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.

Diving Tenerife update for January 2013 ~ Amarilla Divers

January 2013.

So January is always a rather quiet month for diving in Tenerife, however this does not mean that we are not busy busy busy.

We had divers from all over come and dive with Chris our instructor but we also had 3 new Divemaster Interns start their courses.

We have been joined by Laura from Spain, she joined us as an open water diver with only 8 dives and is progressing really well. Chris has spent a lot of time in the pool with her for her skills before embarking on her Advanced Open Water diver course.

Laura has now completed her AOW course and also her EFR course with Chris as well as racked up a decnt 43 dives. She has just successfully passed her Rescue Exam and will be doing her in-water training later this week. We are looking forward to taking her through the rest of her Divemaster training.

Next we was joined by Monika from Poland. She joined us a Rescue Diver but has also had a lot of training with CMAS. He husband is a PADI Instructor and he has been coming in to help monitor her skills and will eventually be the signing instructor for her course. 

Monika already had over 400 dives when she arrived but that has not stopped her dive dive diving!! 

Monika is an excellent diver and scored very highly in her skill circuit and will be taking her Divemaster exams this week. 

Monika will then be staying on to train for her Instructors course and will be taking that in May this year.

lastly we have Miguel who is from Spain. He joined us after completing his Open Water course with PADI but then went on to his CMAS 2 Star. We have been working hard with Miguel to help maintain his personal dive skills and he has been improving with a steday pace. 

Miguel is currently completing his Rescue Diver course with Chris and has also finished his EFR course too.

Miguel will be here for 8 weeks and will then possibly think about his Instructor couse as well.

So here are our 3 new Interns for the month of January.

Chris has been working hard with the Divemaster interns but was also helped by the Welshie himself, Tony. It was great to have such an awesome team working in the Dive center.

They went to a few sites but Yellow Mountain seemed to be the favourite for January.

So what else was happening.......

EGYPT TIP 2013.......... What a fabulous start to year with a nice trip away.

I will put details up for this on another blogg with some gorgeous photos as taken by our Neil.

Also details for any more trips that Amarilla Divers has planned.

Thanks for reading.

Ciao :)

Very delayed Update from Amarilla Divers

OK so I may have been slightly caught up with Christmas, Egypt and the UK holidays but I am BACK and so will hopefully be able to keep up to date with whats happening in the dive center and any special offers we may have going.

Also will be updating on and dive trips we are planning for the future.

So since we last spoke we have had Divemaster interns finish, leave, find jobs and start new jobs!! But we have also had a few newbies to the dive center as well. So here is a quick round up of the last couple of months.

December 2012.

At the beginning of December we had the PADI IE with Chris, Lucy & Nikki, all of whom passed with flying colours and we are very proud of their achievements.

 

Lucy has stayed with Amarilla Divers to gain some valuable experience and has been teaching PADI courses with our guidance. She has managed to rack up quite a few and has been teaching Discover Scuba Diver, Open Water and Advanced Open Water courses. 

Lucy was with us up until the middle of January when she then joined Amarilla Divers annual dive trip to Egypt. Which was excellent and I will be posting pictures soon.

Lucy has now taken on a position in the Cayman Islands and will hopefully be spreading the diving love there. 

We wish Lucy the very best of luck and hope we will see her back here at some stage.

Chris also passed his instructor exams and is now working with us here as one of our instructors. Chris has been teaching Open Water, Scuba Diver, Advanced Open water, Rescue Diver, EFR courses, Divemaster and has also been helping with a few specialties. 

Chris will be a PADI MSDT very very soon as he almost has his required 25 certs.

We also had in December our annual Christmas Eve dive. This year we teamed up with Ecological Divers and took our 14 Divers to Guimar for a nice Santa Dive.

It was a nice dive with lots of fish and we even managed to spot a very hidden Angel Shark!! Nice.

After we had some food and a few drinks. 

Here are a few pictures from this dive.

Kaz the little Elf

Kaz

Mary, Lucy & Hannah

The whole group of Amarilla Divers

Hannah

Welshie Tony

Tony Farmer & Mary

Lucy, Tony, hannah & Jonny

 

SO that was an excellent month of December and we had many different courses going on as well some great dives. We also was very happy that we had all our candidates pass their PADI IE and are now looking forward to the next PADI IDC that we will be holding in May 2013.

We have some excellent offers for courses coming in 2013 and we will also NOT be increasing our prices for the 4th year running.

We would like to thank all our divers and dive team for a fabulous 2012 and we hope to see you all soon in 2013.

Neil & Mary x