Just imagine, it’s beginning of December. It’s wet, cold and dark and miserable looking people are pushing their way towards overcrowded underground carriages. But not you, you are in a different world. You are rolling out of bed, waken up by a glorious sunshine, trowing on shorts and t-shirt, having your breakfast on a terrace and walk into a next door diving centre.

5-10 min car journey brings you to the harbour where you kit up and board the RIB. It takes only between 10-15 min to get to one of the diving sites where spectacular rock formations, three species of rays, loggerhead turtle, barracudas, octopus, cuttlefish, trumpet fish, angel shark and friendly dive guides could make your diving trip unforgettable. Look at the pictures from our previous trips to Tenerife in the Gallery, to see how much fun we had.

There are still places available on this trip but we need to close the booking next week to ensure that suitable accommodation is available.

In order to secure your place on the trip, you have to book your flight and e-mail me a confirmation, if you haven’t already done it. Please refer to a previous post <1168> or e-mail me ASAP.

I have contacted the Tenerife Dive and they suggested that it would be better if we can avoid the dates from 21-30 November as they have the instructor training and it will be very busy there. As we have no dates fixed yet, I suggest the 1-8 of December. However, we will most likely miss the AGM.

The cost of diving, self-catering accommodation and transfers will be about £260. Kit hire costs 3 Euros per dive. You will be responsible for booking your flight and emailing me your flight confirmation, which will secure your place on the trip.

Please e-mail me or leave a comment about the dates.

Martin J. and I have discussed a possibility of organising another diving trip to Tenerife towards the end of the year. If anyone may be interested, please leave a comment or e-mail me. We are thinking of mid November.

There are plenty of information about this location on our web site in Trip Reports and previous posts and lots of pictures in the Gallery. It may be particularly attractive for new members as there are PADI courses available, brilliant viz and easy diving with friendly stingrays and a loggerhead turtle.

I would like to thank Fizz and Martin for their reports from both (March and November) Tenerife trips and Jason, for uploading them, inserting pictures and uploading my pictures onto the gallery. Both trips were great fun and Glug established its position as a regular customer of the Tenerife Dive, friendly and professional diving centre, actively run by owners David & Yvonne Taylor with a significant contribution from an instructor and dive guide Maxim Zigelman aka Ami. To these Glug members, who are not familliar with their website www.tenerifedive.com I would definitely recommend viewing it. It is very informative and you can see familiar faces of Glug members if you look at the news pages for March 2007, November 2006 and June 2005. If anyone is interested in diving Tenerife, please add a comment to this post or e-mail me by clicking on the envelope icon, stating when would you like to go. If there is enough interest, I will organise another trip or pass all the information to anyone who may be interested in organising it. There is quite a few pictures in our gallery from Tenerife trips to whet your appetite for diving Tenerife.

Glug members at the bar Via Moana with Yvonne (middle of front row) of Tenerife Dive.

Divingshop.com have a great offer at present - they’ll match or beat any LIDS show offer up until the end of April (provided, of course, they stock the item in question). Plus, if you click through to their site from the GLUG website (by clicking on their logo), GLUG will earn a commission!

Rainbow-Scuba, Thailand are offering GLUG members a 25% discount on last minute bookings for their April live-aboard from Phuket to the Tarutao Marine Park.  This really is an amazing offer 5 days 5 nights on a luxury live-aboard at a knock down price.

2 - 7 April 2007
Tarutao National Marine Park
WAS 48,000 Thai Baht (approx. 748 UKP)
NOW 36,000 Thai Baht (approx. 560 UKP)

See their web site www.rainbow-scuba.com for more details or email adam@rainbow-scuba.com

The GLUG Chair and a buddy diving in Tenerife: Nov 06

The trip is only four weeks away and I cannot wait to land at the Aeropuerto Reina Sofia before watching a sub-tropical sunset over the Oceano Atlantico. It is such a nice feeling to leave behind the cold British winter and get off the plain feeling the warmth of Canarian winter. My excitement increases as I recall familiar dive sites and friendly Stingrays but also in anticipation of diving with different people and indulging in tapas or paella for super.

