Finathon - Amarilla Divers

Finathon - Amarilla Divers

PADI Instructor Development Course 22nd May 2014

The next PADI IDC is starting on 22nd May 2014 in our Dive center.

We are happy to announce a new special off that includes the OWSI, EFRi, MSDT & materials!

We have had loads of success with our Instructor Development Courses here at Amarilla Divers and in May we expect tha Aurelien will be back for his IDC along side our Divemaster Ingrid and also some new interns that will be starting shortly.

We will also be running the PADI IDC Staff course and MSDT training.

For an information pack please contact mary@amarilladivers.com

Diving Tenerife February 2014 Update

Divemaster Internship Update.

So this month has seen Ingrid pass her Divemaster Internship with flying colours. Ingrid has been a pleasure to teach and is a very very good student. She is quick to learn and eager to do more....SOO Ingrid will now take on the Discover Scuba Diver leader :)

She is also considering taking the PADI Instructor course and will be working with Amarilla Divers to gain more dives and experience whilst also looking for a job :)



Aurelien has been completing his practical assessments, stamina and workshops and is almost ready for his final DM exam, part 2.

Aurelien is great to teach and has come along very well with his training. He is now looking at going back to France to work on the Yachts and sail away into the sunset!!



Dive Sites.

We have had some great dive sites lately and Tabaiba has been a favourite with the divers. We had some Advanced Open Water course diver there and got some excellent photos.

We have also been to Black Cove which is a  beautiful site, especially if  the weather is good to enter the Moon Pools.

The sting Rays have still been around and have not gone for their 'mating season' yet, so we have been graced with all the Large Atlantic rays as well as the small common rays and even the Eagle ray has been around.

Diving Tenerife Update for January 2014

Hi guys and welcome back. Yes I have been rather late with updates, but I promise to try and keep more prompt with our news.

So what has been happening :)

Well during January we had 2 new Divemaster Interns start with Amarilla Divers and also an old return to finish off her training.

Emelyne from France came back to complete the rest of her Divemaster and she scored very highly in her exams and her skill circuit :)

Emelyne was with us for a total of 8 weeks but split it over a couple of months so she could go off and work on the survey boats. 

Emelyne managed to complete 

Advanced Open Water

Rescue Diver

Emergency First Response

Divemaster

She also got lots of diving in and gained more experience and confidence with her diving. 

She now goes back to France and is looking for jobs round the world as we speak :)

Ingrid & Emelyne

Secondly we have the lovely Ingrid from Netherlands. She joined us to finish her Divemaster course and gain her dives to reach the minimum of 60 required for divemaster. 

Ingrid is a very quick learner and after a few pool sessions to practice and polish her dive skills, she score very high on her skill circuit. 

Ingrid also did a great job with her exams, in English, after studying hard with her book :)

Aurelien is our 3rd Divemaster intern and he is also from France. Aurelien was training in Cannes and then decided to complete his Divemaster course. 

He has been reading through his book and managed a great score for the first part of the exam, in French :) and now is studying the fantastic chapter 9 ready for the second exam.

Aurelien has also had some high scores with his Skill circuit and is looking good with his rescue assessment as well.

Ingrid & Aurelien

Fin Pivots

Aurelien & Ingrid with Alternate Air source

Jorge has been in for some diving and teaching and he has been down to the Sting Rays a couple of time with the Divemasters which is awesome and they have been surrounded by the sting rays. 

Jorge at the Sting Rays

We have lots of diving going on during February so we will some nice new photos as well.

We also have a new website 'Diving Tenerife' which will be nice to see :)

remember we also have the PADI IDC website that is aimed at our Instructor candidates and the Divemaster website for our Internship programs.

chat soon ;)

PADI Instructor Development courses May & September 2013

Well it definitely has been a while since we blogged!

We have been rather busy at the center with the New Divemaster Interns, new PADI Instructors and of course all of our lovely students and divers.

So let me first congratulate the Newly qualified PADI Instructors from our IDC in May this year.

We had a great time with our new Course Director Melita from Malta and we also had a multi-lingual IDC with Candidates from Poland, France, Hungary & Russia.

So the whole 8 days of training went really well and we had some great scores for the presentations.

Some of you may remember Manon, a Divemaster intern from last year, well she was completing her PADI Instructor course in May this year and passed with flying colours :)

We also had Monica who came through Amarilla Divers as a Divemaster Intern. She joined us in January 2013 and completed her Divemaster and Instructor course here at the center. Monica then went on to work the summer in Tenerife :)

Another one of our IDC Candidates was Istvan from Hungary. Istvan joined the AD Team in March to complete his Divemaster course and continue through to his Instructor course. Istvan passed the IE in June and continued to work with Amarilla Divers up until the end of September and actually left as a PADI MSDT after teaching many different courses and meeting all the requirements for the next instructor level. He will now go off to work in China :) 

We was also joined by Vladimir from Russia. He joined us just for his IDC and was a great candidate. He then went off to live and work in America and completed & passed his IE in New York. He now works in the states :)

All the guys did  a great job and we had an excellent IDC.

