Night dives, PADI Advanced & Rescue courses & Ice Cream!

Another fabulous week, made even better by the return of Ann, who completed her PADI Open Water course with us earlier in the year and who is now back to complete her PADI Advanced Course plus do some fun recreational dives, and generally have a great time.

Melissa had pre warned everyone that Ann is exactly like her and already on the first morning she was getting into the swing of having fun and joking about the interns.
Ann slightly let herself down by asking “Do you think that black sand is hotter than normal sand?
"Yes" said Melissa,
Ann then said "Is that because its volcanic sand so it gets hotter?"
"Erm no" said Melissa "Its because Black attracts the heat!!”
Bless she would fit in so well as an intern.

Ann's first dives back in the water were at Las Eras, Melissa headed off there with Ann, Kevin, Perry, Lydia and Sam.
This was also Lydia, Kevin and Perry’s first dive at Las Eras. Another day for strong currents, although they still managed to see shoals of Bream, a Cuttlefish, an Octopus and lots of Trumpet fish.
Sam took the opportunity to lead the first dive at Las Eras, this was not that successful so Melissa took over (Sam claims this was due to poor visibility).  On the second dive they all saw 2 Rays, one hiding away in the pipeline and one hiding beneath a rock as we headed back to shore.
Everyone really enjoyed their mornings dives, and cannot wait to revisit with less current!

We all had a great afternoon watching Sam and Lydia practice their Kit assembly, Donning and Disassembly, great practice for the other new interns to see the level that they need to achieve.
Sam finally managed to get through the skill without any hiccups.  More practice needed for Lydia.

Congratulations to Sam for successfully passing his Divemaster Course, and even better drinks on Sam at the bar that night.  Sam has worked really hard over the past 6 weeks to achieve great exam results as well as improved stamina assessments.

Sam can now spend the next couple of weeks gaining more experience at dive leading and briefing.

Ann's second days diving was lead by Alice at Poco Naufragio where Ann was lucky enough to see one of the Common Rays and then off to Starfish Bay. They were accompanied by Kevin and Perry, as well as Sam and Lydia.

Well done to all the interns whose swim times are, slowly but surely, improving.
Its nice to see some competition between Angela and Moomin who are determined to out do one another.  Kevin and Perry are improving day by day.  Keep up the hard work guys!!

A fabulous mornings diving followed by Diving medicals for interns, Kevin, Perry, Lydia, Sam and Moomin!!!
As always Pete has been happy winding all the interns up about “invasive” procedures that would be happening!! And much to their relief, it was a nice simple medical, which they all had no problems passing.

Melissa and Ann were happy to be off to El Medano for an afternoon in the cloud.
No sunshine to be had, however this did not stop them from sampling some of the local ice-cream yummy!!!

A nice lay in and then the Emergency First Response course for all the interns including a great refresher for Sam.

They had a great day and all learnt a lot.  Lydia managed to get a little too friendly for Sam’s comfort but nothing new there!!
Congratulations to Lydia, Angela, Moomin, Kevin and Perry for successfully passing their EFR course.

Meanwhile Melissa and Ann were having a fabulous time at Loro Parque. 
Donuts with icing what more could you ask for… well of course they did visit all the shows except the Parrot show.
After a quick visit in to our friend Phil from Teide divers in the north they headed back complete with Alice’s Rash vest much to the delight of Alice who has been sadly missing her long sleeved rash vest since Phil stole it and took it to the north with him, in fact he even claims to have been wearing it!!!

A great day ended with a couple of drinks after work to celebrate such a good day with no beer fines!!!

A gorgeous blue sky greeted us on Thursday which was great, this was the day to start Ann, Kevin and Perry’s PADI Advanced Open Water course.
They did three dives today, with Deep, Navigation and Fish ID.  The navigation started at the dive centre, with Alice explaining how to use a compass and then getting them all to complete squares and triangles using the compass with a towel over their heads lots of fun for the rest of us who were just observing.
Then off to the Marina for the dives.
On the first dive at Poco Naufragio for their Deep dive, Pete was surprised to find that Ann’s brain works quicker at depth, (we all knew she was a little strange) Navigation and Fish ID went very smoothly and they all spotted lots of fish… not sure about the drawings though.

