Divemaster Job in Aqaba, Jordan 7th September - 13th September 2015

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Desert Storm







7^th September – Stand by your beds!
I woke up at 4am this morning, as I always do because of my alarm. Did I forget to mention what my alarm is? Oh yes… An alarm on a phone is too mainstream, a watch is a no go. So instead I have a whole building to go off for me at set times every morning! About 30 metres from my front door is a Mosque. The only issue is that I can’t have a lie in! (By that I mean sleep until 7:30am) When the speakers activate it’s like someone is shouting in my room. I will be fine after a few weeks I think. But until then I will wake up in the middle of the night thinking I’m still in the cadets with Staff Sergeant Barry shouting ‘Get up, get up, get out of your beds!’ and then legging it to the showers.

The day got better, I did 2 dives in the afternoon with a girl from Belgium called Nini! The first one was to the Cedar Pride wreck. She was an open water certified diver (first level of certification with PADI) and brought all her own gear! Resulting in less cleaning for me to do! She can come again.

Now I’m going to be honest, as that is what I want my blog to be so I can remember my time here for what it was. I did get a bit lost on the first dive. I have been to the wreck once, but when myself and Nini were swimming towards it I was following the bearings on my compass that I prepared earlier and all of a sudden we were somewhere which I don’t recognise. Fortunately there was some cool reefs that we could look at while I got my head around where I was. I was circling around the reef keeping it on one side of me so that I knew if it’s necessary we could back track. Ahead of us was just a vast openness of nothing. Not any point of reference. Not fish. No reefs. Just dark blue.

As we were following Rainbow reef around however I could see the cable! THANK THE ALMIGHTY LORD FOR THE CABLE. It’s a broken electrical cable I think but it is a great point of reference and from there I knew where the wreck was. Which meant I had to head into the dark blue nothingness. I did swim into it and trusted my instincts. I had this gut wrenching feeling that there was two or three cables and I was following the wrong one. A little bit later I could see something in the distance. Was it the wreck? I prayed that it was. I’ve never wanted anything more in my life.

After a few more kick cycles. I could see the hull. I sighed in relief, releasing many bubbles. I looked at Nini and I swear I was more excited than she was! I was pointing at it doing the ‘cool’ signal and doing all sorts of gestures. I have never been so relieved in my life. Not even when I was on a 9 hour bus journey in Nicaragua and needed a poo, then did it in the bushes halfway but all I had was gas (never risk a fart in an enclosed space). I MADE IT. I got some great photos on my GoPro for Nini and we were circling around to the back of the wreck to get the ‘Rust’ photo where you write your name. There were already some names there but she found a small spot to write ‘Nini’.

All I had to do now was head back to shore. How difficult could that be? I again checked my compass and set a bearing. We were off again. Swimming over some reefs, of course taking photos along the way. I was checking my SPG regularly and because of the slightly panicked Adam at the beginning of the dive I used up more air than I usually would. I was starting to become low on air and still was not at shore but I had left the ship a while ago. Nini had 90 bar so she was good. We kept on swimming casually so not to use up lots of air. In the end we made it and I had sufficient air left. We then got out and high fived. I played it cool like everything went to plan (which it did of course).

She loved the wreck too which is all that matters and got some good photos on her camera (without a red filter). I was talking to her about why I have a red filter on my GoPro. Basically the reason for the red filter is because when you descend in water. Colour loses its potency. Red is the first one to lose its original colour in the deep blue and so if you have a red filter it brings the fish, reefs, ship etc. to their proper full colour. Otherwise everything looks an unappetising blue. I think that’s why they choose to use red or orangey lampposts lights as they aren’t really bright to dazzle drivers or create more light pollution than is needed in cities.

We exited the 27° C sea to get to the shady area. I was telling her the story when I didn’t have my boots and had to brave the rocky shore. It always gets a laugh! She was telling me that she would love to do this as a job but she can’t because her family runs a restaurant. Which is a shame because she was good underwater. Especially good for just an open water diver.

