning up the beach, and we managed to collect a decent amount of rubbish. The beach is situated near a frequented path, and is a popular place to go for moonlight and sunset sightings, so a lot of trash had piled up there.

Friday evening, Nemo and Bruce (aka. Will and Alister), two of the new interns, joined the rest of the crew for a very casual and chillaxing night out at an Indian curry place in San Blas.

The following day it was Malene's birthday, and what a blast it was! She finally went out to see the turtles in El Purtito, together with Melissa, James, Matt, Cassandra and Kathy, and the dives exceeded everyone's expectations. On their second dive while enjoying the gentle company of the "local inhabitants", meaning the beautiful turtles, a simply massive butterfly ray suddenly appeared from the sand just underneath the small group, and the sight was stunning - what a birthday present from Mother Nature!

In the afternoon Theiss went to the hotel pool with Alice and Trigger. The high season is quite clearly picking up and hence there was a lot of positive interest in our free Try Dive offer. It was very busy, and we actually had to disappoint some people, because we simply didn't have the time for everyone to try. Hopefully some of the holiday guests that did get to do it have now got taste for diving, so we hope to see some of them again.

In the evening we gathered in the shop for a piece of cake and a glass of sparkling wine, which was a perfect start to a lovely night out. We started out in a delicious tapas place very originally (and ingeniously) called "Tapas". Afterwards we hit a couple of the many bars in San Blas and ended up having an awesome time in a place called Taboo's for some games of pool, one liter pitchers of beer and a lot of dancing.
The Divemaster skill set was warmly embraced as a rich source of inspiration for an entire list of new dances, and especially the dance of the Five Point Descend might turn out to be the new theme dance of the Dive and Sea Tenerife.

Theiss and Malene

Just what is "Only Fools and Horses"?

On Friday the 28th of June around 6 pm we, the Danish couple Malene and Theiss, two innocent and excited new Dive and Sea Tenerife-interns arrived at Terrazas de la Paz, only to find our new colleagues and employers sitting in the nearest bar, called Big Al's, having a cold beer after what seemingly had been a good day at the office - what a welcome!

Moreover, we were given our mandatory nicknames: Marleen and Boyce, which apparently have their origin in some obscure British television programme.

The next day we had our induction day, conducted by Will. We went through the "Induction Day Presentation Slides"; he then showed us around the place and we were presented with some of the many daily duties. We were immediately taught that all the gear, systems, plans and routines might well enough be idiot proof, but certainly not necessarily intern proof (or, for that matter, as we saw on the EFR practical part, instructor proof, but that's a different story all together...)

The first week on the Dive and Sea Tenerife Internship has been an exciting learning curve for the both of us, with new stuff to learn and remember being "thrown (though, gently and compassionately) in our faces" all the time.

Our very first dives on Tenerife were carried out on Sunday  in sites called Moon Pools and Los Abrigos Steps respectively together with all the other interns and on the instructor front Alice, Pete and Will. Unfortunately, the visibility (or simply, "vis") was not impressive, and the conditions were pretty rough. But on the plus side: it was good getting in the water again and we got to familiarize ourselves with some of the creatures commonly sighted here in Tenerife. These include: the colorful ornate wrasse, the very territorial damsel, the sneaky lizardfish, the excellently camouflaged wide-eyed flounder, the peculiar trumpet and puffer fish together with the elusive parrot fish.

In the afternoon we were introduced by Will to the art of demonstrating the Scuba Review skills, which we enjoyed - there's a lot to work on, but we'll definately get the hang of it sooner rather than later!

Monday Marleen went out to do an awesome dive at the Yellow Mountain site together with Ann and Pete, which was a lot of fun. Among other cool stuff they saw an octopus hiding in a tight crack. Theiss observed DSDs having their first pool session, which is always rewarding seeing people take their first few breaths under water.

Malene went to Las Eras with Paul, Chloe, Ann, Melissa and Will on Tuesday to do her Navigation and Fish ID dives as part of the PADI Advanced course. Unfortunately, they only got to do one dive due to rough conditions. A grim-looking barracuda and lots of fire worms crossed their wet path on a very nice shore dive! On this day, Theiss actually had the day off, but decided to meet in around noon to do his EFR-exams. Later on, we were introduced to the kit set-up for Discover Scuba Diving by Hannah and Eric, which went okay. Nonetheless, it's another thing to practice and improve on.

The next day we did the Deep Dive scenario in Poco Naufragio together with Trigger and Casandra both for the sake of Malene's PADI Advanced Course and for the other three's Divemaster.
We saw a very curious (and threatening) fangtooth moray. Theiss had his monster torch with him and was randomly probing cracks and holes, when this big fellah of a fangtooth put his head out, probably to let us know that we had disturbed him in his morning routines... or something.
Afterwards we hit Yellow Mountain, and during the very nice dive we made our way through the swim-through, which is simply stunning! You basically swim through this narrow overhang, where not much light enters, but as soon as you "hit the other site", you see trumpet fishes, damsel fishes and breams (among a lot of other species) going peacefully along with the rhythm of the underwater community, dictated primarily by the gentle but steady current - a must-experience, if you ever go to Tenerife for diving!