A very very early start for the team on Friday, off to complete the night dives for Ann, Kevin, Perry, Sam and Lydia, Poor moomin drew the short straw as Boat cover, but not to worry he will be completing his soon.
They had a great time on the night dive and saw a large Ray gliding out of the darkness towards them,
Moray Eels and some very gorgeous Anemones.
Then after a brief interlude, where they had to sit and watch the Dolphins (life is such a chore), they were off out to complete their Peak Performance Buoyancy dives.
All of them did really well although its always great fun to see everyone trying to get through the hoops on the first attempt.

Congratulations to Ann, Kevin and Perry for passing their PADI Advanced Open Water course.  Now its time for Kevin and Perry to Study their PADI Rescue manual.
Who would have thought 3 weeks in and already at Advanced Level.

More fun dives for Ann on Saturday with Melissa, Alice, Sam, Lydia and Moomin at Pequeno Valle and El Delfin, lucky Melissa was able to skip out for the kit washing as she was off to beautify herself at the hairdressers for another fun night out with Ann, Pete and Alice at Aberdeen steak house, lovely meal!!!

The first dive at El Defin was amazing.
This was the first time for Melissa and Ann to see this site, they saw 2 Black Morays, a Fangtooth Moray, A Canarian Lobster and were continually being chased around the site by a Trigger fish.

Ann wanted to stroke the trigger fish!!! DOH!  There were also some amazing Anemones.
Unfortunatly the interns missed this dive, better luck next time!
On the second dive there was such a current that they all had a great drift dive, they did still manage to see some fabulous Anemones with at least 20 Sexy shrimp, and a huge Star fish!!

Sadly this was Ann’s last dives with us this week, but never fear she is already looking at flights for March 2013.
It was a sad farewell on Sunday, made slightly better by the scrummy cake cooked, by Alice, much to the delight of all the interns.
Luckily for Sam and Pete, who were off, we all had a conscience so we saved them a slice!

A fun afternoon for the interns on their PADI Rescue confined sessions.
This course was for Lydia, Moomin, Angela, Kevin and Perry. They had a fun filled afternoon and Sam was happy to be able to refresh his Rescue Diver skills.
All of the interns said they had a really great afternoon, it was hard work but very rewarding!

Sunday was a busy day cleaning cars, a spot of Search and Recovery for Lydias missing fin, mask and Snorkel!!!
Moomin and Angela are studying hard reading their PADI Divemaster manual and watching the Divemaster DVD.
Meanwhile Kevin and Perry are revising their Rescue Diver manual preparing to sit the Rescue Exam.
Lydia is busy studying for her PADI Wreck Diver Speciality.

And finally Alice was studying hard all day preparing for her IDC starting on Wednesday.

First Angel Shark of the Season :-)

A great start to the week some sunshine!!!

We have just had a whole week of rain well ok I am exaggerating a little but that is how it has felt!!!
It was great to start the week on a high note.

Melissa headed off with Vic, Daniel, Claire Kevin and Lydia to Abades for two recreational dives, the sun shining down through the water makes Abades look gorgeous, well apart from for poor Kevin, whose mask was permanently flooding a testament to his recent training that he kept just clearing the mask over and over and at one point he even took the whole mask off to try and sort the problem…… now we have discovered that there is actually a hole in the mask!!!

At Abades we saw so much life, lots of different coloured Scorpion fish, some beautiful Red Backed Cleaner shrimp who came so far out of their little cave to see us on every visit!
It was such a welcome change to have such clear visibility after a week of grey skies.
Melissa enjoyed seeing new divers facial expressions when they discover something new hiding away.  

For Vic and Daniel the Visibility was amazing, as previously they have only dived in the quarries in England.
Claire a PADI Rescue diver was happy just to be back in the water and really enjoyed trying to help Dan with his buoyancy.

Pete meanwhile was off with the interns at Yellow Mountain on boat cover while Sam practiced his Leading skills, famously he managed to get lost on his way back on the second dive…. Not helpful to the interns who were trying to practice for their mapping dives!!!
Never mind plenty more time for that later.

It has been lovely to welcome back Nick and Linda regular customers of ours who have bought some members of their UK dive club out to dive with us this week, Marc, Eileen, and Tony.

