Tenerife Diving Academy Divemaster Internship 2015

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WEEK 1
It has begun! Waited for over two months and I'm finally here so far I haven't done any diving... Boo... However I have met some great people from all over the world from USA, Australia, New Zealand to holland, Germany and Cornwall and a couple of mad lads from Ireland... Standard. I am currently staying with 3 lads, a German an Australian and a half Thai half English guy a 10 minute walk from the dive centre and the rest of the dive master interns.

The weather is as you would expect in the middle of May, high 20's sometimes creeping into the thirties at some points in the day which definitely is an improvement than the Scouse weather which was 5 degrees and raining when I left, not missing home yet...

So we're in a village we're in which is Abades right at the southern part of Tenerife and apparently the sand from the Sahara blows over and covers Abades in dust and sand I just keep on thinking of the movie Interstellar where they have to put the cups and plates upside down, hopefully it wont be that bad!

Some of us played football the other day with a few locals in the village and their was one little fellow who was running rings around all of us he was very good, a little Luis Suarez in the making and they ended up beating us 5-4 I think it was but we did have 5 people and they had 6 including little Luis.

Oh yeah that reminds me I've gained a nickname I'm at the moment known as Stevie G as obviously I'm from Liverpool and I work at LFC aswell so it fits in quite nicely. The reason why i have to have the name Stevie G and not the name Adam is because their is another Adam who arrived here 4 weeks ago therefore he has first dibs, but I like the name Stevie G which is good.

Also I've run through the kit I'll be having for the 8 weeks and the regulator (breathing apparatus) I'm having is number 8 which is consequently Stevie G's number for Liverpool!

On Thursday we began with a stamina test. Now I'm not the fittest guy in the bunch so I wasn't looking forward to it greatly but i wanted to see the level I'm at to see how much I can improve by over the 8 week internship. So it was divided up into two different tests number one was the 400 metre swim with just your swimming trunks and a mask which was optional, I chose to go with a mask. The second section was an 800 metre swim with the snorkel, fins and mask.

So the 400 metre swim was first and we all walked over the rocks and into the cold but manageable sea water. We all assembled into position and started to swim, now the problem was was that their was no markers in the water so we had to keep on looking up out of the water to see our friend Corey (another Intern) who was basically the marker for us located on the shore of the beach at the 100 metre point. The problem with that is is that you have to keep on checking to see when you reach 100 metres and I swallowed about half the ocean and you're not entirely sure you're going in a straight line. But I carried on and finished it with a 11:20 which is something I really want to improve. So then we all had a few minutes of a breather to catch our breath and get our snorkel and fins on ready for the 800 metre swim.

Now at this point I honestly did not feel 100%!s(MISSING)o after going about 10 metres in the water from the beach I went back out because I just felt so ill and I sat down on the beach and watched everyone start the swim. I was gutted because I really wanted to do it, so I just thought to myself if I'm sick I'm sick I need to just crack on so I asked Iris (one of the Dutch girls who is doing a sort of business internship) to time me separately as she already started the timer for the other guys. Then I jumped back in the water and started to swim, up and down up and down and the sea was ragging me all over the place so much so that when I approached my final 100 metre stretch and as I was swimming the sand was all in my face so I couldn't see past 30cm, so I was holding my hand in front of me like superman. Then all of a sudden my other hand which was hanging a bit below could feel a rough rocky surface then I could see a slimy rocky reef. Within seconds I couldn't kick my fins as my knees were touching the rock and I could see the water level decreasing quite rapidly and a couple of seconds later I realised that I was beached. Lying out of the water, the tide had pushed me up on to a rock and there was me stranded lying down on my front with pretty much everyone else watching from the beach. Like an unfortunate whale I was alone and stranded without Greenpeace to put me back in the water. I could hear faint laughter in the distance of my fellow interns rolling and laughing on the sandy bank of the beach. I looked around bemused and confused realising about what had just happened to me, I glanced at Corey who was not laughing but was actually pretty close to me and signalled me to come out of the water as it could have been dangerous to have attempted to slide back into the ocean. So I stood up then got knocked back down again by an incoming wave, but afterward I took off my fins and carefully walked back to shore with a smile on my face. Laughing to myself I walked back to the rest of the group with Corey. It's a shame it wasn't caught on camera but I do have a couple of scrapes on my leg to show for it.

A few hours later I decided that I would go with Alice (One of the instructors), Shevon (American girl who's an intern) and Adam number 1 (intern) to see "the puppies". Basically theirs this nice lady who basically used all of her money to set up a dog shelter for abandoned dogs (and their are a lot of dogs in Tenerife) but she also has 20ish dogs in her home who she takes care of, so we all set off to visit her in her home with her many pets. After some directions drawn on a post-it note by Pete (the boss man for Dive Centre) we set off on our 20 minute journey up and over a big hill away from Abades. We actually found her house quite easily and she was standing by the road waiting for us, which was nice. After a quick hello we went inside her home to see over 20 dogs, a bird cage with 15-20 birds, at least 2 cats and 2 very small puppies. A lot of animals and I still had my swimming shorts on from the stamina training as I didn't really have enough time to nip back to my house to get changed. So the dogs were jumping up and down scratching my leg, sniffing my cuts and licking them too. Quite gross I know but apparently a dogs tongue is sort of a weak antiseptic or something. So the lady was telling us the story behind all the dogs, the majority were just left abandoned, for example the two pups (originally 4 but 2 were adopted not too long ago) were put in a cardboard box and left on the side of the road, crazy. To give you an idea the puppies were about the size of my hand, no longer than the iPad screen I'm writing on at the moment, and also very skinny as they were left there for at least a couple of days. Apparently in Tenerife that is legal, it's not against the law to do that, unlike the UK. I'm not sure what it's like in mainland Spain but I hope the laws on animal welfare a bit more stricter. Their was also this great little dog who I nicknamed Paris, because it looked like a dog Paris Hilton would have. The breed is a Chinese crested dog, looks quite hideous on Google but it looked pretty good to be honest in real life although it was covered in a dog shirt because it doesn't have hair on its main body and can get sunburn quite easily. After Paris jumped off of me I was holding one of the little puppies who decided it would be really welcoming to wee all over my shirt, at least it wasn't a number 2.

