Articles tagged with: Turtles Tenerife

Done it, Im a PADI Divemaster………. Whats next?

Date: January 19, 2015 Author: Dive-And-Sea-Tenerife

I would like to thank my family, friends, motley crew on the Divemaster internship for believing in me: The Instructors, Divemaster, interns. Couldn’t have done this without you lot.

*Takes a bow, awaiting for endless applause and showers of red roses*

Frankly, once everything is accomplished and after the momentarily feeling of accomplishment, the “meh” blank expression slowly settled in. To put in a cliché manner, it is like the three stages of mountain climbing.

Stage 1: Self- doubt. At the foot of the mountain, you look up and question yourself whether you are crazy and whether or not it is possible to conquer it.
Stage 2: Giving up. Half way up the mountain, panting and out of breath, pain surging through your entire being, you look up thinking whether this pain is worth it to continue on, and then look down thinking it is much easier to go back down.
Stage 3. Accomplishment. At the top, you scream “I DID IT!!” and happy thoughts of having conquered causing you to have a permanent goofy grin on your face. After a couple of deep breaths and moments of enjoying the view, you wonder what’s next. This needs some time to figure out.

Apart from the grimness, it was an awesome week diving. Great customers, crystal clear visibility and amazing sea animals. Managed to spot giant stingrays, octopuses, arrow crabs and high-5ed a green turtle.

Fatin

Finally a PADI Divemaster :-)

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

I’ve been waiting for this moment since the start of my internship, I’m finally a DIVEMASTER! The feeling I had when we finished off the last assessment was so incredible! A lot of hard work has finally paid off. The path to Instructor suddenly doesn’t feel that long!

We started off the week doing Starfish’s Rescue Diver. I had so much fun being the tired, panicked and unresponsive diver. Starfish really got the feeling of being in a serious situation when I grabbed her mask and tried to climb her as a panicked diver. The same day I finished off my Search and Recovery and Rescue Assessment. It feels very good every time I tick off something from the “will I soon be a Divemaster”-list.

Tuesday we headed off to Alcalà, which is one of my favorite dive sites here in Tenerife. We always see turtles here. Not only one or two, but three! They are so friendly and curious. We had 3 certified divers with us Lynn, Paul and Nick so we all enjoyed our recreational dives looking at beautiful rock formations, fish and turtles!

The next day we were ready to drive off to Abades. Starfish and I were going to map Abades to draw an understandable map with bearings, depths and kick cycles. We were really happy about the result and in the end of our dive we saw a HUGE octopus out in the open chilling at the reef. I was ecstatic!

Thursday we started the day in the pool with DSD’s. Two kids, and their dad from France. This was the first time I heard Randall bringing his entire dive lingo out in French! Even if I didn’t get a single word he was saying I enjoyed both the confines and the Open Water Experience. As Randall and myself were going with the DSD’s and the mom, which is certified, Flounder went off with Lynn and Paul for the last dive here with us in Tenerife this time. When we came back I did my Divemaster exam… and damdamdaaa… I passed!

Friday, THE day! First we went straight down to the pool to tick off the last skills I needed to do in the pool. While I was swimming my 400m, Flounder and Starfish practiced skills! The next step was to bundle up the kit, go down to the Marina (other side, open water) we decided to go a little crazy and do my Deep Assessment in a very wavy condition. Randall, Flounder and I had a proper workout swimming out and descended next to the Marina Wall. It was a lot of surge, so we swam hard for 10 minutes before we hit the 18m depth mark. Did one necessary skill and headed back, then with the current. Felt very good when our legs were all like jelly. So I finished off my Divemaster almost rolling up on the beach in the waves!

The last day of the week we had two DSD’s Ting and Rory from England. We had a nice pool session before we headed off to Alcalà to see my favourite turtles once again!

Next week is my last, eight week. And my very good friend Malin is going to join us to do her PADI Open Water course. It’s going to be an awesome week!

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!

Turtles in Tenerife? Just a few!

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.