Articles tagged with: PADI Open Water Tenerife

Helping with new divers

Date: January 3, 2015 Author: Dive-And-Sea-Tenerife

This week started off with me in the pool watching Lee the instructor, whilst he was teaching two new Open Water students, Anglo-Hungarians named Lily and Daniel.
It was my first experience of watching real students as a Divemaster intern and I learned a lot about positioning, my role as an assistant and how to deal with problems both in the pool and in open water from Lee and from watching the students.
Tuesday saw me go out to Yellow Mountain for the first time with the two students on their first two open water dives. Aside from a few equalising and buoyancy issues, I think both of them did very well.
Wednesday saw me dive Alien Rock and the Swimthrough of Yellow Mountain and I have to say I really like the swim through dive, especially looking inside and seeing all the colourful coral inside.
Thursday was an office day that mostly consisted of me and Dudley painstakingly cleaning the floor thoroughly, but on the plus side I did manage to get my 400m swim down to 9:00 minutes!
Friday saw me do three dives, one at Poco (no rays this time but big barracuda and triggerfish were there as usual), Pequeño Valley. Both of which were led by Flo and on both occasions they were lead well. The third dive was at El Puertito and I had the privilege of getting close to the turtles for the second time, but this time with all three of them!
Saturday saw all of us, including Flo’s friends, go on a 4.5 hour whale spotting catamaran at a 55% discount, where we came close to a pod of about 20 pilot whales and a pod of bottlenose dolphins, topped with unlimited drinks and free food. Safe to say fun was had by all involved.
Finally, Sunday saw the arrival of two of my friends from University called Jen and Matt who were coincidentally on holiday here.
We took them along with Kevin and Geoffrey to the Steps first and then to the Yellow Mountain swim through but on the second dive I lead for the first time. Thankfully, all went swimmingly and my friends had a great time diving with us.

How did I make it to the halfway point of my internship? Where has all the time gone?!

Kiran

Open Water Diver, Rescue Diver and Divemaster Courses

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

Tenerife-Diving-PADI-Rescue-Course-Exercises

Paul is back !! Paul is spending 2 weeks here with us doing his PADI Rescue course and some dives.
This week has also been one of the busiest i have ever had.
On monday we dived Poco naufragio and peqeño valle, and in the afternoon i did the PADI Rescue confined sessions with Paul and Seahorse, one of my favorite courses to do, and always a lot of fun.
The week continued with a PADI Advanced course with a wonderfull couple of students, Ellen and Trystan.
While continuing the PADI advanced course I started a PADI Open water diver course with Maik, a possible intern.
We flew through the week with a night dive at tabaiba to continue the advanced, then the open water dives and the last advanced dive at yellow mountain. And finally we finished the week on friday with 2 of Casandra’s friends doing Discover Scuba Diving experinces , and also finishing my open water students dives.
I spent my saturday sleeping to recover from the week, but i hope i have another week like this one, full of lovely people and great experiences.

Time to speak French in Tenerife

Date: August 11, 2014 Author: Dive-And-Sea-Tenerife

This week was a very interesting one, I started the week off with some confined pool sessions for my new PADI Open Water student, Mike, the sessions went really well and he looked very enthusiastic.
The next day was open water at Abades, the sea state could have been better but it was good enough to go in, so we set of in to the water.
This week I also got to brush up on my French because I had 3 Belgium DSD’s ( Discover Scuba Diving) in the pool in the morning and then we went to do 2 fantastic dives at Abades.
This week was also Ollie’s final week as a PADI Rescue diver. We did her skill circuit which went really well, and we also did the kit exchange, and then the deep assesment to top it off.
I am so proud and happy for Ollie, she has become an amazing PADI Divemaster through out the weeks and we will all miss her.
It has been a fantastic week, and I am now starting to realise how little time have left here in Tenerife.

Another fabulous new Divemaster intern Starfish joins our team

Date: August 4, 2014 Author: Dive-And-Sea-Tenerife

This week was a week full of excitement, it was our new Divemaster intern “Starfish” first week here, and I had 3 new PADI Open water students to teach, the week went by really quickly.

We went off to Abades with Esther, Stephen and Jacob for their first ever dives on their PADI Open water diver course, they all had a great time and were excited to head off to finish their course the next day at Radazul. So excited were they that they booked to complete a couple of fun dives too.

Then I had fun as Katie and Ian were back with Katies friend Heather for her PADI Discover Scuba Diving experince (DSD). Heather did excellently and we hope that she will get to complete more dives in the future. It was a really good week filled with nice people and fantastic dives.
Although I still have over a month left, I can’t help but think my time here is almost up. Time has been flying by, mixing all the days and weeks together. But still every day there is something new to enjoy, a new student, and new intern, or maybe even a new dive site.
Im looking forward to my last couple of months here in Tenerife with Dive and Sea.

Tenerife has Sea Snakes!