So all in all a really good day, a lot of fun and I'm glad I cheered up some people who weren't feeling too well after the 800 metre swim by my beached whale antics!

To sum up I've had a really interesting first week here at the Tenerife Diving Academy meeting all sorts of people and I can't wait for next week when I go on my first dive and hopefully pass my first exam! Apparently everyone will be watching me on my first dive so let's hope I don't get beached and I stay in the water... Adios!





<span>WEEK 2
My first dive was on Monday and I think it went quite well! I was with Martin and Claire, Martin is a Divemaster and works for dive and sea Tenerife and Claire is another diving intern. Probably about 10 of the other interns were watching me while I was doing the skills, such as flooding the mask and knowing how to get the water out, regulator recovery which is when and if you lose your mask underwater what to do to find it and get it back, swimming about 10 metres without a mask, and their were a few others aswell. Martin said that I was quite good! He was also giving me handshakes and applauded underwater when I done something well which does help to motivate you and reassure you too.

We were in the water for quite a while maybe 30 minutes underwater but that isn't including time spent at the surface which was longer, so I was getting quite cold and then I needed a wee so I had to take my all my gear off and unzip my wetsuit in the water and do the deed, after that I was even colder but their was only about 5 more skills to do which was an extra half hour.

After we exited the water we proceeded back to the dive centre and take all of our kit off. Then I found out that I was going on a fun dive, because I done well on my first dive! Unfortunately for the majority of the group they had to go and do stamina training which is the 400m swim and 800m snorkel and fin swim. I went for the fun dive with Shevon, Martin, Claire and Shevon is currently doing some work for the underwater photography course so she brought her camera with her and took some snaps. I haven't seen them yet but I'm sure they're great as I was in one doing the 'ok' hand signal in one of them, a big cliché but I couldnt resist. But she only managed to get about 15 minute of usage on the camera before it ran out, quite short but she was videoing quite a lot of it.

At the end of the day I was pretty tired so I don't think I did much other than pack and get ready for the next day which was a day out to Siam Waterpark! I woke up at about 7am and got my stuff together to leave the house I spoke to Jack, Jace and Alex (my housemates) if they wanted to go but they didn't so I proceeded to meet the rest of the guys at the bus stop to get the 8:10am bus.

We got to the bus stop near to Siam Waterpark and stopped off to get breakfast and meet up with Corey (a fully fledged Divemaster who finished the internship) as he's now not staying in Abades with us anymore. After we ate we proceeded to Siam which is apparently the number one Waterpark in the world on trip advisor so I was a bit excited. We went on this ride were your basically in a 4 person dinghy and what I can only describe as being in a massive smokey toilet bowl that is enclosed with no light, spinning around the sides, with lasers shooting around the inside until eventually you exit out the bottom. Another ride was basically a 100 foot vertical drop in an Egyptian mummy position shooting through an aquarium filled with tiger sharks, pretty cool. We also went in the wave pool which we were all way too excited for considering we spent most days in the sea with waves anyway, but it was nice not having salt water in our mouths all the time.

After the Waterpark we went to get something to eat but we must have spent hours trying to find a place to actually sit down and have a meal as some people wanted a Chinese, but didn't like the Chinese restaurants, others wanted fast food but some wanted a good quality meal etc. In the end we went to a Chinese place were it was €9.50 for a three course meal but Martin tried to sort out some kind of arrangement as their was about 13 of us, he tried to get some sort of discount and it basically worked out that we could order whatever we wanted on the menu for €9.50. So we absolutely went to town but Sean (one of the Irish interns) ordered about 4 starters and 8 mains, but the way that the restaurant brought them out is if 6 people ordered spring rolls for example they would bring out 6 individual spring rolls and if 4 people ordered sweet and sour chicken they would only bring one of it out, but we could always order more.

After the meal we headed to the bus stop which was like an hour trek but we missed the bus so we had to wait for 55 minutes then to get the 40 minute bus back, getting back to Abades for about 1am. All in all a great day but it was a very long one.

I went for another dive on Wednesday I think it was but this one was for real. It was my open water assessment I was accompanied by Martin (the instructor) and the interns were Jace (Aussie housemate), Brad and Sean (the two Irish lads). Martin said I done well and we more or less done what we practiced the other day with regards to the skills like snorkel to regulator exchange etc the problem that I have is maintaining neutral buoyancy (making sure you stay in water without ascending too high or descending too low and destroying the local reefs) I just need more practice with it. I also need to try and not use as much air as I do, I used about 110 bar on the dive and Martin used about 90 bar but I was doing the skills so I do use a bit more oxygen naturally when I'm purging the regulator after you recover it and the rest of the skills. We also only had one tank each because their was so many people diving yesterday so I didn't get to go out again after I done the assessment because I need more time in the water to get my dives up, currently I'm on two. I have technically done more than two but my first dive on Monday didn't count because it was classed as a confined water dive where I practiced the skills.

Martin murdered another sea urchin on the dive as well, I haven't mentioned this already but their are these big spikey sea urchins that attach themselves to the bottom of boats from Africa I think and then drop off when they reach the shore here and they just harvest everything alive from around them, but because their is no natural predator here in Tenerife we are advised to kill them. As long as you know what you're doing and Martin does you can kill them, I think he's done about 580ish dives altogether.

Martin also shown me how to deploy a SMB (Signal Marker Buoy) in the water, which is basically a big orange inflatable tube that sticks out in the water. I suppose we could use it for the stamina test so I hopefully won't get beached again.

I also did my EFR course on Saturday where we went through some of the skills and what to do in certain scenarios. We had little Anne which is the doll you practice CPR on who is ex-military, so she's been well used. I didn't have a great deal of time to read the book but most of it was common sense and then we had 2 exams after. I ended up getting 30 out of 35 on the first exam which is a pass and then on the second one I got 7 out of 10 on the second one which was a fail, one mark off of a pass. So I was a bit annoyed but Pete said I could repeat it on Monday with Jace who also needs to re do it as well.

