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I didn't really know what to expect with diving in Tenerife (I
just knew I wanted to feed the Rays) so I went with an open mind
but I was not disappointed at all.
We arrived at our accommodation on Saturday morning and after a
quick shower and change we made our way to my chosen dive operator
'Ocean Blue Divers' to get the paperwork out of the way and
arrange times for our first dive. Thoroughness is an
understatement, I can honestly say that this was the first time I
have ever showed my log books and diving insurance (its normally a
flash of the qualification card), that said it was reassuring to
know that I had selected a professional operator as opposed to a
'cowboy' outfit and I get the impression there were a lot of those
on the Island!
Sunday afternoon was supposed to be our first dive of the
holiday but when we arrived at the dive shop we were informed that
the weather conditions were not ideal (the sky was overcast and
there were occasional showers but the sea looked flat to me…….holiday
divers!, instead we jumped on a local bus to Las Americas to see
what all the fuss was about down there - I am certainly
glad that I'm not staying anywhere near the place, must be getting
old before my time!
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A Ray at the Atlantis dive site.
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Monday morning we finally got wet at a site called 'Atlantis',
we decided to wear 3mm shortie's as the water temperature was 23c
and fellow diver said he had been wearing a shortie all
week - he said nothing about it being a 5mm!.
All the diving was done off a Rib but the sites were no more than 15 minutes away. We
never actually felt the cold on our first dive as we were both
over-weighted (I had 6kg instead of 6lbs on my belt) but there was
still plenty to distract our attention from our constant finning; a
friendly Eagle Ray, Parrot Fish and a shoal of escapees from the
local fish farm (I believe they were Sea Bass).
The seabed in Tenerife is primarily large boulders but depending
on the dive site you can find yourself drifting over black sandy
bottoms. For the photographer, I would recommend using a filter of
some description as most of my day-time underwater photographs are
quite bright.
Before our afternoon dive we returned to the dive shop to change
cylinders, reshuffle weights, put more neoprene on and also get a
bite to eat.
The second dive was at 'Echo Bay' where we spotted much more sea
life including lizardfish, cuttlefish, sea spiders oh and plenty
of urchins.
The general underwater scenery at this site was a
cliff on one side (with a cave at the bottom) and an assortment of
boulders scattered on the sandy bottom.
For me Tuesday's diving was the highlight of the week. In the
morning we dived 'White Point', basically we descended onto a
plateau at about 16m then descended over the ridge, out of the
noticeable current, onto a rocky bottom. At the bottom there were
plenty of overhangs/caves to swim through. In the overhangs/caves was some of the most
colourful sea life I have ever seen including some beautiful
anemones and colourful shrimps
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| Club Tipped Anemone |
Trumpet Fish and
Long Spined Urchins |
Cleaner Shrimp |
To get back to the shot line we were required to test out our
rock climbing abilities (i.e. pulling ourselves up the plateau)
but this was not too difficult and I actually enjoyed this (from a
girl that hates currents)!
Our second dive was feeding the 'Rays'. I had a carrier bag of
fresh sardines attached to my BC and was prepared to get mugged on
the way down….. thankfully everyone was well behaved and waited
in line, at least they did until I heard a
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Kirsten feeding an Eagle Ray
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scream underwater and
saw a massive Ray grazing on my friend's leg!
When I say massive
it must have easily have been 1.5m in width, thankfully our
pre-dive briefing covered what to do in such an event……..raise
yourself of the bottom! After a while we finally dared one another
to rest on the bottom again and just when we were getting our
nerves back to get another Sardine out an even bigger Ray
appeared! Carrier bags empty, we spent the next few minutes
stroking the Rays before venturing away from the sand and around
the dive site.
On our final day we dived the following sites;
'Barranco Seco - Deep' - here we descended to 32m where the sandy
bottom was covered in Garden Eels, then we ascended to approx 20m
through a tunnel - on exiting you could still see our air bubbles
rising through the porous rock, before our final ascent I spotted
an octopus.
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Preparing for a night dive
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'Barranco Azul' - a shallow dive over boulders, sea life included
crabs, barracuda and fire worms.
'Echo Bay - Night Dive' - light sticks attached to the rear of our
tanks and torches distributed we finally made our decent. I was
surprised at how different the site appeared at night, urchins for
one were attractive, sea cucumbers and fire worms also made their
grand entrance.
Overall, a fantastic week away. Our accommodation couldn't have
been in a more ideal location, Ocean Blue Divers were a very
professional outfit who went out of their way to be as
accommodating as possible (they even arranged our day trip - Masca
Walk). I managed to get a tan in the winter sun (27c min) and I
came back having not broken the bank! I will certainly consider
going back again.
Additional Information:
Diving:
We used 'Ocean Blue Divers', Puerto de Santiago, Tenerife.
Web Site - http://www.oceanbluedivers.com
Contact Details - info@oceanbluedivers.com
(+34) 922862402 (Tel/Fax)
Article by Jo Brooks, BSAC branch 14
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