Hi Mary-Jane,
I am Mark, one of the owners and founders of 12dive.
The best introduction to Scuba Diving is the PADI Discover Scuba Diving program that we at 12dive even have improved to give you an even better diving experience. It is also the best introduction to the PADI system of diving education and can be accredited towards an Open Water Course or a Scuba Diver Course.
In this course, you will get a video in our classroom, introducing you to your visit into the blue planet with pure simple basics of do's and don's. After this, we'll gear up in our equipment room, while explaining you the full scuba equipment, before going into the pool. In the pool, we have all time and comfort to practice with your equipment, hand signals, buoyancy control and swimming techniques.
After, we normally take a break ti drive you to the best possible dive site.
This is most often : Abades. I call it "the aquarium" because of the abundant marine life and clear water. It is also a marine reserve and a most excellent dive location for beginner divers and snorkelers and has some nice taverns for a snack or some drinks after the dive.
Tenerife has everywhere turtles, but the turtles you are most probably talking about are the turtles of El Puertito de Armeñime. In this place, the turtles were fed by humans, so they associated humans with food and came to every diver, snorkeler and swimmer in that area in search of a free and easy snack. This became such an attraction that the turtles got overfed and sick. Last year the turtle-vet has taken all the 4 turtles out of that area. They got cured and released in another area of Tenerife to get "wild, healthy and natural" again. Up to now, those turtles haven't returned to that area where the wildlife wasn't very interesting anyway except for the turtles.
Abades, as a dive location has much much much more to offer. We have the different landscapes with each their typical marine life, protected and untouched. For me the real diving experience.
The price for this one day excursion is 110€. In this package, you also have insurance for 'Scuba-diving' since this is most often an exception in the normal travel insurances.
If you book trough our website, you'll get a reduction on this price.
If you like it, a second ocean dive is 60€. If you adore it and want to go for a read diving certification, your Discover Scuba Dive can be accredited towards a course.
Thank you for your question and hopefully see you next time as a mermaid,
Mark