We were taken out of the room and four of the other interns were given roles to become a crazy scenario were people have stabbed each other with scissors (just pretend) and we had to use the skills we learned just before to assess the situation and deal with it appropriately. It was all caught on film too so I imagine it will be put up on the diving website so everyone can take a look at it, it was quite fun.





WEEK 3
On Monday I had to repeat part of he EFR course and I passed it! I got 9 out of 10 and I'm not sure which one I got wrong but I passed it with minimal reading of the book.

Myself, Jack and Jace also did the 800 metre swim with mask, snorkel and fins on Monday and I literally done infinitely times better than last time. As I was beached the last time, but my time this time round was 15:07 which is a level 4. Level 5 is the highest you can get and you need 14:30 or below to achieve that so I'm pretty confident that when I do the stamina test for real, when I'm at the Divemaster part of the course I'll get a 5. I think that at a minimum if I just worked on going straight I would have got a 5 or at least very close to it.

I also completed my 3rd and 4th dive for the open water course so I've completed it! I'm a fully fledged open water diver! Well I need to get my card but I've done and passed everything I need to have done which is great! First hurdle down, 3 to go which are advanced open water, rescue diver and then Divemaster.

On Tuesday pretty much everyone was in the water. Their was all the guys who were being assessed on how to be a good instructor when teaching skills to a new diver. Pete who I have never seen get in the water actually got in the water to assess Jana, Claire, Ricky, Paul, Adam, Harry and Alex. Then their was myself, Shevon, Jace, Jack, Brad and Sean watching them go through the skills. The water was really strong and I was finding it difficult to stay stationary on the bottom, on top of that I was told to take half a tank (a cylinder that only has half the air filled in it than when it's full) so I was pretty positively buoyant and Shevon had to pull me down from the surface because I couldn't descend at all even when I exhaled fully and my BCD was fully deflated and everyone was waiting for me.

So at the bottom we were all watching the guys being assessed, do the skills. I was mainly trying to stay still and Shevon was trying to hold me down to stop me being taken away from the current. At times I was ok but then every few minutes their would be a big current that knocked me off balance. But at one point when I was trying to not be swept away Pete asked us for our air and because of what me and Shevon were doing we had a delayed reaction to the response of how much air we had left. Causing Pete to send us back to shore because the skills were going to last for over an hour and everyone was getting cold already and so me and Shevon left. In the end he sent the other four back to, Brad had a filling in his tooth, and a small air pocket so he couldn't equalise, and Jace and Jack messing up hand signals a bit, so a bit of a mix up.

In the evening of Tuesday most of the lads, including myself went to the sports area where we played football previously, but this time we were doing some circuit training and some boxing with this English guy who's been living in Tenerife for years. I stupidly had rather a large lunch, and a toasty prior to going and it was a 2 hour straight session. So about 40 minutes into it I had to sit out for about 10 minutes or so as I felt really sick and was about to vomit everywhere. I was eager to get exercising again so after a 10 minute break I was straight back into it. Bad move. As it must have been less than 10 minutes later that again I felt really, really bad. So again I sat back down with my back to the wall breathing deeply and sipping my water. But I went too far, and I then was sick all over the floor next to me. The guys were watching and asking if I was alright and according to them I just kept on looking up between my intervals of being sick and taking a breath, smiling and doing the underwater 'ok' signal because I couldn't get a word out of my mouth. After it was all out I felt really good! So good that I got straight back up again and finished the session.



Wednesday was our day off but on Thursday I went for 4 dives with Jana, Adam, Sean, Jace and Alex. Racking up a total of 84 minutes diving altogether! So it's all coming along well. At the moment I'm just doing as many 'fun dives', which is basically you can choose where to dive and what you want to do on that dive for example practice the hover, which is what I did on one of the dives. The hover is where you fully deflate your BCD (buoyancy control device) on the sea bed and then you exhale and inhale while staying still, if your ascend when you inhale and descend when you exhale then you've found neutral buoyancy. If you haven't found it you have to keep on topping up your BCD with air in small amounts until you do. To start the Divemaster part of the course after I've completed the rescue diver and advanced open water course you need at least 40 dives so I'm trying to just get as many as I can!

It was also the other day of the week were the English boxing man who's name I found out is Lee came down to teach us some more boxing skills and do some circuit training. But during the day time I managed to get in 4 dives and I ended up leading one! When we reached our surface interval after our 3rd dive Jana asked me if I wanted to lead the last one and I jumped at the chance. I didn't really know where to go as I don't know the reefs very well yet, but I did manage to find a crab about the size of a coaster that was shuffling along the sea bottom holding something and when we were all around it it shuffled itself into the sand and disappeared, quite cool. But the other group saw a turtle which I suppose trumps a crab.



Friday was probably the busiest day I've had so far. So to begin with myself, Martin, Jace, Jack, Shevon, Brad and Sean all got suited and booted and headed towards the beach to enter the sea.

Our first activity for the day was a 100 metre tow, where you have to push you and your buddy 100 metres in the fastest time as possible. It was myself and Shevon as a buddy team, Jack and Sean and then Brad and Jace were together. Martin was watching from the shore timing us all. So we all completed that no worries at all. we all had breakfast. My time was 2:57 which is a level 4 out of a possible 5 which is something again I really want to improve so I can start hitting those 5's.

Afterward we did a couple of dives adding 41 minutes to my total dive time. The first dive we did was also the deepest dive I've done so far! It was 11.4 metres which isn't a massive depth in terms of diving but it was great what we saw. We swam pretty fast to this place called 'muffins ledge' where there must have been around 50 trumpet fish that I saw, but it was a dark overhang so their probably was many more. The visibility was really great too I think it was about 15 metres, it was all very clear. Upon returning to shore we walked back to the dive centre and took all our kit off and then headed straight off to the beach with mask, fins and snorkel to do the 800 metre swim. I didn't manage to beat my previous time of 15:07 partly because I was zig zagging again but also due to the fact I was a bit tired, from the 41 minutes of diving before which were pretty strenuous dives. We then had to do the 400 metre swim with just our swimming costume on. The problem with this one, for me is that I don't know when to breathe. It's difficult swimming in the sea with high waves and finding the right time to take a breath without stopping swimming. I managed to get 10:20 which could be shaved down if I again don't zig zag so much and finding the right time to breathe.

