Derek’s Dive Domain

Well, I am back in sunny Tenerife, diving with Michael Max and the crazy YD lot again

I love it out here, and after my first ever diving holiday in June, we all decided that we would go back here and do it all again :)  So Having flown in yesterday, the first dive is at Los Abrigos.  This is a dive site where you enter through a small rockpool, but today the tide is in, so its covered, and you can just see the top of the ladder.  We get in and drop to the bottom and then fin out through a hole in the rocks into the main ocean.  The group managed to get split up, so we’re told to wait there whilst Michael does the rounding up.  Unfortunately the group managed to split big time, so after about 15 minuted bimbling around on the spot, we decide to surface and see whats going on.  We almost surface, then decide drop back down and go back through to the rockpool as it will be easier to get out there.  Bzzzt wrong :D   I slice my hand nicely on a rock as I am being dragged around by the waves, but get out and we all reunite a few minutes later at the entry point as everyone has the same thoughts.  A couple of the gang go back in to carry on the dive, but I had had problems with my ears heading back down the second time, and decide to go and sort my hand out, and save myself for the second dive of the day.  The ears were to be a recurrent issue during the week, fortunately only making me miss once dive, but giving me regular discomfort.

After a surface interval for the others who finished the dive, we get back into the bus and head down to El Puertito, home of the turtles from the previous trip.  We enter down the beach, and swim out over the rocks in a slight surge over to the conservation area.  We see just the one turtle today, who had a good look at each diver in turn, and all the normal creatures like grunts, cuttlefish etc.  On the way back in we come across another turtle who spends a few minutes with the group.  I love seeing them, they are so graceful in the water, and are also pretty inquisitive and not afraid of humans at all.  One thing that I notice is that my buoyancy has improved a lot since the first time I was out here, so the course must have had some effect, as well as just having about 30 more dives than last time.

Dive 1 (95)  Max Depth 9.4m, dive time 21 mins.

Dive 2 (96)  Max Depth 11.0m, dive time 56 mins.