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Published: September 7th 2015
Finding a new routine
2nd September – 2 guys with camels walk in to a Dive Centre…
So the strangest thing just happened. I was sitting in the Dive Centre putting my blog link on Facebook, while Muhammed (Dive owner’s son) was doing something around the corner outside (cheeky). I then look up to see two Jordanian men riding camels down the road and stop outside the Dive Centre. I look at them out of the corner of my eye to see what the hell they were doing. The camels started to drink out of a bath tub that was lying by the side of the road, I always wondered why that was there. One of the men then casually strolls inside the Dive Centre, and as if I’m not there he takes a cup from our water cooler and proceeds to take a swig. He downs it in one go. All the while he is looking at me and smiling. Obviously I’m smiling back, I don’t want to be rude to the man stealing the water. But I can’t help but think should I say something?! Is this normal?! Is this the watering hole?! I continue watching the
man drinking cup after cup. I’ve started filming by this point because this can only have a hilarious end… and… well… watch the video to find out what happens.
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The last photo were I’m turned around is when my Dive Manager Muhammed (guy on the far left of the other photo) is laughing at me. All in all it turned out to be quite a great exchange for both sides!
3rd September – Today is a good day to dive!
In the morning of my first Diving day I was such a gimp. Like an eager beaver I was sitting with my dive computer on one hand, GoPro on the other, swimming trunks on, diving top on and gear ready. We were supposed to leave at 10am but didn’t actually leave until 1pm. We had to wait for Raquel to arrive to mind the dive shop. She works another job so she got here as soon as she could! In order to keep me entertained Muhammed showed me a badass knife which turns out to be scissors too! Check out the photo I uploaded. That could do some serious damage. The scissoring action is
used to cut fishing lines which detach from fishing rods (durrr) and of course can trap, injure and kill fish, including turtles, octopuses and even reef habitats. So hopefully I’ll be doing some scissoring deep down! Oh yeah scissor me timbers (South Park reference).
Now as I have mentioned my gear had been set up since 10am, but I don’t have diving boots… I rooted around the boot shelf while Muhammed was on an errand of some sort, as I was desperately trying to find one that would fit my size 12 monster feet. No luck. He came back and said let’s go! So we did! We were in the car driving to the dive site and at one point we could see Israel and Egypt in the same view! So we got there and Muhammed realised I had no diving boots. He enquired. I replied ‘oh yeah… I left them in the UK, but my dad will send them to me… I don’t need them anyway at the moment… I’m fine.’ When inside I wasn’t fine. For those of you who don’t know what Diving boots are or why they’re useful basically if you don’t wear diving boots
with fins (flippers) then your feet are quite uncomfortable when diving because it’s just your bare skin against hard plastic for nearly an hour constantly rubbing and chafing. That isn’t really an issue for me as it was something I just had to put up with and I thought to myself the sights of the wreck would take the pain away! But… What I wasn’t prepared for was the rocky shoreline. As you can see on the picture I uploaded the rocks aren’t little cute pebbles or big easily unavoidable ones. They’re in between. Damn Inbetweeners. I didn’t want to complain or moan (True Brit) so I stayed calm and carried on. I was walking like Woody when he’s trying to dodge the Cheetos in Toy Story 2. Carefully placing my feet in the best possible place without falling over. Trying to find a small open sandy spot where my feet could rest for a few seconds. But of course every bloody time it was a flat grimy slippery rock. Luckily however I did not fall over once! But later on I did find out that Muhammed had Diving boots in the back including ones that fit canoes for me
:·.
After the minefield I could finally rest my feet and brutalize them again by putting on my fins #don’tworrymumIpackedsudocrem. But after a few minutes I was swimming over the very well selected name of Rainbow Reef, and everything was hunky dory and very colourful. Then I saw the ship. I kind of felt like the guys on the Titanic film when they saw the Titanic with the submarine. It was all sort of blueish (obviously) to begin with. Your eyes play tricks on you because it’s all the same shade of blue but ever so gradually as you drift and kick forwards the ship (Cedar Pride) became more and more visible. As the dark blue and light blue parted ways and became distinctive from one another, all of a sudden I saw the full front of the ship and it stretch off into the distance. Falling back in to the same blue hazy colour.