After a well deserved lunch Martin said that we will have enough time to squeeze in two more dives, if we get ready within 10 minutes. We were restricted with time because myself, Jace, Shevon, Paul and Lienne (a new intern who arrived a few days ago) had a medical appointment at 4pm with the doctor to basically see if we were fit to dive, even though I've already been diving. So we managed to actually fit in a 30 minute dive and 27 minute dive! Happy days! Jack also got a photo of me where there was an arch in the coral reef and I managed to swim to the other side and poke my head over the arch so I was upside down with my head poking down. It's not in the best focus but I'm sure we will have time to get another one which I really want to do one day, a definite Facebook profile picture.

So then when we returned we cleaned all of our kit and waited for the doctor to arrive. He check inside my ears, put a stethoscope all the way round my chest and told me to inhale and exhale etc all pretty basic stuff really, then at the end all he said was 55 euros with an open hand in front of me. Not the most thorough examination but something that had to be done.



Saturday again was another active day, I woke up early because I volunteered to go and collect the tanks with Lisa and Adam in the morning and then as soon as we got back a bunch of us were told to head to the beach and have another stamina assessment. I was straight down there with my gear ready to go. As soon as the water touched my feet I was a bit reluctant because it was freezing! But I just jumped straight in. We began with the 400 metre swim and to my surprise I beat my time on the previous day by over a minute! My time was 9:12 and Friday it was 10:20. I don't know how I did that because I was shattered from the past couple of days, but I'm not going to argue with the results. It is still classed as a 3 out of 5 in the fitness level and I really want to get a high 4 or low 5 when I go home in 5 weeks time. My 800 metre didn't go as well. I managed to get a 16 minute ish score. My fastest is still 15:07 which to be honest is mostly because I was following Action Man (Jack) as he always seems to swim very straight and quick so I just tried to keep up with him.

In the afternoon at 4pm myself, Shevon, Harry, Ricky and Claire volunteered to go and help Anne (the dog lady) and a couple of her friends to a little town called Arico. We were tasked with making a mural of the local church out of salt which we coloured with dye, along with a picture of a dog, a cat and some paw prints because it relates to Anne as she owns the animal shelter. It took a good few hours to complete our 'carpet', which is what they call the mural. A free lunch was also provided too! Some chorizo, salami, ham and cheese butties and some sprite and coke were on offer which was great. The finished product looked really fantastic and I even got to meet the mayor who was strolling through looking at all of the 'carpets'.

Afterward we went to a local bar and Anne & co. bought us some beers and pizza while we watched the Barcelona and Juventus game on the tele. I uploaded some of the photos from the day and we then got back in to Anne's car and she took us all back to Abades were everyone else was at Martin's bar drinking because it was Jace's birthday! The big 21. Let's just say it was an eventful night, Jace is alive and most people had a really good night.





<span>WEEK 4
Monday was a big diving day, in total I did 9 dives! I really wanted to get to 10 but their was literally not enough tanks left to do it, which is a bit of a shame but still 9 dives is huge! It brings my total to 24 which is pretty good considering that I did my first dive with Martin and everyone watching me, 2 weeks ago on the 25th May.

On the fifth dive I was with Jack, Jace, Adam, Sean and Brad and we were swimming from one reef to another across a flat open seabed. Jack was leading the dive in front with Sean and Brad tailing behind then myself and Jace behind them two and Adam supervising at the back, a 1-2-2-1 formation. I was on the right hand side of Jace and we were a bit further to the right than anyone else, and then all of a sudden out of the right corner of my eye I saw a giant puff of sand uplift from the sea bed. I thought it was a strong current or something and I did not expect to see what I saw. When the sand started to settle I saw a Round Sting Ray swimming slowly away from us! I immediately looked back to everyone else who were just looking ahead or to the left, nobody saw it! I really wanted to chase after it but I had to stay with Jace as he was my buddy. But I wanted dot get everyone's attention to see the Ray. I hastily opened my pocket to get my rattle to get their attention, but it was tangled inside on my slate (whiteboard to communicate underwater). I ragged it as hard as I could in desperation, which then resulted in my cord snapping on my rattle. At this point Jack turned around to check on us all and he saw me flailing about pointing every limb of my body in a frantic fashion toward the Ray. He looked at it and gave me the "ok" signal, and continued to swim in the direction he was going. I managed to rattle my rattle and everyone had a similar response to Jacks which was to continue swimming on course not looking too impressed. I guess they've all seen one close up, and not one 15 metres away disappearing into the distance. But it was still really cool for me.

On the 8th Dive myself, Jace, Jack Sean and Brad were watching Alice assess the A-Team which consists of Alex, Jana, Claire, Adam, Harry and Ricky. Shevon was also taking photos of everyone as well. They all did the same as last time which is do the skills underwater, like mask removal, swimming without a mask, hover, regulator recovery etc with Alice marking them all. This time nobody got sent back to shore for messing about as we were all focused (and I could focus as it wasn't as choppy as before, and I wasn't getting ragged around) so it was a success.



Tuesday was a slightly less diving day with the majority of the day spent reading my five chosen specialities and completing the knowledge reviews for them. I wanted to do deep dive, night dive, diver propulsion vehicle (DPV), wreck diving and underwater navigator. So far I have completed the night diving, deep diving, underwater navigator knowledge reviews. I also completed the DPV knowledge review but I just found out that I have to do the same specialities as Lisa. I knew that I may not have been able to do the DPV, because I didn't confirm with them before hand but I just wanted to read it anyway because I found it really interesting! The ones that Lisa is doing are the same of me except for one. Instead of doing the DPV Lisa is doing Peak Performance Buoyancy, which is now the one I have to do. I think I'm quite good at buoyancy at the moment but I suppose their is always room for improvement. Maybe I'll be able to do the DPV in the future as a speciality or at least have a go at the ones that they have here that were bought last week

But in the evening I went for my first night dive! Needless to say it was very very good. We left the shop at about 8:30pm and set off into the water. We started to swim a little and their were these blue luminescent things in the water which lit up quite brightly whenever you moved in the water, it's supposed to be a defence mechanism to ward off predators but for us it was just really nice to look at! We descended and Alex was my buddy with Jana behind us tailing. Then in front of us was Jace and Claire, Jack and then Alice leading.

