Some dive trips are about logging dives. This one came with a list of missions.
When our DIVEVOLK Ambassador — a German diving instructor who specialises in courses for divers with disabilities — boarded the flight to Fuerteventura in early April with her colleague, travel-advisor and friend Simone, she had five things she wanted to come home with:
- Check whether the chosen dive base is genuinely accessible enough to host future courses for divers with disabilities.
- Work remotely and finish a backlog of 50 Instagram Reels by the end of the trip.
- Finally meet an angel shark.
- Take the time to actually learn her brand-new iPhone 17.
- And then promptly — voluntarily — sink that brand-new iPhone into the Atlantic.
This is the story of which missions actually got done — and which one, the one that wasn't really on the list, ended up being the one that mattered.
Mission 1: Accessibility — A Pleasant Surprise
Spain in general has a reputation for taking accessibility seriously, and Fuerteventura confirmed it. The chosen dive base is barrier-free all the way to the water: a smooth approach down to the entry point, easy access into the training pool, and from there a short, sheltered swim out to a platform tucked away from the surf. Add a friendly, professional staff and good music on the speakers, and it became obvious very quickly that this was going to work as a future destination for handicapped-diver courses.
Anyone who'd like to learn to dive with us in the bright, clear Atlantic off Fuerteventura — we've found the right place.
Mission 2: 50 Reels in 10 Days — Honestly? Nope.
This one was a flop, and it's worth being upfront about it. Two reasons: the target was wildly ambitious in the first place, and on top of that, both of us lost three full days to whatever we'd accidentally eaten. No diving, no filming, no editing — just lying flat in the apartment hoping to feel human again. A handful of Reels did make it across the line; the rest are still in the pipeline.
Missions 4 & 5: Taking a Brand-New iPhone Underwater
The forced rest break did have one upside: it left time to actually sit down and learn the new iPhone 17 — particularly the photo and video side of things. Which set up Mission 5 nicely: take that same phone underwater, under pressure, and trust it to keep working.
The tool for that job is the DIVEVOLK SeaTouch 4 Max+ underwater smartphone housing. For someone who is honestly not a "tech person", the appeal is how few steps the workflow has: open the housing, slide in the phone, close the lid, tighten the screws, you're done. No proprietary software, no custom camera. The phone you already know stays the phone you already know — just inside a case rated to 60 metres, with a touchscreen that still actually works underwater.
The fact that someone who wouldn't describe herself as a photographer can come up with frames like these — that part was the surprise. The "models" helped, of course. They held very still.
If you're upgrading from a SeaTouch 4 Max to the platinum-finish variant, the same workflow applies — see the SeaTouch 4 Max Platinum for that build. Either way, the bigger ecosystem — wide-angle and macro lenses, video lights, trays and grips — bolts onto the same housing if you eventually want to push further. For this trip, just the housing was enough.
Mission 3: Under the Sand, the Shark Is Waiting
And then there was the one that mattered.
This was not my first dive trip to the Canaries, but I'd never had the luck to see an angel shark. This time, twice. The first encounter went like this: at first, you're looking at what seems like an ordinary stretch of sand — slightly rippled, almost boring. Nothing about it suggests there's anything alive underneath.
Then a small movement. A shadow that shifts a fraction. And before you've fully processed what's happening, there it is — perfectly camouflaged, almost completely buried in the sand. Only the outline gives the shark away.
The angel shark lies motionless, like a piece of the seabed itself, and waits. No drama, no flight response — just patience. With the SeaTouch in one hand, I tried to hold the moment without disturbing it. Get close, but stay still. Just observe, breathe, and press the shutter.
Those are the moments diving is for. When you're not looking for anything in particular, and you find something you'll never forget.
About the Angel Shark — and Why Each Sighting Matters
Angel sharks (Squatina squatina) are some of the most fascinating — and most underrated — animals in European waters. Despite the "shark" in the name, they look more like rays: a flat body with broad pectoral fins, eyes set on top of the head, and the classic life strategy of an ambush predator. They lie still on sandy bottoms, almost invisible, and lunge upward when small fish or invertebrates pass close enough.
What's harder to see at a glance is how rare an angel-shark encounter has actually become. The species is listed as Critically Endangered on the IUCN Red List — the highest risk category before "Extinct in the Wild". Decades of bycatch from bottom trawling and the loss of suitable shallow sandy habitat have collapsed populations across most of the species' historical range, from the British Isles to North Africa. The Canary Islands — where this dive happened — remain one of the last reliable strongholds, which is part of why local dive operators and conservation researchers treat each verified sighting as data worth recording.
The simple version of the etiquette in the water: keep your distance, control your buoyancy, never touch, never chase, never try to provoke a reaction for a better photo. The shot you didn't get is always less important than the animal you didn't disturb. The Shark Trust publishes practical guidance for divers along these lines if you'd like a deeper read.
What Actually Stays With You
In the end, the things that stuck weren't on the mission list. Not the planned tasks, not the spreadsheet of Reels — just whatever happened by accident while we were in the water.
Fuerteventura turned out to be a mix of work, test ground and creative playground at the same time: checking accessibility, getting friendly with new gear like the iPhone 17 and the DIVEVOLK housing, producing some content along the way, and staying open to whatever the ocean wanted to show us. Sometimes it's exactly those quiet encounters that push everything else briefly into the background. The angel shark was the perfect example: unremarkable on the surface, perfectly camouflaged — and still the absolute high point of the trip.
What counts, here as everywhere, is encounters. Sometimes encounters with yourself, too. I'd be glad to be there for your first encounter with an angel shark — or with anything else that lives in this fascinating world below the surface.
Try This Setup Yourself
If you want to bring your own phone underwater the same way, start with the SeaTouch 4 Max Kits, browse the broader underwater phone housing collection, or head to technical support for setup guides and adapter compatibility lists. Questions about which kit is right for your phone? Contact us.
Transparency note: This story was contributed by a DIVEVOLK Ambassador. The housing was provided by DIVEVOLK; the dive trip, the experience and the words above are her own.