Their first dives were at Las Eras and with the sun shining they all descended, almost instantly you can see shoals of fish and large Trumpet fish so close, as we explored the site in search of the small nativity scene we stumbled over a large glowing pinky blue Anemones, so gorgeous, as well as a small Black Moray hiding away.


A chance glance towards the surface had us all mesmerized by a shoal of Barracuda circling the Bream and Trumpet fish…… breakfast was clearly all that was on their minds.
On the second dive to the Pipeline there was a small round Ray with a lovely black spotted nose hiding away as well as the Brown Moray who takes such exception to being photographed.  Its such a great dive and each time you visit you are able to see new things hiding away.

Alice headed out with Louise for her Discover Scuba Diving open water dives, Louise was really excited but nervous about her first dives, and so was really happy with a very helpful Lydia and Alice by her side, new interns Moomin, Andreas, & Dennis joined Alice on these dives.

Another bright and sunny day dawned and off to Yellow Mountain, Sam practiced his dive brief and leading skills and was really happy that he not only got back to the boat with all of his group but that they had all had a great dive where they saw A Fangtooth Moray Eel, a Black Moray as well as a few small Octopus.
On the second dive to the swim through they had a great time and loved watching the Garden eels disappear from sight as you glide over them.

Lots of lovely exams this week for the interns, congratulations to Kevin and Perry for passing their Open Water Diver course!!!
They have done excellently in the few days that they have been here and so now they move onto their PADI Advanced course….. more reading!!!
Congratulations to Moomin and Angela for passing their Rescue Diver Exams.  They are all looking forward to starting their practical course with Lydia as well.

Not so great news for the EFR exams, each intern managed to fail at least one part of the exam…. More study for them before resitting.

A few quiet days for Melissa and the interns in the shop catching up with reading, watching the DVD’s and for Melissa lots of admin catch up time……  Next week Kevin and Perry will be starting their Advanced Open Water Course and Angela, Moomin and Lydia will start their PADI Rescue Diver course.

Alice, Moomin and Lydia with Linda, Nick, Mark, Eileen and Tony went off to Poco Naufragio where they had an amazing experience with a large Stingray who they all thought was around 4 meters wide, it came and hugged every one of the divers, and Tony was really happy with the video he took.

Poor Melissa out on the boat…… however best day this week to be out the sea was so calm and the skies were blue!!
Another new dive site to Nick and Linda was El Delfin where a small statue of a Dolphin sits at 40 meters, everyone loved this site where they saw they not only a Common Ray but also a  Duckbill ray, several Brown Moray Eels and Red Backed Cleaner Shrimp plus a huge Octopus.
Then they all headed off to Pequeno Valle, this was also an amazing dive with Brown / Black and Fangtooth Morays, and a fabulous Butterfly ray at the end of the dive who did not want to wake up.

Saturday dawned bright and clear and Alice headed out to Poco Naufragio due to popular demand from Tony, Eileen, Nick and Linda.  They had an amazing first dive, where they saw a Duckbill Ray, Two Large Atlantic Rays, Common Ray and the first Angel Shark of the season.
They all enjoyed it so much that Tony and Eileen chose not to do the second dive as they felt that nothing could live up to the last dive, and wanted to end their diving holiday on the best dive ever!!!
Nick and Linda had such a great time they chose to go back to the same site for the second dive, where once again they were surround by a group of Rays.  It the most amazing experience the Rays are so large yet so graceful in the water.

Melissa meanwhile gave up her day off so that new interns Kevin, Perry, Moomin and Angela and Lydia could go for some recreational dives.  Lydia completed her first dive brief which was excellent , clear concise.
Then Lydia was off to lead her very first dive.  She did really well and Melissa was really pleased with her performance so much so that due to sinus issues she even let Lydia lead the gang all by herself on the second dive!
They headed out to Abades, completing 2 dives on the reef.  Amazing dives where they saw, an Octopus, A Black Moray Eel, lovely Feathered Star Fish as well as all the usual aquatic life at Abades, Wrasse, Bream, Damsels, Parrot Fish.

A blissfully quiet day on Sunday for Pete, Melissa, Sam and Lydia who were all off .