We all saw some really cool fish! I'm looking through my log book now and we saw 3 Rays! Common Rays, but still Rays nonetheless. They were chilling underneath a big overhanging rock and the biggest one must've been about 3 feet wide and 5 feet long (with refraction taken into account), so quite the monster and a much better view this time round than when I saw one the yesterday and it was swimming away. We must've just been there watching them for about 5 minutes mesmerised and then one of them started to creep out of the lair and swim towards us so we all backed off a little bit. It then fanned up a lot of sand from the seabed in front of us, and came about 2 or 3 feet near us. My heart was pounding. I was just covering and protecting my heart and the only thing that was going through my head was 'Steve Irwin, Steve Irwin, Steve Irwin'. I didn't think at the time it was a Stinger because I don't think they have them here but still I wasn't going to take that chance.

After the Rays we swam further along the Reef of Abades, there were loads of these little shrimps. I can't find the name of them in the book but they just reminded me of the French shrimp in Sharks Tale. We swam for another 10 minutes and then my torch started to flicker on and off! I was gutted, so I just stayed close to my buddy (Alex) and continued. Eventually we came to a small open part of the reef and all got in a circle together on the bottom. Alice then proceeded to turn her light off and everyone else followed suit, although mine was obviously already off. We then went mad we were doing crazy hand movements to bring the luminescent alive! It was better than the Blackpool lights. We were all at the same time waving about fanatically and I was smiling and laughing so much that water kept filling my mask so every ten seconds I had to keep on clearing it. I was also using so much air laughing! So Alice called it time and we moved on back to the beach to the dive shop, but before we left Adam 1 gave me his torch to use as he's already been on a night dive before what a legend. As we were swimming Alice was taking photos of a bunch of different species of fish and so we kept on stopping and starting. We stopped at one point and Adam, Alex and myself sat in a triangle trying to fix the broken torch. Then out of nowhere we saw an Angel shark swim between our legs! They're pretty rare here at this time of year so it was quite a sight. Alice then caught wind of it and darted over to it with her camera, snapping away. That concluded our dive. Saw some pretty cool stuff and was definitely the best dive I've done, and made me go up to 25 dives altogether.



On Wednesday we dived. It was Liennes open water confined dive which is what I did two weeks ago. Does not seem like just 2 weeks ago, it seems like it was months ago when I did it with Martin. Admittedly it felt strange, Martin teaching someone else and me watching. I was the one holding Liennes tank as well to make sure she didn't float away, which is what Claire done to me when I was doing my confined 2 weeks ago. Lienne done very well especially considering that was the first time she's been in the water, ever. After about 40 minutes Martin said we could go back to the Dive shop as we have watched enough of the course and it was getting very cold. But I wanted to stay to get as much knowledge as I could and see how a pro instructor does it. I ended up being in the water for about 3 hours in total but We did get one dive out of it. Afterward we went on a dive completing Liennes 1 and 2 open water dives, and I observed that so that's another one ticked off on what I need to observe to pass Divemaster.

I forgot to mention that my phone is broken, the screen is completely unresponsive but it still shows up the locked screen when I press a physical button on the outside of it. The sea water really dries my hands out so when I picked it up off the table it immediately slipped out of my hands and landed face first and when I dropped it it was on airplane mode so I can't even see who's text me. The only thing I'm bothered about mainly is my music because now I can't listen to any of it when I'm working. But I had a genius idea! I plugged in my headphones and pressed the play button on the wire on the right headphone and it still plays my songs! And it is playing my playlist that I made for Tenerife! Happy days! So it's now just a restrictive iPod, rather than an iPhone.



Thursday was another study day with my morning mainly comprised of writing my diary/blog and listening to my Tenerife playlist. I've completed all of my knowledge reviews for my adventure dives that I need to do so I'm just waiting to actually get in the water and do them. I've done my night dive and so I have deep dive, peak performance buoyancy, wreck dive and underwater navigation. After this week is finished I'll be at the halfway point of my time here so I kind of need to hurry all these dives up because I've still got to do rescue diver and Divemaster, not including advanced. So I don't really have anything else to read and learn about unless I start reading my rescue diver book.

Two of the interns (I'll not name names) were playing the lion king out loud for a few seconds and so Pete said that everyone should do stamina because we should have been working! I only had my loose swimming gear which require my hand to hold them as I swim so I couldn't do the 400 metre swim as they would have come loose. So I did the 800 metre snorkel and fin swim as you are not allowed to use your hands for that. I actually done pretty good and I beat my previous best time which was 15:07 and my new time is 14:52. Which gives me a level 4 out of 5, below 14 minutes is a 5 so that's my next target and once I hit that, happy days!



On Friday I was woken up at 3:48am to the sound of a cat meowing extremely loudly. But I just went to the fridge had a drink because my mouth was dry and went back to sleep and thought nothing else of it. When I woken up at 10am I could still hear the cat. So Jack and Jace said that they could hear it too last night. So they went outside to look for it. As soon as they stepped outside the cat stopped meowing. A bit odd because when they stepped back inside the house it started to meow again. So I went outside and looked left, and in the very corner of our patio behind our rusty BBQ was the smallest kitten with big brown eyes staring at me. We assumed someone discarded it last night in our yard and that it didn't wander in here by chance. So we gathered our things together and took the kitten in a mop bucket to Martins bar to get some wifi so we could contact Anne who owns the animal shelter. But when we arrived at the bar strangely sitting down there was Anne, who must've came in for a pit stop on her travels to somewhere. So we told her the story and she agreed to take it home with her, and keep the name that I called her which is Charleen. I named her that because we watched Full Metal Jacket the other day and Private Pile (the one who goes mad and does actually shoot the drill instructor) called his rifle Charleen. But it is a nice name and Anne agreed so it's staying that way.