Date: July 28, 2014 Author: Dive-And-Sea-Tenerife

This week was probably the best week I have had here as a PADI instructor and maybe as a diver, full of new things, and wonderful customers.
On monday we had the pleasure of diving with Ian and Katie, two lovely people doing their PADI Advanced course, we had a great time diving.
Also we got to do Lewis’s final advanced dive and Alan and Steve’s final dive here, it was a fantastic dive, and I am very happy both Lewis and Alan and Steve got to finish on a high.
The rest of the week just kept on giving, we started two PADI Open Water referral’s, and it was good watching them getting better and better on every dive.
As for what I saw, I found a SEA SNAKE, my first one, which was truly awesome, and some groups of bigger fish that I have yet to name or identify.
All in all a great week, and I hope the day’s flow as quickly and smoothly as these one’s have.

PADI Divemaster— Yes Me a Divemaster

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

I can officially check off all the requirements needed to become a PADI certified Divemaster!
I had the pleasure to complete my 60th dive at one of my favorite sites, Abades, where we took our young PADI open water student Lewis. I have to say, it was a rewarding feeling to see Lewis complete his open water course, because just two weeks prior we were taking him on his first ever dive as a Discover Scuba Diving participant.
It was a very gratifying moment to see a customer start with no idea what to expect when it comes to recreational diving, and then to watch them transform and fall in love with the sport.
This week also concluded the FIFA World Cup Finals. Being one of the few Americans to enjoy watching the event back home, it was really neat to witness the event abroad. After work, all the interns met up at a bar in the local town of San Blas to watch the showdown. The atmosphere was unlike any I have experienced previously when it comes to watching football. The only disappointment was watching Argentina lose.
It’s a bittersweet time for me right now to only have one week left for my internship. I know I will be happy when I am back home, but at the same time it is hard not to miss such a beautiful place and all the great people I will have to leave behind. So for now, I plan to make the most out of these last days and bring home some awesome memories of working here in Tenerife with Dive and Sea Tenerife!

DSD’s, Dive Sites and Divemasters

Author: Dive-And-Sea-Tenerife

Diving-Tenerife-PADI-Discover-Scuba-Diving

This week was fantastic.
On Monday we had two dsd’s at EL Puertito and they where really good, so monday was a good start to the week.
On Tuesday I did Lewis’s PADI Open water 1 and 2, he was very good in the water which made my day so much more enjoyable, the rest of the day we worked on the dvd and the book.
The next day we took two advanced divers to El puertito, one of them wanted to do the internship, it looked like she had fun so it looks like she will be doing 8 weeks of diving with us.
Thursday we took 3 DSD’s (Discover Scuba Diving) out to Abades, they all had their pro’s and con’s but a lot of fun to dive with, I hope they come back to do a course.
Friday was Lewis’s final day we went to Yellow mountain, a dive site I hadn’t done in a long time. Lewis really enjoyed it and so did I, I was very impressed by his skill’s and I have no doubt that he will be continue his diving education.
Saturday was my day off, I unfortunately did nothing, just moped around my apartment and complex for a while.
Sunday we did a pool session with Flounder and Ollie and then went down to the marina for stamina and rescue exercises, it was a very nice week, and I hope I have a lot more like it here in Tenerife.

Turtles in Tenerife? Just a few!

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

This week was probably one of the best i’ve had in a while, 2 days at El puertito and one day at another dive site at Alcala.
Let’s start with El Puertito, we went out for two dives with an Italian man named Fabio, the first dive was without a doubt on my top 5 dives i’ve ever done, within five minutes we were ambushed by a turtle, not even 2 minutes after that we found an octopus, my favourite thing ever, the turtle was centimetres away from me but all my focus was on the octopus, I could of stayed there for hours watching it, but we moved on to quickly find a second turtle, the daddy of the family, papa turtle stayed with us for the whole dive, I was so happy.
The second dive was also fantastic, I took my torch and I was looking under every rock and ledge and found some sea hares, some brittle stars, which are kind of like starfish on redbull. It was a great day and Fabio enjoyed it as much as us.
We also went to a little town called Alcala, about 15 minutes after El puertito, and a beautiful place. We soon found out that some turtles live there, so we set of to try and find them. After looking around for about 15 minutes we still couldn’t find any, my hopes were wearing thin. But on the far side of the bay, we came across a huge green turtle, way bigger than any I have ever seen, I would of screamed with joy if not underwater. We stayed with the marine giant for about ten minutes watching it feed and move around so gracefully, and then we left.
We want to go back there to explore some more and find all the other wonders hiding under the ocean.
The rest of the week went as usual, cleaning kit, maintenance, admin, etc
On sunday, my first PADI Open water student came in to do his confined dives, I was very exited and a little stressed, but once in the water I remembered everything I was taught and it went really smoothly from then on.
Im looking forward to doing his open water dives, and to anyone out there who would also like to explore the magical place we spend most of our day’s, come to Tenerife,, it’s worth it.