Later that day we did our EFR practical part together with Ann, Trigger and Casandra; it was very intense and dramatic, and it definately peaked when Trigger killed himself during a primary assesment of Malene's electrical shock injuries leaving Ann to rescue both those two and Theiss's broken arm. Meanwhile, Casandra's character was drunk and narced and annoying, which didn't really help Ann in her stressful situation. Poor Ann.

On the contrast, it definately didn't peak when Will desperately tried to start the AED only to find out that he hadn't connected the machinery to the main Tenerifean electricity network (instructor proof? Think again...).

On Thursday together with Trigger, Ann and Cas, Theiss did the confined Rescue divers skills which bascially teach you how to handle an injured (responsive or unresponsive) diver. It's a really fun and beneficiary course, so we enjoyed ourselves a lot. At the end of the day, we set up kit for the next morning's night dive.

We got up at the absolutely inhuman time of 4.30 in the morning on friday to do a night dive, which you have to have experienced as a Divemaster: We were a little tired, but also very excited. Ann went together with the rest of the interns, Will and Pete to Poco Naufragio to do a great night dive in excellent vis. Among the very special experience to dive in total darkness with only a flashlight to rely on for some light, we saw some sleepy puffers and a baby moray. Unfortunately, equipment trouble kept Malene out of this dive.

When we got to back to the Marina, Malene, Eric and Hannah did the kit and chillaxed, meanwhile the rest of us went out in open water to do our mandatory rescue scenarios. In the first scenario, the instructors (Melissa and Will) hid two conspicuously coloured object for us to find. Trigger and Theiss took a wee bit too long to get kitted up in the boat, but found the object very quickly.

Will then swapped in for the object and acted as the unresponsive diver, whom we brought up in a controlled manner and at a safe ascent rate. The second scenario consisted of finding an unresponsive diver at the surface and then bring him back to the boat while providing rescue breaths and undoing his kit. It was a pretty tough challenge but also a very good experience! Because of the early meeting in, we got off early in the afternoon.

On the following day we started off in the pool for the skills, supervised by Will and Melissa - we're definately progressing but there's still some way to go. Afterwards we went to the marina to get our stamina assesed in the 800 snorkel and the 100 tow.. Again, there's definately room for improvement!
Later on, we got to practice being in the boat handler role and get people kitted up and in the water - to summarize we had an excellent day where the mood was high and the jokes were flying about!

On Sunday Malene had her long-expected day off, while Theiss went to Abades with Paul, Chloe, Trigger, Hannah and Melissa. We had a couple of awesome shallow dives (5-8 m), where Hannah was leading and Melissa pointing out a lot of cool stuff, which included a baby cuttlefish, a cuttlefish fast asleep, beautiful anemones, octopus and even an eagle ray!!
It was a magnificent experience and especially the way the sun rays hit the colorful reefs on the second dive was simply breathtaking.

When we got back to the dive center we chillaxed a wee bit while having a RDP-session and practiced knots - simply a wonderful day!

Until now it's been hard work, but also great fun, and we're definately looking forward to proceed and improve.

As they say in Tenerife (and other Spanish speaking locations): Hasta la vista!

Boyce and Marlene

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Trigger

Finally im a PADI Rescue Diver.....and playing with dummies!

This week started off with Will showing up and our PADI Rescue diver course starting.

Basically we went through all the things we learned in our Emergency response manuals and had a good laugh at all the ridiculous stuff we had to practice on the dummy.
The EFR course took us through all the "skills" needed to help someone in trouble.

Tuesday we spent a ton of time in the marina going through the rescue diver confined session.
We spent at least 2 hours in the water going through all the tows and rescue scenarios and all the skills and before that we had done another 800m snorkel which both Hannah and I did poorly on.
After that it was regular day in day out kind of stuff, we had basically mastered all of that at that point so it was all good.

On to our mapping dives which we need to complete to pass our Divemaster course, which we done at Yellow Mountain. Our maps were just simply awesome!!
We also finished our Rescue diver course with two open water rescue dives. It was awesome even though Hannah could not get Alice out of the water to save her life…and by that I mean she eventually managed after quite a bit of work.

Las Eras was our next dives, I was buddies with Kali and Hannah was with Kali’s husband Yaro. Las Eras is one of my favorite dive sites but it was the first of a couple of days of really terrible visibility and surge underwater that we experienced.
But on the whole even though we had some issues, it was a good learning experience for me and Hannah.

Then the next day we went to Abades and due to the weather (just wind and surf) we decided to skip going on the right side of the bay and decided to only go on the left side.
Luckily I still was able to go and even though visibility was poor I enjoyed the dive.

The next day we went on dives at Yellow Mountain and originally Hannah and I thought we were leading dives to Alien Rock and Swim Through but with the poor visibility Alice took over and lead the dives.
Then on the second dive as I was swimming along near Yaro he pointed out a pair of underwear floating along the bottom nearby, that was quite funny!!

The next couple of days we had a few pool sessions and DSD’s in from the hotel pool so that was good.

Eric ~ Bananaman