Saturday and Sunday we had off from diving. Some of the group went on a boat dive on Saturday but only the chosen few. So the rest of us just re supplied our fridges and chilled out really. Saturday night however we all went out to a karaoke bar to celebrate some of the interns getting their Divemaster! We all had a singalong in the karaoke bar, Shevon was first as she sings in competitions and she was very good, then I joined her for a rendition of 'don't stop believing', everyone of course got videos of me and Shevon. After us two went up it was easy to get everybody else up on stage and have a go. Many photos were taken and videos as well. Afterwards we all went to Las Americas for some drinks in a few clubs then we came home at 4am ish on the bus! Another good end to a great week.





WEEK 5
Monday I continued with my adventure dives and completed the underwater navigation for my Advanced Open Water Course. On Monday I was told that I wouldn't be doing Peak Performance Buoyancy as Lisa whom I'm doing it with is busy because she is working a lot and is taking a short break. So my new diving partner is Liene who I will be completing my courses alongside with, and who arrived just two weeks ago with no diving qualifications either. So instead I did Fish ID as that is what Liene wanted to do, and not Peak Performance Buoyancy. We also snook in a cheeky little fun dive as well. So I did 3 dives today bringing me up to 32 dives in total.

The day after I did kit assembly as if we were doing it to students. It went really well and Adam said I will be really good at it because I was speaking slow and clear which is the difference between a level 4 and a level 5 providing you say the right stuff. For a first attempt and first one up to do it I really enjoyed it. Myself, Liene, Jana, Claire and Alice also did Peak Performance Buoyancy where we swam through hula hoops that were weighted down to the sea bed. It was more difficult than expected as I kept on forgetting how long my legs were and so I was turning around too early to see if I was through, thus dragging the hoops along the sand.

Thursday we went to the dog shelter and I washed a Saint Bernard, which if you don't know is basically a large Shetland pony. It was an absolute beast and it scratched/ drooled all over my legs. Tasty. We walked the dogs, cleaned the dogs and fed the dogs. Anne (who owns the dog shelter) also has a white horse which for ten years of its life was tied to a tree, causing its hooves to grow strange and now it cannot run. Apparently in Tenerife they do that to show that you have wealth. So we fed Lulu (the horse) and Hanne (the new Dutch girl) brushed her. Before going to the dog shelter we done skills in the water, which is basically doing mask removal, swimming without a mask and regulator removal to instructor level. I did it with Harry and Dan, and it was the first time I did that to instructor level again. I think it went alright and Harry done the 'cool' signal a few times to me. On Friday we had to move all of our stuff out of our house and move to a new house. The reason for this is because some people (newly qualified divemasters) were leaving and we had to move to fill in the beds in some houses.

The highlight of the week was on Saturday. Where we bought food and I bought a ping pong set. We have a table in our new house and using cereal boxes as a 'net' we must have played about 40 games between us all. Oh yeah we also have Dan living with the four of us now so we have two Aussies. And on Sunday we just read our books all day.





WEEK 6
Comparing this Monday to other Monday's I've had here it was a breeze! Much like the weather in Abades. I came in at 11am as some new people were being inducted. So when I arrived studied my book for a couple of hours or so and then I was asked to time Shevon, Jace and Jacks stamina practice. Then the rest of the interns sort of snowballed into doing stamina as well and because I was the designated time person I didn't do it. I selflessly gave up my stamina practice for the sake of the rest of the group resulting in me sitting on the beach getting all sandy. Nightmare. But the day was going to get better as everyone got sent home at about 2pm because everyone democratically voted in not doing workshop (practicing skills) and instead we had the rest of the day off to soak up the sun. I went snorkelling and went to the beach and picked up quite a bit of rubbish as Sunday was obviously the day before and all of the tourists left so much litter which infested the ocean. I didn't tell Pete that I picked it up, but apparently you're supposed to so you can get a good score in relation to Project A.W.A.R.E which is a mark given to you when you complete the Divemaster part of the course.

Tuesday was one of the best days I've had here so far! It began at 9am with myself, Lienna and Mark (a new intern becoming a master scuba diver trainer who is fresh of the scuba diving instructor assembly line) reporting to the dive centre and preparing our kit for the 2 adventure dives we were doing that day in a small town called Tabaiba. We were joined by Pete (the boss) who was assessing Marks skills underwater. So the four of us set off to do a Deep diving thus completing mine and Lienna's Advanced Open Water Course and we also done another dive seeing the Wreck! Amazing. It was a half turned fishing boat called El Raton (The Rat) purposely sunk for the purposes of awesome diving. It was put there ten years ago and apparently according to Pete only 5 people have 'penetrated' it (it's the correct terminology) I am not sure if that is a lot but I thought more would have. It was probably about 40 metres give or take. So pretty impressive. It was also on quite a steep slope which made it quite disorientating as its on its side on a slope but when you look at it when it's upright you're not upright and you don't know where up is. But nevertheless it was the best dive I've done so far. It surpassed the night dive for me.

When we got back everyone was chilling round Martin's bar so we had a celebratory beer and photos to 'Mark' the occasion as it was the first dive in Tenerife for Mark and his first Advanced Open Water students who qualified it.

In the evening it was summer holiday called San Juan and on every beach in the Canary Islands build massive bonfires lighting it up. So we went a la playa and sat around singing songs and drinking responsibly with a bunch of bonfires around us all. We tried to get a fire going but as we didn't have any wood it was a short lived little flame. A relaxing end to an amazing day.

Wednesday was another day filled with joy and wonder. It was involved with mostly reading my Rescue book which I genuinely find interesting. Later we did skills in the water and they went well I was able to do mask removal to a good standard which is what I was most concerned about.

We also have some new arrivals two have came all the way from U.S.A. and are called Lisa (2) from Georgia and Alex from Arizona. We have a girl from Southampton called Claire and another girl from Holland called Yvette bringing the grand total of Dutch people to 5.

Wednesday night was the best night so far! Jace (Aussie guy) downloaded Mad Max: Fury Road and Jurassic World! So the boys had a 'Mad' movie night. Complete with Sangria, crisps and popcorn (supplied by Jordan). The ultimate night in. It was made even the more better because we were originally going to watch movies on Monday night but because of the impromptu party it didn't happen. We were all overly excited to watch the two films and had a big argument about which one we were going to watch first. We ended up watching Jurassic World first, which was my suggestion because I thought it would require more concentration as it probably had a more in depth story whereas Mad Max is just loud cars and big explosions.