Cedar Pride began its life as a Lebanese registered cargo ship but in 1985 it unfortunately caught fire in the bay. Meaning that it wasn't fit for commercial use so they made it safe for divers and sunk the bugger.
Upon exiting
the water I of course had to brave the rocky shore once more in order to get back on to dry land. Muhammed was a little bit ahead of me and increasing the distance between us. He managed to get to shore by the time I made it halfway. He turned around and looked at me. I obviously couldn’t continue the excruciatingly painful faces I was pulling before he wasn’t looking at me. So I had to keep a straight face. But he couldn’t hear me so I was throat screaming (screaming without opening your mouth). Not long later I was on shore and I had to then cross the hot sand back to the safe zone of the shaded area, about 40 metres away. (You tried throat screaming didn’t you?). So we disassembled our kit and I got some selfies by the beach and we jumped back in the car back to the dive centre! Happy days!
I watched a quality football match in the evening! It was a late kick-off at 8pm. The two teams were geared up as it was a Derby. One in bibs one... Without bibs. It was Muhammeds kids match, they were all
about 6-8 years old. The manager spoke at the beginning giving them a team talk. The kids were circled around that ring thing at the halfway line (I suppose I should know what it's called working for LFC for 3 years). They had a light training session of course, no doubt they had a pre-match meal beforehand then arrived on the team bus to the AstroTurf. About 25 minutes after the first whistle Muhammed’s son, Ahmed had a shot on goal! But some nob tripped him up from behind and made his shoe come off! Ahmed got a penalty. He shoots! He misses. Being 5-2 down, that goal would've been a good boost for the team. But it wasn't meant to be.
I wish I could take a photo or video to match analysis the game and more importantly also have a good reference to my blog but I am a strange looking lanky white guy and filming kids might not be the best thing to do. I don't want to be seen as an actual child snatcher. Instead I go to the water tank. Not of course in the dive centre, I don't own a camel. But instead the
communal drinking fountain. Now I don't actually have a bottle or any kind of container so instead I use my hands. I felt so manly and it really reminded me of my time in school. Except this time there wasn't a bigger kid with lower morals to push in front of me in the queue.
4th September – This was the best day so far!
In case you don’t already know. The first two weeks that I’m here it’s unpaid. I need to know the dive sites so that when customers do come (which they will in two weeks when the weather isn’t in the 40’s degrees Celsius) I know what to do, where to take them etc. But we’re getting a big group from Finland in two weeks. So that’ll be my first guys I think. Now I don’t think it will be the woman I met in the airport when I arrived who was also Finnish. Mainly due to the fact that when I asked her if she wanted to come for a dive she told me her boyfriend couldn’t swim. Yes, I did try and sell my first dive even before I arrived in
Aqaba, the commission is good! But when she told me that her boyfriend couldn’t swim I thought maybe the best thing to do is on my first dive with a customer is not to take someone who can’t even swim…
Until 3pm I didn’t do much besides upload a 45 second video clip from my GoPro which took 3 HOURS. I did also download ‘Straight out of Compton’, which I’ll be saving for a rainy day. At about 3pm until 8 however it was back to back non-stop. Truly awesome shiz. Mohamed (I found out I’ve been spelling his name wrong today this whole time #AWKWARDTURTLE) told me that he was taking 3 inter divers with me. I had no idea what he meant. Intermediate diver? International diver? Did he mean to say Intern divers? I had no clue. But I went along with it anyway. To try and not to sound stupid of course.
He then told me they were 3 Jordanian lads from Amman were coming along for a dive. So not international divers. We gathered all their gear together (of course I borrowed some boots for my feet) and I was kind of wandering around
like a lost pup, not really knowing what I was doing. But I was pretending like I was, which is the main thing. Anyway we chucked on all the diving gear and off we went to Rainbow Reef! The reef I went too yesterday! We were chatting in the car about stuff and apparently they thought I looked French. Odd. I am of course English. After that awkward moment I told them I wanted to learn Arabic (or at least as much as I could). So of course the first word they taught me was (Nan close your eyes)… ‘Pussy’ and that’s not as in the cat. For the life of me I can’t remember it. But I suppose that’s a good thing. I don’t want to practice saying it under my breath and then someone hear me say it in the street.
