This week I met a fish; an 11 year old boy who during his first Discover Scuba Diving demonstrated skills back to me to Instructor standard. He seemed to grow gills before my eyes and yesterday he went to the sea and emerged from the water completely and utterly hooked. Awesome.
I have done 4 DSD’s and 3 snorkeling trips this week. We do our pool sessions in the Olympic pool and with a group of 4 teenage girls spent most of the dive finning below the Swedish men’s team as they ploughed up and down. Blissful views!
We also had a 3-a-side Basketball match, with Jose and I looping our arms to look like basket (cases!) as the students bounced the ball finning expertly around each other and learning a great lesson in buoyancy control. Out in the sea we have been fruitlessly searching for Seahorses and Mantas but have been instead inundated with fish and crabs, I do however have a huge fan club for the Red-Lipped Blennies.
On the return drive from one trip, the mini-bus broke down, luckily my guests thought it was an initiation test, my boss however was convinced I had filled the tank with petrol ..(I hadn’t!) After an hour spent exploring the lava of the National Park we were eventually rescued and returned to the center.
The center I work by the way, is La Santa Diving at Lanzarote’s Club La Santa. It is on the North West of the Island and is a professional sports complex; the clients are 60% Danish and 40% English (Irish & Welsh). The Club’s facilities and first class Instructors are all included in the initial costs (except Scuba Diving) and some of the amenities on offer are an Olympic-sized pool, athletic stadium, wind-surfing, cycling, golfing, aerobics and multi-gyms.
Professional athletes, sporting clubs and families come from all over Europe to enjoy the hotels facilities. As well as training for National and International competitions; many of our most famous sportsmen and women come to prepare for the Olympic games themselves.
However those that aren’t training like loons for some spanky competition tend to either lie by the pool or come and discover scuba diving with us, because of the nature of these dives we are forced to travel to the other side of the island to escape the full force of the Atlantics on-shore currents (though the surfers’ love it!) and float out of a gentle bay in Puerto del Carmen.
This has therefore given me a very limited view of the dive sites on offer … ie. I have seen one of them! I hope therefore that next week, I will get the Open Water or the Advanced course and I can explore the Blue Hole (max. 28m) and the wreck dives that I have heard so much about, till then "Adios"