Thursday was a 'day off' although it wasn't really for me as I spent about 5 or 6 hours solid on my Rescue Book, which is still interesting to me... Just. The good news is I finished all of my knowledge reviews so I'll hand them in tomorrow for Pete to mark, then go over anything wrong and crack on with the exam! On Monday myself, Lienna and Hanne will be doing the Rescue stuff in the water. We have a name for our group as well. It is the 'inbetweeners'. We're called this because theirs a group ahead of us consisting of Jack, Jace, Dan, Shevon, Yvette, Claire etc who are the new 'top group' with the exit of the previous top group having completed their internships. Now with the newbies consisting of Alex and Lisa (2) the 'inbetweeners' are in between the two.

On Friday it was pretty much another study day and I handed in my knowledge reviews for Rescue to be marked so I could do the exam. But with the way that things worked out on Friday it meant that the reviews weren't marked so we will go over the wrong answers tomorrow and hopefully do the exam then so I can get completed and being my Divemaster reading and knowledge reviews! As long as we do the water part of the Rescue on Monday I think I'm back on track to complete my Divemaster on time because on Monday I will have 13 days left here in Abades.

So on Saturday we went through the knowledge reviews and I did the exam! Their was one question that I must have spent half the exam on and it was about towing (when you are dragging another diver on the surface to safety) and it was something like:
What is the fastest tow over a short distance?
A. the tank valve tow (pulling by the tank valve and towing them)
B. The underarm tow (having your hands on the divers arm and the underneath on the TANK)
C. None of the above

Now I was torn between two of the possible answers which was the 'Valve tow' and 'None of the above'. The valve tow I thought because I remember vaguely hearing somewhere that it was a good tow to do. But I also thought 'None of the above' was the correct answer because surely their couldn't be one right answer for everyone as you might prefer one over the other and therefore the one that you preferred would be the one that would make you fastest over a short distance. Common sense. But of course what PADI say is law and if they say that the 'Tank valve tow' is the fastest over a short distance, well then the 'Tank valve tow' is the fastest. My results turned out to be better than my open water. I got 92%!b(MISSING)ut add the towing question I would have got 94%! (MISSING)

So big news! Pete and Alice are in need of myself, Shevon and Sophie (a new girl from Cambridge) to basically re do the entire Tenerife Diving Academy website. It needs to have all new text, new photos etc. he chosen me because of the way I write my blog and he chosen Shevon and Sophie because they're into photography. It sounds like something pretty cool. It shouldn't affect me finishing my Divemaster too much either so I'll be able to do it. So it's something else to add to the C.V. I suppose too! So that has been my week! Progressed to Advanced Open Water and almost finished my Rescue hopefully I can say that I have by Wednesday! Until next time! Hasty luego Caiman!





WEEK 7
I had another Mad Diving Monday. A total of 6 dives were completed by The Inbetweeners. 3 before lunch and 3 after! Absolutely smashing out these dives. At the moment my total is 48. I have just worked out that I have a total of 1,136 minutes in the water which is 18.9 hours. Boom baby. I led 3 of those dives and I found the trumpet fish cave on my first one and saw all the little baby trumpet fish.

I also claimed the lives of 6 more long black spined sea urchins. After we descended for the second dive we dropped right on to a part of the reef infested with the little buggers. Most of them weren't even hidden in between cracks of the rock, they were out in the open. Easy pickings. As soon as I killed my first one the fish came round the remains like a gang of piranhas. Liene was killing a fair few as well so between us we killed over ten just on that one dives. Not including the dive before where we killed some more. We could have spent the rest of our air just massacring the spikey balls but Hanne didn't have a knife so we left after a few minutes and continued the dive.



Tuesday was another easy day, as we don't have many tanks therefore we can't complete our rescue course yet. So we will be doing it on Wednesday. We don't have have any tanks because again the place where we fill them up have a fault with some of their equipment basically. So Tuesday the Inbetweeners had the day off and everyone else was in. I went shopping in the morning with Lienne to get some food and I bought the boys in my house a present each from the Supermercado. I bought Jack some Pesto, Jace some Greek yoghurt, Jordan some Principes (biscuits) and Dan some babybels.

In the evening I was at Martins bar and because I look identical to the singer Rick Astley, Martin put on a mix of all his songs on. Nice afterwards Shevon and Lienne came over and we all watched a film together on Martins big projector that he bought a week or two ago. We watched Gone Girl and it was quite good, besides the ending. I won't give any spoilers away but let's just say the ending was unexpected. Half way through the film Lienne got a massive cockroach on her back which made everyone feel uncomfortable, mainly me as I hate them.



Wednesday was quite a fun day. Mainly in the morning where we practiced the dive brief and I have nearly completed my map. I just need to right down the bearings for it. But the most fun was that I bashed out a very large chunk of my Rescue Diver Course in the water. We practiced some Rescue procedures such as how to help a panicked, tired and unconscious diver. The panicked diver was interesting to say the least. Shevon and Yvette were probably the best at it. When I say the best I mean they were the best at being the worst possible panicked diver you can imagine. So basically with a panicked diver they are at the surface flailing frantically, being very selfish. By selfish I mean they will grab on to you if they get a good grip and push you down under the water using you as buoyancy. They will also rag off your snorkel at the first chance they get, and then splashing you in the eyes with the stinging salt water. But I got my own back, Mark was demonstrating what to do with a panicked diver. I was the panicked diver and I became a mad German shouting the only German words I know, which are bleistift, mittagessen and nein. It was all good fun and Mark got me under control quite easily as he's a pro.



Thursday was another big Rescue day. After a long wait to figure out what tanks we were going to take we completed the remaining parts of our Rescue course. We done underwater search patterns, getting a diver to the surface and towing to shore. Many interesting and very good things to learn because I could actually safe a life one day using those skills. So I have just got to go over the Emergency Oxygen System tomorrow and then I'll be a fully fledged Rescue Diver!