We got to the Reef and I still by this point did not know what the frigging hell ‘inter’ was. It definitely wasn’t international, as they were Jordanian. But they couldn’t have been intermediate either as they asked me what the big red button did, it’s the inflator button for all you non-divers. It’s possible then
that they were ‘Interns’ but they live in Amman not in Aqaba! Mohamed then started to set up the gear. I followed suit and proceeded to finish setting up the rest of the equipment. After we did we headed towards the beach.
Now something which is stuck in my mind since I don’t know what age is a piece of advice about work ‘Find something in you that makes you indispensable where you work, so if cutbacks are made they will look at your name and think we can’t get rid of him’. Or something along those lines. But I think I’ve found that ‘something’. My GoPro! Yes it isn’t a characteristic about me but how unBritish would it be to boast about a trait in my personality that is indispensable? Mohamed loves it! The photos and the videos on it are really very good to be fair and it means that we can give photos to the divers we take out! It’s a little extra incentive to dive with us. Unfortunately there are no download codes (LFC reference). Every time I have my GoPro mount on my wrist or my laptop out Mohamed is showing everyone, like I’m
his brand new shiny toy gadget man.
At the beach I took a team photo of them and we then headed down and into the god damn awesome water. The visibility down there is truly amazing and it was the afternoon! Imagine what a morning dive would be like! (With no plankton, which are more active after midday reducing the visibility) Mohamed was taking each of the divers one by one to practice breathing underwater with the regulator. I thought to myself these guys haven’t dived before, what the hell are they! What is an ‘Inter’ Diver! One of the guys actually flapped it and headed back to shore so he must be a newish diver. So in the end it was just me, Mohamed, and the two Jordanian ‘inter’ divers. We swam around Rainbow Reef and I was tailing, keeping all my focus on the two divers. I didn’t want to even admire the Reef, my sole aim was the two divers to be safe and enjoy themselves, which they did! We got some cool photos too.
We circled back on ourselves back to the rocky shore. We gave them the VIP treatment too. I inflated their
BCD’s told them to lay on their back and relax. I then took off their fin straps (THAT WAS ALL) so they could walk back to shore and not be knocked over by an incoming wave with their fins still on. Apparently that happens to some stupid people :·…
For those of you who don't know, in Tenerife I beached myself. It's in my blog from Tenerife and just prior to this beaching situation I did my 400 metre swim in the ocean and it was a bit rough from what I can remember, I also swallowed quite a lot of sea water by this point too which is why I ‘didn’t feel 100%’. Enjoy!
Tenerife Diving Academy
''Now at this point I honestly did not feel 100% so after going about 10 metres in the water from the beach I went back out because I just felt so ill and I sat down on the beach and watched everyone start the swim. I was gutted because I really wanted to do it, so I just thought to myself if I'm sick I'm sick I need to just crack on so I asked Iris (one of the Dutch
girls who is doing a sort of business internship) to time me separately as she already started the timer for the other guys. Then I jumped back in the water and started to swim, up and down up and down and the sea was ragging me all over the place so much so that when I approached my final 100 metre stretch and as I was swimming the sand was all in my face so I couldn't see past 30cm, so I was holding my hand in front of me like superman. Then all of a sudden my other hand which was hanging a bit below could feel a rough rocky surface then I could see a slimy rocky reef. Within seconds I couldn't kick my fins as my knees were touching the rock and I could see the water level decreasing quite rapidly and a couple of seconds later I realised that I was beached. Lying out of the water, the tide had pushed me up on to a rock and there was me stranded lying down on my front with pretty much everyone else watching from the beach. Like an unfortunate whale I was alone and stranded without
Greenpeace to put me back in the water. I could hear faint laughter in the distance of my fellow interns rolling and laughing on the sandy bank of the beach. I looked around bemused and confused realising about what had just happened to me, I glanced at Corey who was not laughing but was actually pretty close to me and signalled me to come out of the water as it could have been dangerous to have attempted to slide back into the ocean. So I stood up then got knocked back down again by an incoming wave, but afterward I took off my fins and carefully walked back to shore with a smile on my face. Laughing to myself I walked back to the rest of the group with Corey. It's a shame it wasn't caught on camera but I do have a couple of scrapes on my leg to show for it.''