Jumping out of our gear we caught our breath and Mohamed arrived with two more tanks. I didn’t know where we were going to go as I’ve only ever done the Cedar Pride wreck and Rainbow Reef. Both of which we have just seen. Mohamed asked Nini if she wanted to go to Japanese Garden or back to the wreck. She replied ‘Japanese Garden!’ I looked at Mohamed bemused and he then explained in detail of how to get to the Japanese Garden using a rock on the bench to give me a crudely drawn map. I followed his instructions and he said it was very easy to find as the maximum depth is 10 metres. So I again took a bearing before entering the water to find out which heading to go back to shore which was 90 degrees. We spat in our own masks and walked in the sea. We swam along the coast. As instructed by Mohamed and began to see some shallow reefs at about 3 or 4 metres down. Which would be very good for snorkelling. We followed it around keeping the reef on our left. I then took the plunge and swam out to sea to find the Japanese Garden. Almost instantly we could see it in the distance, all the while I’m constantly checking my compass to make sure we don’t surface in Israel. Mohamed was right. It was very easy to find. There was so much to see aswell! I took some sweet photos.

In conclusion they were both very good dives. But they’re still something for me to improve on which is what I hope to master before this month is up.

At about 8pm we went to a food market and I whipped out my shopping list! I was trying to explain to Mohamed what Pesto was (for chicken pesto). He hadn’t a Scooby. My shopping list was now useless. That was going to be my main bulky meal for the next few days. Instead I settled for breaded chicken, tomato puree for Bolognese (I think) and pasta. Upon returning home I noticed that the tomato puree thing wasn’t in my shopping bag. So I ate the breaded chicken (cooked in a lot of butter for flavour) and then ate some cereal, not the most nutritious meal. I miss my mums cooking! Actually I just miss anyone’s cooking that isn’t my own. I need to figure out what my main meal to eat as at the moment my staple diet is Kellogg’s Corn Flakes.

I decided I would watch my one and only film which is San Andreas (I didn’t have time to download any others back in Liverpool). But 30 minutes in it cut off. I ONLY DOWNLOADED 30 MINUTES. It was getting good too! I think if people come to visit me they will have to bring some Movies/ T.V. Programme’s with them as payment for staying in my free accommodation.



8^th September – Lost in Translation
This morning was unlike any other morning as I could not see the blue sky. I could not see the mountains that regularly provide a great backdrop view of Aqaba. Eliat in Israel which is very close to Aqaba was not even in sight. The sand was stirred up and reducing visibility creating a sandstorm. Mohamed always puts a lighter side on things. As he said it is good this is happening. ‘The sand and dust kill bacteria and mosquitos, if this didn’t happen then it wouldn’t be good to live here. It is a way of the Earth to heal itself’ SO PHILOSOPHICAL MAN! He has a point though. I kind of feel like I’m in the movie Interstellar when everything is super dusty. If I touch a surface it has dust on. Or maybe that’s just because I don’t have a duster. But it is definitely dustier than usual outside.

I took some progressive photos so that you can see day by day of how to sand settled and went back to normal.

Using the Wi-Fi in the Dive Centre it takes me 3 hours to get to 10% on a video. I was just about to give up hope at 10.9% and it was in this moment, when all hope had faded. That Mohamed, son of Ahmed pulled up in his car. (I really want to watch Lord of the Rings again) He shouted ‘Adam! Get your phone! We’re leaving!’ I did as the man said. I closed up the shop and we headed off for an adventure to Zain which is a mobile shop to get internet. I was so excited! I felt like a kid at Christmas about to get a new toy! So we ended up closing the dive shop a little early as nobody wants to dive in this type of weather.

We arrived there and after some awkward conversation about the different prices because of the language barrier, I came to the conclusion of which deal I wanted. The Zain man asked me for my passport. I didn’t have it. Mohamed apparently asked me if I had it when I was in the Dive Centre and I said yes, however I don’t recall this conversation. I didn’t have it so therefore we had to leave to go and get it. I told Mohamed it was in the house… But he was driving to the Dive Centre. I asked him why we were going there and he said to get your passport. I stayed silent for a few seconds before saying ‘but it’s in the house’ He looked at me and said ‘don’t you need your house keys?’ I looked at him and pulled out my house keys which were in my pocket…

To casa Qatawneh! I picked up my passport as soon as I could find it and darted back to the car. Onwards to Zain! I paid the money and got two cards one is a sim card for my phone and the other is a sim card to put in to a special USB. We then headed back to the house to call it a day! But on the journey it asked me to insert a PIN code to unlock the phone. I don’t know what PIN code it was talking about… This resulted in us returning back to Zain to figure out what was going on. Mohamed didn’t mind and neither did I as they have a very good air conditioning system, it felt like a mild summer’s day in England. Very pleasant.

