Articles tagged with: Diving with Turtles

PADI Open Water and Advanced Courses……..

Date: July 21, 2014 Author: Dive-And-Sea-Tenerife

This week has been hot and sunny in Tenerife! Lewis decided to continue his diving education and we went to Alcalà to do his Navigation and Peak Performance Buoyancy. As always he did a good job and we enjoyed looking at the two turtles that lives there. Both very curious! Alcalà is such a good dive site with deep water entry and cool rock formations with vibrant aquatic life!

Thursday we were supposed to go for a night dive at Tabaiba, but after a couple of Lewis’s Advanced Dives we realized that it was too much of a surge to dive. We drove over to Abades to see if the conditions were better, but unfortunately to choppy waters there as well. Either way it was a fun road trip, singing in the car and Alan and I had a dance session in the car park.

Friday we had a PADI Open Water student. Flounder and I went to the pool with them, and as Randall and Mick did the confines we practiced skills. I’m so glad my skills are improving! And in all the seriousness, it is so much fun! Kit set up and speeches before skills are so hard, it’s like learning a new language. Submersible-pressure-gauge-low-pressure-inflator-hose, tongue-rolling words right there!

After work we went to the Americans flat to make tacos and played beer pong! That game is so much fun, and the first run I had beginners luck out of another world! Alan and Steve are leaving us on Tuesday. It’s going to be sad to see them go, and hopefully I will visit them in America at some point!

Turtles, Tenerife and Tears….. almost

Date: July 14, 2014 Author: Dive-And-Sea-Tenerife

7 Weeks in Tenerife and t-minus 7 days until the end of my diving internship :-(.
I can’t believe that I am almost done, I’ve done so much in these past 7 weeks but it seems like such a short time. But on the positive side I Alan am now officially, well at least on paper, a PADI Divemaster!!! Oh snap!!

Its a pretty good feeling if I have to say so myself. So besides Steve and I becoming Divemasters, this week was pretty interesting. I got to dive with Lewis on his first and second open water dives on Tuesday, he is a natural underwater.
We then went to El Puertito with two sisters from Singapore, to see the turtles. At the end of the second dive, which I was leading, one of the sisters had trouble equalizing and I had to help her swim back to shore. In that moment I truly felt like an actual Divemaster.
On Friday we took Lewis to Yellow Mountain to complete his open waters four and five, which he did great on. He then passed his exam, and we welcomed him to the ranks as a certified diver!

Overall a great week! Now on to my last and final week at Dive and Sea Tenerife. I miss my home and my family, but I feel like I’ve made a home and a family here. Alright no more sentimental talk right now, I’ll leave that for my last blog. On to week number 8!

Diing with Turtles in Tenerife? We have it covered

Date: July 7, 2014 Author: Dive-And-Sea-Tenerife

I like to think of this week as the week of the turtles! I had the privilege to go on three turtle dive trips, two to the infamous El Puertitio (a.k.a. El Puerturtleo) site, and one at another site called Alcala.
The dive site at Alcala was a very fun trip because none of us had ever dived there before. After getting lost on our road trip, we finally found our destination tucked into one of the nicest little towns I have seen on Tenerife. After first walking the beach of the new site and starting to build a reasonable dive plan for the site, we happened to come across a few divers just about to enter the water. We asked them a few quick questions about the schematics and were more than happy to find out that there lived a few large green sea turtles in the area! We enthusiastically got kitted up and made our way to a pier toward the end of the beach and entered the new site using a deep water entry technique. Using our knowledge of underwater navigation we took a tour of the entire dive site by circling its entire circumference. And right when we were headed back to shore we saw the biggest green sea turtle I have yet to see on the island!
Unlike at El Puertito, this turtle was not very curious about us divers, but he didn’t seem to mind when we followed him around a few rocks as he grazed on some algae. Even though this story seems to be the highlight of my week, there was still something better that topped it.
The next day at the El Puertito site we entered the water around 9 am, and just five minutes down we happened to cross paths with the biggest and most mature green sea turtle known to inhabit the area. As usual the turtle made his rounds, inspecting each diver carefully for any signs of a free breakfast. But after realizing we had no food to offer, the turtle uncharacteristically swam about us for what seemed like half an hour. We were very spoiled on this dive, the turtle was having fun swimming along with us, we found a good sized octopus hidden amongst the rocks, and I was fortunate enough to bring my Go Pro to capture most of the dive on video!
So if your looking to go diving with Turtles, Tenerife is the place!
I have to say that has been my best dive since being here, but I am still optimistic that with 2 weeks still to go I will have a chance for even more amazing dives!