Diving Tenerife ~ PADI Instructor Development Course (IDC) Nov 2012

So Amarilla Divers was recently upgraded to a PADI 5 Star IDC Dive Resort YAY...this means we can now teach Divemasters of equivalent to become PADI Instructors. We can also run the PADI IDC Staff Instructor course too.

This is great news for us and for our Divemaster interns old and new :)

So over the last week we have had our very first PADI IDC here at Amarilla Divers.

We had our very own Platinum Course Director Mr Clive Albon here to conduct the course with the help of Master Instructor Neil :) We only had 3 Instructor candidates & 2 IDC Staff Instructor upgrades,  this time round, but this is an excellent start for our first one and helps us get the ropes a bit.

So the Instructor Candidates are Chris, Lucy & Nikki with Kornel & Tim the Staff Candidates

The IDC has gone very well and all the candidates have done an exceptional job and had some very high scores. The skill circuit was an excellent start and everyone got on well.

During the IDC the candidates are scoring well on every aspect of the course and they have to 'present' certain part to pass the course. With the Confined water, Open Water, knowledge Development, Rescue workshop & Skill circuit, the candidates have shone through on all levels.

They of course have been a little nervous, but this at times can strengthen your actions and makes you think a little more like an instructor.

With each passing day all candidates have shown improvement in their own abilities as well as in their teaching skills and are learning from every part of this course.

It is great to see a happy bunch of guys.



Our next PADI IDC starts on 26th May 2013. Contact mary@amarilladivers.com for more details.

Diving Tenerife ~ Divemaster update November

Quick update for November.

We have been very busy in the Dive Center and the Divemaster interns have been doing a fantastic job.

Both Carl & Thomas have completed their Divemaster courses with flying colours and will now be sent out in to the world of diving to find work :)

Carl has been busy applying for jobs all over the place and we have been searching high & low for job adverts.

Carl was a pleasure to have in the dive center and he has such a passion for diving and it shines through in everything he does.

Carl also manged to successfully complete his EFR Instructor Course with Neil and so now he will be even more of an asset to another dive center.

We wish him all the very best of luck for his future career and hope to see him back in May 2013 for his PADI Instructor course. :)

 So next for Thomas, he has been with Amarilla Divers for about 8 weeks and has successfully completed his Divemaster Internship. He will now leave in a couple of weeks for Paris and will  then go on to Brazil.

Thomas is still helping round the center and getting more experience with his guiding, which he is a master off now ;) and he is also on the hunt for the illusive Angel Shark !

Thomas has been great to teach and has been a huge asset for us with his many language skills. Thomas speaks English, Spanish, French & Portuguese and has been diving with clients from all over. 

We wish Thomas the very best for his continued success in diving and hope he finds a job somewhere very exotic.

 

We now have a new intern with us called Antony and he has been working in the Commercial side of diving in the Salmon Farms!!

We will update you on all things Divemaster soon.

Also with Amarilla Divers running their first Instructor Development Course here in our center, we will update you on how that all goes too.

Check back soon 

 

 

Diving Tenerife ~ PADI 5 Star IDC Resort

Amarilla divers has some great news to share with our divers. This month October 2012 we have been upgraded to a PADI 5 Star Instructor Development Course Resort. This is a very prestigious ranking in the PADI Dive shop levels and we are very very proud to share this news with everyone.

So what does this mean? 

Well we are now able to offer Emergency First Response Instructor courses, PADI Instructor Courses, PADI IDC Staff Instructor courses and PADI MSDT courses at our center. All our course will be at exceptionally competitive prices

We have our own Course Director to conduct these courses and Neil, our Master Instructor, will be on hand to staff the PADI IDC's too.

We may even have Mary upgrading to PADI IDC Staff Instructor in the near future!!

It also means that we can offer the PADI IDC via eLearning on the PADI website, which means you will be able to review the presentations in the comfort of your own home.

 Amarilla Divers will also begin to offer the PADI Instructor Internships, these will have fantastic savings and will last for a maximum of 6 months (depending on current level). You will get the benefit of on site training, theory sessions, practical applications and over 100 dives. 

This will be limited and will be on a first come first served basis.

So all in all a fantastic opportunity  for all our divers and staff.

We look forward to seeing you all very very soon.

Mary & Neil.

Diving Tenerife ~ Divemaster update October.

Well what has been happening with our Divemaster interns.

 

Walied is now nearing the end of his time with Amarilla Divers and has been here for 7 weeks. During this time he has completed the following courses.

PADI Advanced Open Water
PADI Rescue Diver
Emergency First Response Primary Care
Emergency First Responce Secondary Care
Emergency First Response AED use.
PADI Deep Diver
PADI Enriched Air Diver
PADI Divemaster.

Walied has also managed over 60 dives whilst here in Tenerife and has been diving with Turtles, Stingrays, octopus, Sea horses and much much more.

Walied has been working hard on his skill circuit and demonstrations as well his dive guiding and briefings and has come a long way since he first started with us.

We now only have a few parts left to complete and then we will say goodbye to Walied until next time:)

Next we have Thomas who joined our team as an Open Water diver. he has been completing many dives and has been great in the center. Thomas has been training lots and has managed so far to complete these courses.

PADI Advanced Open Water
PADI Rescue Diver
Emergency First Response Primary Care
Emergency First Responce Secondary Care
Emergency First Response AED use.

He has also been doing some skill practice and will now move on to some guiding and briefings. Thmas scored some exceptionally high scores for his stamina and this is great news.