Alice, Moomim, Kevin and Perry were at the shop.  Their day dawned bright and clear and then headed off to the pool for skill practice, learning to demonstrate a skill is completely different to being able to perform a skill!!!

Then a day cleaning and tidying the shop after yet another very busy week.

Who cares about the rain when your diving......

A great week, with the arrival of new interns, a fantastic Halloween team night out and more great diving with great people............ the down side was lots and lots of rain!!!!!

Another bright and Early start off to Los Cristianos to collect the lovely Suzy and George.
Alun wimped out with his “Man Flu”  so off they headed out to Yellow Mountain with Alice, Alison, Stuart, Frank and Sam.

More fun for Sam having to brief and lead the dives, amazingly his briefs are getting worse with practice… maybe his parents are piling on the pressure!!!  They had two great dives, and everyone really enjoyed the dive sites.  After Sam's thorough "debrief" the night before with his parents, Ali and Stuart, were much better behaved!!!

An enjoyable day for Alice, as she was joined by her Dutch friends Roger and Renate.  Roger was completing his PADI Discover Scuba Diving Experience and Renate was off for some snorkelling fun with Sam.  Roger did really well in the pool, great practice for Alice to speak about diving in Dutch!!  And then they headed off to the ocean for some fun diving, joined by Jane, a new diver, out for some practice.

They had two really nice relaxed dives, and they were all happy with the abundance of aquatic life that you can see at Yellow Mountain.

Mean while Melissa was off at Abades with Frank and Lydia.  They had two great dives and saw a Fangtooth Moray eel, Cleaner Shrimp as well as the famous Sexy Shrimp dancing on a glowing green Anemones, this was Lydias first sighting and she was really happy to have finally seen these beautiful shrimps.  There is always so much life to see at Abades just siting watching the fish swim around is wonderful.

Disappointingly due to a Red weather alert we had to cancel our Halloween dive, we will do it soon though!!  It would be a shame to miss out of all our fab costumes.  However the rain did not put us off our Halloween night out.
It was really nice to meet the new interns, Moomin, Kevin and Perry and Angela.    Of course we all looked excellent, Popeye was a very convincing sailor and was mad enough to let Alice draw an Anchor on his face in permanent marker pen!!!  Lots of scrubbing the next day!!

A busy induction day the next day with hangovers not a good combination!!!   Interns Dennis, Andreas, Angela and Mahmoud had a great first day learning all they needed to know about Dive and Sea Tenerife….. and exactly how much fun and hard work its going to be.

Shell shocked I think is the best definition of their faces!!!
They had a good afternoon session, with Andreas and Dennis completing their PADI Discover Scuba Diving experience whilst Advanced divers Angela and Mahmoud completed a scuba tune up.

Kevin (Dennis) and Perry (Andreas) from Denmark  are both non certified divers so are looking forward to completing their Open Water course. After their DSD Pool sessions they were both raring to go.

They joined John in his PADI Open Water course and then they were all joined by Brad on their second day who was taking the upgrade from PADI Scuba Diver to PADI Open Water diver.  Kevin and Perry are both naturals under the water and it has been a pleasure to see them both enjoying their underwater experiences, looking forward to the rest of their internship.

Whilst the newbies were off on their open water course, Melissa headed off with Moomin (Mahmoud) and Angela with Sam, Frank and Julia for two dives at Las Eras.  Despite a very strong current they had two wonderful dives, Angela was really impressed with the amount of aquatic life that they was to see on these dives, as usual we saw shoals of White Bream, and Cow bream

After the first dive Melissa was amazed to find that Moomin (23 years old!!!) was exhausted after just one dive………….  And even needed to take the afternoon to recuperate!!!
Luckily he came back batteries fully charged after his day off!!!

Swirling sand equals seasickness!!! Ergh…….. poor Melissa headed off with Daniel, Vic, Julia, Suzy Alun and George to El Puertito everyone was on a high heading off to see the Turtles……….

Unfortunately the visibility was shocking with less than 1 meter, determined not to disappoint  Melissa valiantly carried on through the swirling sand in search of the Turtles and miraculously they found 3 Turtles!!!
Everyone was overjoyed to have seen them and this made up for the poor visibility.

Everyone was mightily pleased to enjoy a well deserved day off on Sunday!!!!

Sexy Shrimp get the hearts racing whilst Diving!

