Proud of our new PADI Instructor's, PADI Staff Instructors and PADI Divemasters :-)

This week started on a real high as Lydia passed her PADI Divemaster course.  She did really well on her Exams, and was very proud to have completed her course.  Lydia is staying on with us for a few weeks as she wants to gain some more experience.  So we won’t be saying goodbye just yet. 

We all felt very proud of our urchin killing dives, joined by Nick we set out to Yellow Mountain to complete two project AWARE dives.  There are thousands if not millions of Urchins at Yellow Mountain, but it was great to see over two dives what a difference we can make.  We had a competition running ,  the prize being one of our lovely Project AWARE T shirts, the interns worked in teams counting how many urchins the other was killing, Dennis managed an amazing 280 kills, Melissa and Nick both felt that they had exceeded this number as they were in a frenzy over all the urchins and of course completed both dives.  On these dives they were also lucky enough to discover 2 small Black Moray Eels hiding away in the rocks, lucky they did not get in the way of a knife cutting the urchins.  It was great to see that we were actually making a difference.  Its so different at Yellow Mountain than other Urchin dives that we have done because as soon as you have cut the first Urchin you are surrounded by groups of fish fighting over the Urchins that is until they get full!  But they still come and look at what you are doing. 

Next on the list for Project AWARE is a clean up dive and another chance to win a competition for one of the interns to win a project aware T shirt.

This week, Kevin, Perry and Moomin all passed both parts of their PADI Divemaster exams, so all their study has paid off.  Well done to them, now we have to focus on stamina and skills.
Lydia has been joining the boys up in the pool to help them with their skills.  They are all getting much better each time, and are looking forward to when they can be assessed!

The hardest skill, I believe, is the kit set up, so this week while we have had a few spare hours the interns have been practising Kit Set up, Donning and removal.  A few minor mistakes and they are all doing superbly.

Off to Abades with Lydia, Moomin, Kevin and Perry, for 3 recreational dives.  Kevin briefed the first dive, he did a great brief just a little fine tuning needed.  Dennis also led the first dive, according to the others he did really well, and they were able to see a lot of different aquatic life including a cuttlefish, Trumpet fish, Scorpion fish and Cardinals.

On the second, dive led by Andreas, they went a slightly different route, which is always a great way to learn how to navigate a site.  On this dive they saw an Octopus, Anemones, Ornate Wrasse and lots of Bream.  Third dive was Moomin’s turn to lead,  he did very well, and was happy to find that he was able to bring the group back to the same spot they had descended, on this dive they saw Feathered Star Fish, a Black Moray and  Pearly Razor fish.

We have also been focusing on briefings, after the teams briefings this week at Abades we spent the afternoon going through a thorough briefing so hopefully from now on we will get excellent briefings on the dives from our interns.

Another sad farewell as Nick and Linda, regular customers from the UK, return home.  They have been here for a month, and we will miss them around the place, on a brighter note, Louise and Brian are back.
Louise just for some more recreational dives but Brian will be completing his PADI Advanced Open Water Course.

Alice and Lorcan were both doing really well on their PADI Instructors course (IDC), this week they have been learning how to teach, and present their topics as well as problem solving in confined and Open Water sessions.
All reports coming back are positive despite the nightly stressing from both candidates! 


Also we had Phil completing his PADI Staff Instructor course. During his course he learns how to assess new candidates as well as completing Instructor exams, but with a higher pass rate required.

We are please to say Phil passed without any problems at all and he now looks forward to training PADI Assistant Instructors.

Then it was time for the IE.  Pete spent the entire first day with the candidates, and has stated that he felt like a nervous parent waiting for the children’s results, he was joined by Melissa on the second day which finally ended at 19:30.
But finally we were happy to report that both Alice and Lorcan are new PADI Open Water Scuba Instructors!!!

We all met up and headed out for a great evening out at Otellos in Adeje.  Unfortunately Lorcan had to dash back to Gran Canaria, but hopefully we will see him again soon.
However Melissa, Pete, Alice, Lydia, Moomin, Andreas, Dennis, Louise and Brian all went out to celebrate.
After such a long day we all had a great meal with all happy smiling faces.
A massive congratulations to Alice who has become a PADI Instructor within a  year of starting diving.

For those of you that don’t know Alice joined us as a PADI Divemaster intern in January, she stayed with us for 13 weeks before getting a job in Gran Canaria but came back to work for us in June of this year, she completed her PADI Assistant Instructor course in August and has now completed her IDC. 

Its always good to have a week that starts and ends on a high!

We look forward to more weeks with this great news.