Friday was a fun day, I went over the Emergency Oxygen system so that means I'm a real life Rescue Diver and we finished early in preparation for the evening as it was Adam 1's last day so we all had a celebratory BBQ in Alice and Pete's house. So much Sangria. We all headed off into Las Americas afterwards and Adam needless to say had a great time. Successful night!

Saturday was a day off so we could recover from the previous night. But on Sunday
were in at 10am and I finished making my map of the Abades Reef. I also planned, briefed and led a dive which is a cross off the list of things I need to do before I complete my Divemaster. I also took part in a search and recovery session. Basically Alice took out myself, Jordan and Dan and we were tasked with finding a missing diver 'Mr Weights'. We went to roughly where Alice surfaced and descended down, and began an expanding square pattern. Although it ended up like a lopsided lazy square as the current was pushing us in such a way that we should have compensated for that by doing twice as many kicks when swimming into the current. I was counting the kick cycles ( a kick cycle is where you kick both of your legs, and one kick cycle is when your feet end up in the same position they started in), Dan was following bearings on a compass and Jordan was just looking around. Eventually we did find it! We attached a bow line to the strap and then to a lift bag (a bag which lifts things... when you put air in it from your alternate air source). So we surfaced and that was the skill completed! Yet another cross on my board. For the rest of the day I just sat in the Dive shop reading my book and completing the knowledge reviews which I have now completed! All 9 chapters. Which means I will hand them in on Tuesday as we have Monday off and hopefully they'll be marked on the same day so I can crack on with the exam!

7 days to go.





WEEK 8
So the results! On Tuesday I did hand my knowledge reviews in and on the same day completed my exams. I got 88%!o(MISSING)n the first exam and 80%!o(MISSING)n the second one which is a pass on both. Something that I was hoping for was to be in the 90s but I don't have a great deal of time to revise and so a pass is what I need and it's what I got! I also did kit exchange which is were you swap your BCD, fins, mask and snorkel. I did it with Jordan in the end and I had to wear his mask for part of it and because he wears glasses, he had lenses in the mask so I saw everything really magnified. Refraction to the max. We did it with no issues at all and I got a 5 out of 5 of it! Couldn't be more pleased.

Wednesday was a big day, it was another day off and so a whole bunch of us went to Siam water park. This was now my second time but I had a chance to go on some rides that I was not able to go on last time. So it was still good. However a large part of the diving group didn't go to the water park because of moral reasons. Basically the owners of Loro Parque also own Siam Park and so as a stance against them a number of people went to Porto de la Cruz for sightseeing. I thought of that too but then I thought I like slides, so I went to Siam.

Thursday was quite possibly THE busiest day I have had so far. It started off with doing my 15 minute tread in the water, which is where you basically keep your head above the surface of the water and for the last two minutes you have to keep your head above. I wanted to save as much energy as I could for it because I knew I had a big day. After the tread which took more effort than I wanted it to I did the 800 metre swim with mask, snorkel and fins with Brad and Sean as that was the last stamina test they had to do. I absolutely smashed it. The waves were a bit choppy but I smashed it! I beat my best time of 13:41 and I got about 13:15ish I think. So very happy. Next was the 400 metre swim which I was dreading as I find it the hardest by far. I managed to score a satisfactory 9:53 which is over a minute than my best of 8:20. But it wasn't something I was happy with as it was a 3 and to get a 4 out of 5 you need to get 8:40 or below. So I asked if I could have a go at it tomorrow, on Friday and Alice said that I could. After doing the stamina I went back to the shop at which point I had to go out for some sling diving sessions and workshops were you basically run through what happens when you would take some people out for real if they pay for skin diving (diving with just mask, snorkel and fins checking out reefs and free diving underwater). After that I again went back to the dive shop and prepared my kit for some scuba diving. I went out and did the 100 metre tow and I managed to get a very good time of 2:09 which is a 5 out of 5. Boom. Immediately after the 100 metre tow I observed Dave (a new scuba instructor here) who was with his open water students. Which was another tick in the box for me! I eventually went back to the dive shop and went through the instructor manual and my Divemaster results! I ended up with 86%!o(MISSING)n the first one and 80%!o(MISSING)n the second one. Ideally I would've liked a bit more time to get a better result but at the end of the day it's a pass. I was truly and utterly shattered.

Friday! What a day! It begun with my doing all of my skills underwater (regulator recovery, CESA, mask removal, swimming without a mask etc) in front of Alice and Mark, a bit intimidating as it was just me in front of them. My results went quite well but their were some were half way through I thought to myself oh no! I forgot this! I forgot that! But I couldn't go back to it so I just hoped for the best.

I also done my surface skills which were the pre dive safety check (BWRAF) and kit assembly, donning and adjustment and disassembly. It went very well and after I was finished Alice asked me if she could record me doing it because it was 'perfect' and the way I spoke was very clear and slow. It will be for future interns to help them in learning it.

Saturday was the best day I've had so far! For the obvious reason that I became a proper fully qualified Divemaster! I did three dives in the morning with some people and I led two and Sean led one. We took out the new open water divers who are Leonie, Will, Richard and I also took out Lienne as well. Can't believe I finally did it and with one day to spare 😊 oh yeaahh!

But then began the real challenge given to me by Mark. As I was his first advanced open water, rescue diver and Divemaster certification so he had some games planned for me. Needless to say it was a lot of fun and I actually felt pretty good the next day! Surprisingly 😊

Then came the last day for me in Tenerife Diving Academy! I waltzed in at a comfortable hour donning my Divemaster shirt. I also did the pre dive safety check video with Alice and I also did the video for kit assembly donning and adjustment and disassembly. My volunteer/ assistant was Toni the new girl from South Africa who was putting on the equipment. The video will be used for future interns to help them learn it. That concluded my time here in Abades and the Dive Academy, I got my Divemaster and my professionalism results and I ended up with a 5 out of 5 for all of them except for one. I got one 4 out of 5 which was the caring for environment one. Partly because I went to Siam Park but also because Pete and Alice have never given out a 5 to any intern before. I'm happy with the results and with my time here! I definitely now have the confidence to work as Divemaster. So thank you to everyone I met, you made the experience for me.

This is Adam 2/ Stevie G/ Shamu/ Leslie/ Divemaster signing off.

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