A very dark early morning, but gorgeous and sunny by the time we headed off to Abades, with Matt and Ryan.  The first dive at Abades bay was fantastic and at the end we were circled  by a very large Barracuda who looked like it was sizing us all up for breakfast!

Then just as we were getting ready to head back off for the next dive we bumped into our friend Phil from Teide divers who decided to join us for our second dive.  Another gorgeous dive, with a large Fangtooth Moray bearing his teeth at us, some gorgeous cleaner shrimp, and the sexy shrimp on all of the Anemones we saw.

It was Matt’s last dives with us on this visit to Tenerife so we said a sad farewell , secretly I think Melissa is pleased she will no longer have to fear for her life underwater………..  No matter what he thinks he is not getting a dive knife!!!  Its been a real pleasure having Matt back diving with us as not only has he helped us discover Sexy Shrimp he has also showed us a frog fish!!!    Matt is every dive centres dream customer, he is happy on all dives and just loves looking for all the small life that others pass on by, not only that when he is here its like we gain an extra member of the team!
We will hopefully welcome Matt back very soon.

We have been joined this week by Frank from Germany who has come to complete his PADI Assistant Instructor course, so 4 hard days work ahead of him.  Alice and Phil have both been joining in as preparation for their IDC and Staff Instructor course in just under 1 months time.  They have all worked really hard this week, and have already begun to see the improvements in their presentations.

Hannah has been back to complete her final PADI Discover Scuba Diving session to get her DSD Leader certification with Rory and Abbie who were joined in the pool by their parents Chris and Sandra who were completing their Scuba Tune up with Alice.

All of them did really well in the pool and then it was off to the ocean for their open water dives.  They had two really great dives and it was great to see the family diving together.

Congratulations to Frank who has successfully completed his PADI Assistant Instructor Course and passed his General Standards exam with 100%  a fantastic score.  Frank will be joining us for the rest of the week for some recreational dives so he can relax now the pressure has gone!!!

One of the best parts of my week so far was getting to meet Popeye's parents, Ali and Stuart, they were both great, it was great to learn some fun stories about Sam as a child!!  Much to Sam’s discomfort!!!
I think we were more excited to meet his parents than he was to see them again other than a chance for free food all week!


More discussion ensued this week about the present “from” the Christmas tree and although they didn't deny they do get present's they did think it was specific to their family unlike Sam who believes we are all weird for not receiving presents from the Christmas tree.

It was great to welcome back Suzy and Alun from Wales this weekend a lovely surprise to meet their son George a PADI Junior Open Water Diver.  Unfortunately this time Alun had not bought his Popa Smurf wetsuit so we had to make do with teasing him about …. Well anything we could think of  frankly!!!

Their first dives were at Poco Naufragio and Starfish Bay, they were also joined by Ali and Stuart  and Velzo (pronounced Velux like the blinds!!)   Melissa was really happy to dive at Poco Naufragio for the first time in about 6 months, it was a wonderful experience to see a Common Ray as soon as everyone had descended as well as a fleeting glimpse of a large Atlantic Ray and a Duckbill.
On the shelf at Poco Naufragio there is so much life to see, gorgeous colourful Anemones with Sexy Shrimp as well as lovely Red Backed Cleaner Shrimp.

The favourite however is the three Moray eels hiding just over the shelf at about 20 meters, who all come out to greet you when you glance down. There are two black and one fangtooth, which had taken a dislike to sharing his home with the Black Moray closest and was busy biting him as we watched on in awe.

Then off to Starfish bay, a wonderful site where you see a lot of different coloured and sized Starfish as well as Cleaner Shrimp and Octopus, this site is woefully covered with Urchins…… note to self (reminiscent of  bungle) must sort out our project aware Urchin culling dive soon to try and get this site back under control!

A grey morning but fantastic dives at El Puertito with Alison, Frank, Stuart, Sam and Melissa.
Despite limited visibility the divers were met at every turn by another Turtle, in total it was agreed there were 5 different Turtles, and its always amazing to see more than one at once.  

It was great to be able to show everyone the Sexy Shrimp this is now Sam and Melissa favourite activity since Matt has abandoned us in favour of returning to the UK !!
Its up to us to carry the flame!!!!