We also had Chris our new instructor from November 2012 and ex Divemaster, he had already made MSDT and so decided to take his PADI IDC Staff Instructor course during the May IDC. He passed this course and is now able to work alongside our Course Director & Master Instructor to help out on the future IDC's. He is also able to teach Assistant Instructors independently :)

Here is a small selection of pictures from the IDC 

Monica & Manon preparing for Confined Water

Debriefing the Examiner

Manon receiving her certificate

Confine Water presentations

The whole team together with Examiner

Manon with her Favourite Instructor Neil

Master Instructor Neil & Course Director Melita

Istvan receiving his certificate

So then we had the PADI IDC in September 2013. As the only IDC being run in Tenerife in September was at Amarilla Divers :) we are pleased to say that we had again a 100% pass rate :)

The candidates did a fabulous job on their IDC and went over to Gran Canaria for the IE.

Both dive centers over in Gran Canaria were very helpful with our candidates an Canary Diving Adventures even gave our guys a box of equipment to use for their  knowledge development presentations :)

Neil went for a dive with Blue Explorers whilst he was  there and the were great.

After the IE had finished a nice big BBQ was laid on and our guys filled their bellies before returning to Tenerife.

All the Instructor candidates passed YAY

Jorge receiving his certificate

Paulina receiving his certificate

So we had Paulina from Poland who was again one of our Interns who joined us in April. She went through the IDC and passed the IE with some fantastic scores :)

We also had Jorge from main land Spain who joined our team babck in March. He completed his Divemaster internship and went on to his IDC and was scoring 5's Brilliant :)

Jorge, Paulina & Neil with the Examiner

For more information on any of our PADI IDC's please contact mary@amarilladivers.com

We have great offers on Specialty Instructor course too :)

Amarilla Divers ~ February Update Diving Tenerife

February 2013

So what did we do in February, well we had some of our regular customers back to join us and they were having fun doing some new PADI courses.

We had Sam, he completed his Junior Open Water course after having a Discover Scuba Diver course with Mary last year. Sam then came back twice more fore some pleasure dives before Mum & Dad bought him his OW course for Christmas.

Sam was an excellent student and he had such a great time with Chris our Instructor. Chris said Sam was the best student he has taught so far....WOW well done Sam

We also had Natalie & Mark back to complete their Advanced open Water course with Neil. They had a lovely time and even  had a 'shopping list' of things Natalie wanted to see.

Her list was

Sting rays
Turtles
Sea Horses

Well in the first day they had already ticked off Sea Horses & Sting Rays, we could do much better than that.

We did take them to see  the Turtles to so we had 2 very happy divers and they went to some new dives too.

 
We had some new divers join Amarilla Divers for their first time and Janne from Finland completed his Open Water Course & EFR With Chris, whilst Jaromir completed his Scuba Diver course.

Eva was excellent at Snorkelling and we had many trips to Abades to take snorkelling groups.

Cathy came out for her Open Water Referral with Chris and was a great student.

We had many different courses running during February and it was great to have returning customers and some new ones too.


 As you may know we do have quite a following for our Bubblemaker program as well. This is always a great experience for our younger divers and so we had a new Bubblemaker join our team. Bethany came and had a go with Charlie our youngest Amarilla Divers team member.

Bethany had a great time playing the pool games with Charlie & Laura, our Divemaster Intern. Mary was there to keep an eye out and see who was the winner.

Lots of dive sites visited during February and lots of new life seen. High lights were definitely the Sea Horse, which is back at Poris and also the Abades Outer reef which has lots of new life and some breading bream!!!

Lets see what March has in store ;)

Check out our daily updates on facebook

Also remember we have our IDC starting on 26th May 2013. 

See you all soon

Amarilla Divers Tenerife ~ Egypt Trip 2013

January is always a good time to go to Egypt for Amarilla Divers as it means that both Neil & Mary can have some time of together....yes a rare thing !

So this year we set off to our annual liveaboard trip with lots of divers and decided to do the Deep North itinerary that includes Dahab.

This allowed us to dive the famous Blue Hole, The Canyon, Ras Abu Galum and Gabr el-Bint.

Diving at the Blue Hole was one of my favourites as the life on the outside of the 'hole' was stunning and we also got our teeth and ears!! cleaned by the cleaner fish on the reef.

The Blue Hole is world famous for Apnea (Free Diving) and is an amazing place to be.

We entered via 'The Bells' and swam along the reef, finally entering the Blue Hole itself. there is not a great amount of life inside the hole, but it is still pretty amazing.

Another great dive was the Canyon with its rather large stretch of windy twists. This was a great experience and we also found lots of life here including the Pigmy Sea Horses and Goby's.

We also dived along Tiran Island which is always amazing diving with loads of colourful corals. This is one of the best areas in my opinion to dive when in the Red Sea.

We had some great times and not only with the diving but also with the guys having fun all day and evening, we even played 'ibbly dibbly' Yes we have to ask Mars Tanya about that!!

Here are some of the photos Neil took.

 Lucy did a tad a free diving form the back of the boat, whilst us divers looked on.

Lucy recently finished her AIDA 2 * Free Diving course here in Tenerife.

 Can you see the hidden Scorpion fish among the corals??

Ahhh BIG Puffer Fish and Mary. Very pretty fish and rather friendly too.

We run annual trips to Egypt and normally these are in January time. Next year 2014, this trip may well be in February and November. We will be giving out details soon.

Check out our Facebook Page for more photos and also for daily updates around the center.