Thomas has also been great in the center with his extra language skills and has been working with a lot of our French clients and even the Spanish ones too.

We will keep you updated on his continued progress.

At the end of September we was joined by Carl from the UK. He is a qualified life guard and wanted to add a few more 'watery' certifications to his CV. 

Carl will be with us for 8 weeks and has already shown himself to be a very competent and confident diver and we have high hopes for his continued success in our team. 

 We have already managed to complete his Open Water course, Advanced Open Water course and complete over 20 dives!! He has already seen the turtles, sting rays & sea horses....what can we show him next !

Well......it is almost Angel Shark season so hopefully we have a fair few of them to look at soon :)

Diving Tenerife ~ Amarilla Divers update

We have had such a busy September that we have not really had much chance to relax and upload the mountains of photos!!... However the weather has been great and we have lots of flat calm seas, which is highly unusual.

Here is a quick run down of what has been going on at Amarilla Divers.

We were joined by regular divers Karen, Pat & Doc ( Sam & Gareth). Karen was here to complete her Rescue Diver & EFR course with Neil, whilst Pat & Doc where here to sign off their Boat Specialty, Deep Specialty and Master Scuba Diver certification too.

We also had Rachel westbrook back with us for a weeks holiday, she was with her friend Cara and they had a couple of dives with us here in Tenerife.

Rachel is one of our interns from last year who is now currently working as an Instructor in Cambodia. She is doing a fantastic job and loving every minute of it. We miss her loads but are very very proud her xx

We have had lots of courses going on in the center and we are now preparing ourselves for the Half term holidays. We are looking forward to doing lots of diving and finding more sea horses :)



September also brought us a new Divemaster intern called Carl and he will be with us for 8 weeks to complete all his courses to Divemaster. We will update you loater with his progress.

Diving Tenerife Underwater Photography Competition

Well September bought us a new Underwater Photography Competition called 11 Foto-Sub Guimar Open. This competition was split in to 2 different catagories for the divers, being Compact Cameras and the manual SLR type camera.

Neil & Thomas,  our divemaster Intern, went along to try their hands at some photography. They were joined by their 'models' Mary & Chris.

 

Now the idea is that you have a buddy / model and take pictures that fit in to 6 different types for marking accordingly.


The 6 sections were

Whole Fish
Macro Fish
Macro Non fish
Ambiental no model
Ambiental with Model
Molussco

You were allowed to take up to 240 pictures and had 4 hours diving time in which to complete this task.

The dive was lovely and we have been back since to have a good look around.

Neil took some great shots and he eventually came 7th out of 11 competitors, which we think is great for his first go. Now he know what the judges are looking for he can only gain confidence and hopefully higher his grade next time.

Thomas came 10th out of 11 divers, which is excellent as it was literally the second time he dived with a camera.

This was a fantastic experience for both Neil & Thomas and we even made the news lol.

Diving Tenerife ~ September Divemaster Intern update

 This month has been a sad month for Amarilla Divers !!! ahhhh

We have said goodbye to the girls Suzy & Lucy and have also now said goodbye to Duncan too. The summer is almost over and the winter season is kicking in and we are still very very busy at the dive center.

So here is what has been going on.

Miss Suzy Carden-Noad was with us for 3 months and managed to complete all of this....

PADI Divemaster
PADI Assistant Instructor
She taught Scuba Reviews
Guided lots of dives
pulled LOTS of different faces !!! check out facebook for pictures

Suzy came as quite a shy lass who was always tired and took on the name of Snoozy....but soon she changed into a fantastic diver and Divemaster and we are very proud to have know and taught her.

Suzy now goes back to the UK to start UNI and will hopefully be back sooner rather than later to see us and be our 'mapper'..... yes this is a new word in the English Dictionary!!!!

Well done Suzy and we wish you all the very best of luck for the future.

Now we have Miss Lucy Weal who was with Amarilla Divers for 8 weeks. During her time with us she completed

PADI Rescue Diver
Emergency First Reponse Primary Care
Emergency First Response Secondary Care
Emergency First Response AED's
PADI Divemaster
PADI Assistant Instructor
PADI Enriched Air Nitrox Diver

She also conducted Scuba Review, Snorkelling excursions, Discover Scuba Diver course ( under supervision), guided dives, took try dives in the pool and lots more.

Lucy has gone back to the UK but will be with us again soon as she would like to complete her IDC and go on to be a PADI Instructor. This is excellent news and we wish her all the very best of luck.

Duncan came to us as a PADI Master Scuba Diver and was here for 7 weeks to do his PADI Divemaster & PADI Assistant Instructor course.

He successfully completed both these course and also refreshed his EFR skills and certification.

Duncan was very active with Chris our Divemaster on our Urchin project and was diving many dives to clear our reef.

During the time Duncan was here, he blossomed onto an excellent Divemaster and we now hope he is able to find some work in this industry. We wish all the best of luck and know we will see him back here in Tenerife some time soon.

New Divemaster Interns for September.

September has also bought us new Divemaster interns in the shape and for of Walied, a Doctor from the UK and Thomas from Brazil / France.

Both guys join us as Open water divers and so will be training through to Divemaster and possibly Assistant Instructor too. 

Walied has been gaining lots of experience with his diving and practicing his buoyancy and also now moving on to his Rescue Diver Course. 

Thomas has just finished his Advanced Open water course and is excellent in the water. We look forward to continuing with the Rescue & DM courses soon.

We will also be joined by another new intern Carl this month, so we will keep you updated with the guys progress.