I have spoken to Yvonne at www.tenerifedive.com and we agreed that we will keep the bookings open till 25th of February (unless we fill in all the places before that date). This gives more time to anyone who likes to make decisions at the last minute.

So, what are you waiting for: book your flight and e-mail me your confirmation, which will secure your place on the trip. Please see Events Page and previous posts for details.

Common Stingray - a common sight in Tenerife’s waters.

The trip is five weeks away now and bookings need to be finalised soon. Please see Events Page or previous post for details and the Gallery for pictures from the previous trip. The deadline is Monday the 12th of February. After this date I can still take a booking, if any place is left, but I cannot guarantee the quoted price. Please e-mail me by clicking on the envelope on the top of this post if you are interested.

Although the trip is still over 6 weeks away, the apartments are getting booked fast. There are hotel rooms available but they might be a bit more expensive and have no catering facilities. Therefore, if there any more people interested in this trip please let me know ASAP. Please see the previous post or Events Page for details.

Sorry for keeping you waiting for the info about this trip but I’ve just received a quote from the Tenerife Diving Centre and a package of 4 dives over 2 days, 3 nights of self catering accomodation and transfer from and to the airport will cost £110/159 euros per person. Therefore, the other costs will be the flights, food and drinks.

In order to secure your place on this trip you need to book a return flight to Tenerife South (aka Tenerife Sur, Reina Sofia or TFS) for 16th of March, returning on 19th of March and e-mail the confirmation to me. I’ll forward it to the center. They do not ask for a deposit but they need all flights confirmations as guarantee of your commitment to booking and also to check arrivals and departures to plan the transfers.

As the trip is not only diving but also a social event, please arrive at Tenerife before 7pm on the 16th March that we can have a briefing, go for a meal together and get to know each other before diving.

When booking a return flight for 19th March please ensure that you departure is not earlier than about 4pm to allow a 24 hours surface interval after the last dive.

I’m going to put this trip on the Events list tonight so please click the tick if you are interested. It doesn’t oblige you to anything but at least will give me a rough estimate how many people are keen.

Please e-mail me any questions by clicking on the envelope on the top of this post. 

Dear Glug

During my christmas shopping, I came across a digital compass, water resistant to 50m with a large backlight display for only £30!!

Now I don’t know much about these things but I thought even as a backup time device it is perfect!! The compass operates for only 30 seconds (per button push) but quickly gives you your heading (in degrees) and marks North, useful for us even just to work out north from south!! It has the usual digital watch features, stopwatch, alarm, timer countdown etc.

If anyone is interested its from a gadget shop called Red5, although the web site only has a more expensive version for £100 (more features of course), its manufactured by Origo. The nearest store to London seems to be Bluewater, a store listing on their website.

Happy shopping

Tony Backhurst is advertising last minute liveaboard specials at the moment which look like rather good value. There are three January departures at £450 and one at £495, all are for the northern Red Sea Wrecks and Reefs itineraries and include flights, 4 dives a day, 6 nights onboard and 1 in a hotel, food, soft drinks blah blah blah. It’s probably a saving of about £300 and would be a rather nice way to spend a week in January. I can’t get the time off work but I thought someone else might be interested.

It’s time to finalise our arrangements for the Tenerife trip. We are departing on 25th of November 2006 and your flights need to be booked individually. There are plenty of flights there to Tenerife South (TFS) between 2 and 3pm from various airports and a flight from Stansted at 10am (I’m flying this one). Please ensure that your return flight departs no earlier than after 3pm, otherwise, you are advised not to dive in the afternoon on the day before departure. We are not diving next day after arrival, but we can spend it familiarising ourselves with the site and diving options, and make our diving arrangements.

Everyone who has already expressed their interest or anyone who still wants to join us please book your flight and forward the confirmation to me by the 30th of September. This will confirm people’s commitment to the trip and enable me to book accommodation.

We are diving with Aqua-Tenerife Dive Centre so please see their website www.tenerifedive.com for diving sites description, diving options and prices, and the accommodation option. We can receive a special discount for diving if our group expands to a minimum of six qualified divers, however, trainees are very welcome and the training arrangements will be made for them.

In order to confirm your participation and if you have any questions please e-mail me by clicking on the envelope at the top of this message.