So with everything sorted we FINALLY headed home. Although it was still only about 4 or 5pm by the time we arrived. I thank god that I have internet otherwise I would have been bored for 5 hours, playing with the water that comes out of the sink when I leave it on for too long... I suppose I could have gone on a walk but the dust was getting in my eyes even when I was jumping in and out of the car and I don’t have my badass sun glasses for protection.

Even though it was dusty and sandy today the temperature feels like when you are in bed in the UK, wearing your thick new Christmas pyjamas with the heating on full at Christmas Eve. Every time I walk out my air conditioned bedroom I think the heating is on but then I realise that’s just the normal temperature, it’s mad.









9^th September – The Sandman is here… Still
The sand and dust is still here and kicked up a sandstorm. Therefore I spent the whole day in the house. Praise Jebus I had internet. Otherwise I would have gone loco and probably got cabin fever being cooped up in my apartment all day. I spent my time watching ‘The Flash’ on rainierland.com. I’ve ran out of films to watch and I’ve burned through quite a bit of ‘The Flash’ so if anyone reading this knows of any websites to watch films/ T.V. programmes to watch then I will love you long time if you leave a comment!

I found out in the morning that we wouldn’t be going to the Dive Centre as Mohamed came out to tell me due to the sandiness. I asked him how his son, Ahmed was as he has Asthma or something so he struggles when the weather is like this. Mohamed told me he was coughing all night and not so well. He has a few days off of school to recuperate. I reached in my bag and gave Mohamed a few Strepsils from Tesco that I carry around with me in my bag to hopefully help his throat. I don’t know if it will but it’s the only thing I could offer to help him. Both Nouris and Ahmed are good kids and I wanted to help Ahmed any possible way that I could.

At about 11pm I was just about to fall asleep watching South Park. The room was a gorgeous cool temperature. Then all of a sudden without warning I hear a pop. Is it my imagination? I open my eyes and turn on my phone torch light. I notice the air conditioning unit is off. SHIT. I’ve had it on all day and I think to myself I’ve broken it. I desperately try and turn it back on. But it isn’t happening. I get out of my bed to look at the air conditioning machine, so I turn the room light on to allow for a closer inspection. The light isn’t turning on either. It was at this moment I thought to myself, I fucked up. The fan on the ceiling was slowing down to a halt as well. That wasn’t working either. I check the kitchen light and that too is not working and it’s the same story for the fridge. I look around the apartment desperately trying to find ANYTHING to aid me, like a circuit reset switch or something!

After about 5 minutes I turn back to my bedroom door in defeat and notice that I left it open. ALL THE COLDNESS IS ESCAPING MY BEDROOM. I run in and close the door. Calmly I lie down in bed without any blanket over myself in order to be as cool as possible. I try to move as little as possible as I know in about 10 minutes the room will be very, very warm. Bear in mind the temperature at night time is like in the 30’s. Don’t believe me? Look at the temperature gage on the photo of the car on the photo I uploaded.

I pray that I haven’t destroyed the electrical circuits in my house because if I have I think this 2 week unpaid period will last a bit longer… I did manage to get some sleep in the heat however, I’m just lucky that I had a short siesta in the afternoon but I knew that I will still be destroyed tomorrow if we go to the Dive Centre.



10^th September – Roads? Where we’re going we don’t need roads

I don’t have a great deal to write about in regards to this day. But of course we went to the Dive Centre. Honestly though I wasn’t that tired at all. I think I’m still running on adrenaline that I’m actually in Jordan as a Divemaster! The sand is still here though but according to Mohamed it’s better than yesterday but I feel like it’s no different.