From the beaching ordeal I gained the nickname, Shamu.
Back to Aqaba
Upon returning to the Dive Centre we said our goodbyes and they wanted my phone number! I’ve only been here for 3 days and I’ve pulled! I would get my coat
but it’s too damn hot! They said if I ever go to Amman (the capital and largest city, located up north) I should WhatsApp them for sexy fun times.
But about 5 minutes after they left 2 guys popped over. One from India and one from Romania. They were asking for a dive. Bear in mind it was about 5:30ish so there was about 45 minutes of sunlight left. So the dive wouldn’t be a one with a long time by Rainbow Reef. But that isn’t the worst part. Mohammed had to go to take the 3 Jordanians back to where they were staying and so I was left with the two. Desperately frantically fannying about trying to find kit for them. But all of the wetsuits look the same and most of the labels have fell off! I didn’t know if they were a medium or large! That’s one of the reasons why I didn’t buy stuff online in Liverpool and had to go into a shop to try it on!
Again I was playing the casual card and talking to them whilst finding gear. But I did get all of it in the end, GO ME!
Soon after 2 more of their friends showed up, so there was now 4 in total. I found gear for them and we were off again back to the reef.
Now my LFC buds will know this what I'm about to talk about now. When a certain group comes in to Anfield all they want is one thing. That’s all they’re interested in. I won’t say the name of that group that comes in but all they desire more than anything in the world is photos. So these 4 guys were like them! They were even trying to wander off diving around the water when I told them not to! Plus one of the guys was like 70 odd and he kept on falling over in the water, which was quite an achievement as we were waist deep. All the while he was laughing and shouting 'wooaahhh!!! Woooaahhhhh!!!' in the tone of when you 'pretend' to tip a drink over someone's expensive new phone or laptop. With the limited sun it was like a celebrity shoot. So everyone had a turn getting photos and group photos too. This was of course explained to them beforehand but they didn’t have
any other time to go in the sea again apparently, so this was their one shot. This was the only opportunity that they got. To seize all the pictures they ever wanted. In this one moment. Would I capture it? Hell yeah, and offer a DVD rip.
Upon returning back to the Dive Centre Mohamed said to me ‘You see with inter divers all they want is photos usually, because it’s an interduction.’ I then realised what an inter diver was. It was an INTRO diver… Mohamed speaks good English, very well in fact but he has a slight accent. So my bad. After we have given them the photos we packed up shop and headed for home.
On the way we picked up some of the best food I’ve ever had. It was to die for. We had kebab meat, with a bunch of other veg (I even ate the onions mum) wrapped up, then chips and a garlic mayo sauce pot. OH MY GOD. When I saw it I was in heaven and peed a bit. It was by far the best meal I’ve had since I’ve been here. Mohamed also bought 2 slushes! #livingthedream. I
The guy from India
This was at the start of the dive and as you can see the sun was setting. asked what slush was in Arabic and it is the same! I’m basically fluent. We bonded over the meal talking about random stuff, and we ate it in the car. Mohamed is supposed to be on a diet so as we were nearing the house I said ‘now we need to hide the evidence’. He laughed! He wound down the window and threw the bag of rubbish in the bin.
Arriving home was a little bit different than other times as Mohamed’s sister was here! Her name is Hannah (not sure how you spell it) and she has a young lad called Crema? Again I don’t know how you spell it. I don’t think that’s even his name, as it means cream in Spanish. Ahmed the dive centre owner was there too. So the 5 of us sat around outside on the patio talking for about 30 minutes or so. Crema had a little toy gun and he kept on pointing it at me, and every time I would hold my hands up in jest. He would laugh so hard every time. One of the first things that Hannah said to me was ‘Oh I love the French accent!’
