BUDDIES DIVE BLOG

The May bank holiday saw Karen and myself take off for some relaxation in the sun….. our destination the sunny island of Tenerife.

The trip had been planned as a weeks holiday for a nice rest and a bit of sun worshipping ( however i was hoping to sneak a dive or two in )

I decided that instead of just a bit of a dive i would try and do something a little more benificial to me so i went over to see Dave and Yvonne at Tenerife Dive a PADI IDC with Dave as the resident course director, after a warm welcome and a good chat i was ready to do my Underwater Digital Photographer instructor speciality (one of only a few specialities that can be taught by a DM /AI) and would start of with the 2 dives the following day.

The days diving started at 9am at the dive center in Costa del Silencio, once the kit was sorted and loaded into the vehicles we drove down to the harbour at Las Galletas just 5 minuets away. While we kitted up Dave brought the RIB round from its mooring ti the floating pontoon so all we had to do was walk down the gangway and hop into the RIB with our kit.

With Dave at the helm and Jurgen at his side we set off for the first dive site The Steps which is only a 10 or so minuet ride out from the harbour. As we got ready to enter the water i spotted a dolphin this had to be a sign of a fantastic dive to follow.

The site takes its name form the vertical pillars of bassalt rock looking a bit like the giants causeway but underwater. we started the dive on a plato at about 15m then descended down a wall to about 20m. Wild life was plentiful and vis fantastic. Our dive took us up gullies and through a couple of swim throughs then past “the ampi theater”  By far for me the most exciting thing was the wild life with many types of fish i havent seen before but the most amazing thing had to be the sighting of a sting ray.

As this was in effect a DUP spec for me i was clicking away like a man possessed, covering all that i could for the course content, people, wildlife, topography the works. 40 minuets later and i was getting a little low on air so Jurgen and i surfaced while the other four had a bit more of a look around. When they surfaced we were told of the inconvienience they had for surfacing caused by a shoal of 100 – 200 baracuda and as Martin put it “there is no way we were going through them”.

We went back to Las Galletas for our surface interval and took up residence outside a little cafe that offered a HUGE full english breakfast and chips for just 3€. After an hour or so we wondered back over to the RIB and kitted up ready for the second dive Iwas really pleased when we were told that we were going to do the rays. I dived this site last time I was in Tenerife about 3 yrs ago and ended up flooding my camera, I was determined to get some photos this time.

The site is just out of the harbour, we dropped into about 18m of water just missing 2 stingrays on our descent but they circled and came back to have a look at us. Again the water was teeming with life with viz almost beeing blocked by a shoal of smallfry. On the site there is also a small wreck of a fishing boat which we went over to see followed by a tour of the gullies to see what we could find, the highlights being 2 huge octopus and a cuttle fish.

So with 2 excelent dives under my belt and a huge grin on my face we headed back to the dive center to wash the kit off. After  that  I sat down with Yvonne while we went through file formats, storage and picture manipulation. I was given a bit of home work to prepare a lesson plan which I presented the following day. Dave marked my presentation and gave me some great pointers and then filled in my paperwork for PADI.

A big thanks to all the staff at Tenerife Dive for a nice relaxed course and some great diving. Hope to see you when we come out again.