Hi, my name is Starfish. I am an Emergency First Responder, may I help you?”
Oh yea! I am officially qualified to give CPR during emergency situations, not that I’m going to run up to random strangers demanding whether they want to receive rescue breaths and cardiopulmonary resuscitation.
This week passed by in a blur where days were melded with each other with accomplishments, new challenges and a favorite dive.
I helped with my first DSD participant, 11 year old Julien from France. Discover Scuba Diving (DSD) is basically a beginner diving course where one learns the basics and able to dive with instructor present. And it is interesting that although we had a language barrier (me in English and him in French), we communicated successfully using the universal diving sign language.
At the start of the open water dive, he had trouble with buoyancy and had to hold my hand to keep him in vertical position to fin around the reef. By the end of the day, he had the confidence to control his own buoyancy.

I am also half way through my Rescue Diver course, with two more tasks to complete and I can focus on my Divemaster course.
On the other hand, my hardest challenge yet is my physical fitness for the Divemaster course.
My usual exercise was constantly using my mouth and finger muscles, yapping away all day or typing continuously on my computer.
Now, everything will have to change. I have to work out more often and swim everyday, on top of the everyday hard-work.
So, my goal for the up-coming 6 weeks is simply to lower my timings for the stamina components. My timings so far:
400m swim- 14mins 01seconds
800m snorkel- 21mins 45seconds
100m tow- 4 mins

To wrap up the week, I managed to dive with Green Turtles!!! Not one, but THREE! I was so excited! I have seen turtles in my previous dives in Malaysia before, but they were usually disappearing in the endless blue. This time at Alcala, where the water was beautifully calm and crystal clear visibility after days of rough currents, the turtles came up close and personal with the interns, instructors and two DSD customers.
One was twice the size of a XL shirt. Such majestic and beautiful creatures. This marks my favorite dive in Tenerife so far.