Was she serious? Is this some private joke all Jordanians have against me? I said ‘I’m not French!’ She said ‘are you sure?’ ‘Of course I am sure’ I replied. She giggled. We then all just talked about lots of things including religion, diving, the group we had before and the fact all they wanted was photos etc. Also Crema wants to be a police officer when he’s older! I said that I applied to be in the police service and got through a few stages of it (Special Constabulary but still they won’t know!). She then said ‘’you were taken by the police? You are a thief?’’. I know I’m from Liverpool and there’s a stereotype but how could she possibly know that? After a long explanation that I was in fact not a thief I said ‘’unless there was something nice to take’’. She laughed. Hannah then confessed that she knew and understood what I was talking about all along. JORDANIAN BANTS.
A little while later Hannah left and I didn’t again know how to say goodbye or hello for that matter to a Jordanian woman. You don’t shake hands with a woman unless they offer it
first, so instead you wave and say something in Arabic which I’ve forgot. Mohamed and Ahmed were explaining to me that there are many types of people here in Jordan. You are free to be any religion you like. The women here range from traditional, wearing the full cover on the face who are Jordanian and then you get Jordanian women who would wear a bikini to the beach. All types of people mixing together with little or no conflict (I imagine there must be some friction between the two groups, but none that I have witnessed). Which of course is very similar to the UK.
Ahmed then asked me a question, ‘Adam, do you like American coffee?’ I said 'yes I love it!' I then went on to say that Mohamed gave me a very strong but flavourful Turkish coffee earlier and I loved it! Ahmed immediately got up out of his chair. Oh god. I knew what he was about to do. He hand gestured for me to stay put. I didn’t want to. I knew he was going to make me a coffee. But it was 10:20pm. I didn’t want to sound rude so I couldn’t
The note I wrote to Mohamed's wife
It reads something like
'That was delicious!
Chicken, Rice
Thank you!
(I forgot what the last line said )' refuse. I looked at Mohamed with panicked eyes. He understood what my facial expressions were all about and told Ahmed it was late and we would all try it another time. Ahmed sat back down. I said thank you and I’m sorry about as much times a British person should. Between 7 and 9 times. I felt bad making him get up. Although to be honest. He is in great health like my grandad for his age. Ahmad is 77 and is still able bodied to walk, drive and even dive from time to time. Mohamed was explaining to me earlier that he writes on the internet about politics. Maybe I could read one of talk about it with him one day. For now though it’s time for bed.
5th September – Did anybody order food?
Another 8:30am start for the Aqaba International Diver Crew. We arrived and went through the normal routine of the set up. Unlocked the barrier protecting the shop windows, put out the ‘open’ sign and more importantly turn the air conditioning on. The temperature is still a scorching 40 degrees Celsius.
Two people came for a dive today and whilst
Mohamed was running through the kit I took them through the regulator set how to breathe and explained how it all worked together with the tank and BCD. The woman of the couple I could tell was a bit nervous as it was her first dive. It was nice to do some sort of public speaking as it reminded me of the tours at LFC. I could tell that the woman was calming down a bit after getting a bit antsy as I was explaining everything nice and slow, whilst putting in a few jokes as well OFC.
So they zoomed off to the dive site. Meanwhile I could clean up the dive centre and prepare for when they returned. Although I was chilling for a bit uploading a video on to Facebook. Which for 3 hours I left alone until 1pm but then I checked to see where it was up to and it was on 30%! I then realised that it’s on a setting where after 20 minutes the computer goes to sleep…
At about 11:30am however 3 Jordanian people came in 2 lads and one girl (hot… weather of course). The lad and the girl
wanted to dive, but the other one couldn’t because he recently had surgery (wuss). So I texted Mohamed to hurry back because he said he would be back midday. But he didn’t respond so he must have still been diving. Until about 1:30pm I just chatted to them about diving and the sights throughout Jordan until Mohamed arrived. For the rest of the day there’s not much to tell. I obviously washed all the kit when they returned and that’s about it!
In the evening however I head a knock at my door. I walked over, opened it and standing there were Nouris and Ahmed (Mohamed’s two sons), one with a yoghurt and one with a mountain of food! It was rice, chicken and bunch of other stuff whacked in together. IT TASTED SO GOOD. It was even better than the take away we had yesterday night. I thought I would treat myself and watch ‘Straight outta Compton’, great movie. The food was sooooo good that I wrote a letter in Arabic using my phrase book to give to Mohamed’s wife who cooked it and I haven’t met her yet. So I gave the letter and the plate (clean)
to Mohamed who passed it on to her! I later found out that you were supposed to put the yoghurt over the rice and mix. But I didn't, I ate it afterwards. It's an Arabic yoghurt and it is not sweet. I though it tasted a bit off.
6th September – Who said chivalry is dead?
I did my first DSD today! For those of you who are newbs with diving a DSD is a Discover Scuba Diving programme. Or an inter (intro) dive as Mohamed likes to call it. I did it with one of Raquel’s friends called Mhargie from the Philippines. Before we left she was nervous. It was her first dive after all. I was calming her down talking to her. Saying things like we will go at your own pace, there is no rush, it’s just going to be you and me I will look after you. When actually my head was running at 100 mph. I was keeping a calm exterior… Barely. We got to Rainbow Reef and I was explaining how the regulator works, how to clear mask, equalising and of course the number one rule in Scuba Diving!
NEVER hold your breath. I was keeping the jokes going all the way to the water which was making her laugh and smile. She seemed more relaxed by the time the first wave came over our diving boots. I inflated her BCD (Buoyancy Control Device) and we spat in the masks (not each other’s) so that they won’t fog up. Onwards we marched into the sea.
I was helping her manoeuvre through the rocky minefield, whilst telling her the story about when I forgot my boots the other day to keep her entertained. We were now waist deep. I told her to lay back and relax whilst I put on her fins, only the best 5 star treatment. She needed some encouragement to lay back but I assured her that she would float. She did of course.
Fins were on! Good to go! I talked her through what we were about to do which was practicing regulator breathing on the surface, with faces underwater and then fully submerged. She done it brilliantly and without problems. We then moved on to mask clearing, again no issues. Afterwards we practiced equalising which she did well too. At the surface I
then explained where we would go and to just breathe normally. She gave me the signal for ok and we headed off.
Within a minute she had a problem equalising. Signalling to go up. At the surface I explained it in greater detail of equalising she agreed and was ready to go again. But she had problems equalising again. We kept on trying and each time she had difficulty equalising the pressure. She was in the beginning stages of panic, I could see it in her eyes. I did not want a panicked diver on my first DSD. So to stop her from beginning to panic I said we will go down together while looking at each other. So I grabbed her by the front shoulder strap of the BCD so she could look in my eyes and she could look in to mine (not romantic, strictly business obviously…). I would then equalise very conservatively, in order to show her how many times you may need to do it because for some people you need to do it more often and others less often.
In the end all of the ascending, descending and wanting to swim fast because she was excited was exhausting her and I could tell she was really getting out of breath. I then said we will head towards to shore and go to shallower depths in order for Mohamed to get some photos for us, who was snorkelling with Raquel. Like a true gentleman, I told her to lay on her back and I would tow her back to a shallower depth. She nodded and gave me the ‘ok’ signal. We were about 100 metres out from shore so by the end I was little out of breath myself! All good fun though.
Mohamed could see I was towing her and signalled if I was ok. I signalled back using the water to shore ‘ok’ signal of putting the tips of your fingers on your head, making a sort of half a Mo Farah ‘M’. We then all got some great photos by the shallower reefs and Mhargie was loving it so my job was done. When we were back at the Dive Centre I said that she must come back and we could take her down to see Rainbow Reef properly and one day to the wreck within the two months she's here for.
Mohamed took me out to local bar called sea view. It of course had a sea view but my hotel (Double Tree Hilton) is a new one. So it was blocking about half of the sea view. We were with Raquel and Mhargie. Later by some more of their friends. We played pool, drank some beers and talked until it was way past my bed time. I had 2 big cans of Heineken which I think came to about 10 JD (£10 more or less) I was watching what I was drinking not only to protect my wallet but also protect myself. A story which Pete (owner of the Tenerife Diving Academy) told me was that once they had a person who came to the Academy and went straight to Instructor and they got a Job in Thailand. He arrived at the Dive Centre about 7-8pm when the shop was closing so the Dive Manager said to him to dump his stuff We didn’t actually leave the bar until about 11pm! I’M SUCH A REBEL. A great end to my first week (nearly a week) in Aqaba!
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