In regards to yesterday’s electrical situation when I got in to Mohamed’s car we ‘sparked’ up a conversation and I was ‘shocked’ to discover that the whole area that I live in had no electricity. I was relieved that I didn’t blow up any circuitry! Otherwise the ‘current’ conversation we were having would have took a sharp and awkward turn with me explaining how I burnt out the electricity. I took a photo of part of the electrical cable dug up by the maintenance people who were assessing it.

However today we dove no dives! Not a single person came in to the shop looking for a dive. Which is bad news but hopefully the weather will be different tomorrow!

So we went home a little early. I had my last Quakers Chicken Flavour Soup! I then was going to have some chocolate and milk after but when I tasted the milk. URGH. I thought it was off… But it wasn’t that was just the normal taste of that milk, I tried to drink as much as I could because I didn’t want to waste any but in the end I had to throw it away. I took a photo of it so I know NEVER to buy it again. It tasted almost like the sour yoghurt I had from when Mohamed’s wife cooked for me that one time. Which although the sour yoghurt is good with rice, it isn’t so good with my biscuits and cereal.

Now I had no milk. I would starve tomorrow if I didn’t have any cereal so I walked around (by myself) trying to find the shops that myself and Mohamed go to in his car on the way home from the Dive Centre. After about 10 minutes I found it! I had to sack off the roads and walk behind houses and gaps between buildings. I’m so grown up. I bought some milk, bread and other treats and goodies. They don’t have baskets to do your shopping and there isn’t enough room for trolleys so I had to carry everything in my hands and under my arms to the tills. There were 3 lads around my age serving me. They looked at the cereal I bought. Coco Pops. Judging by the expressions on their faces I think they thought I was some sort of gigantic child. But I love Coco Pops! The Corn Flakes I bought are ok but just them by themselves everyday can be a bit bland. I wanted to mix it up man.

I walked home with a bag of food. The food place is kind of like Speke Retail Park in Liverpool. For those of you who don’t know Speke Retail is a big shopping centre with a huge car park in the middle and shops going all around. There must be like 40 shops or so. But in this place there’s about 10 and its shops are nowhere near as large but some are takeaway places for falafel! MMMMM FALAFEL. Upon walking home I got a bit lost. Fortunately however the Mosque was calling people to pray. So I followed the sound, found my house and called it a night.



11^th September – The Dust has settled… For now

It was my mums birthday today! HAPPY BIRTHDAY MUM! To be honest I felt at home in some ways as Mohamed loves the old music and he has recently acquired a set of Dr Dre Beats, the pill one. So he was playing all the oldies like Avenue’s and Alleyways and A LOT of Rod Stewart which he says is his favourite artist from England (is Rod English? I’m not sure… He used to be a gravedigger though!).

Not a lot happened today really other than boogying to Rod. I suppose it’s the calm before the storm. Even though a sand storm has already left Aqaba. But you know what I mean. The diving season ‘storm’ is what I mean and it will pick up within the month, so right now I’m just settling in to my diving Jordanian lifestyle. I don’t think I’ve quite got used to the food yet. Even though everyday my diet generally consists of cereal, a bit of fruit, rice, chicken and soup etc which is fairly normal food. Unfortunately I haven’t had a solid poo since being here. I’m not saying that they have been really bad as I’ve had much worse but I think if Gillian McKeith took a look at it she would probably have some ‘firm’ words to say…

I went home at about 3:30pm as we have started alternating days now where basically one day I will go early and the other day Mohamed will. I did read that this would happen in the email sent to me in Liverpool but I didn’t want to ask when I arrived in Aqaba if it’s my turn to go early because it’s a bit ‘thingy’ isn’t it? I don’t know how else to describe that. It doesn’t give off a great impression asking to go home early basically. So I’ve let it slide until Mohamed mentioned it today.

Before Mohamed dropped me off at home we went to ‘Speke Retail’, parked up and bought some fresh Arabic bread. We done a bit more shopping, but the bread was the highlight. Upon returning to the car some nob blocked out our car. We couldn’t reverse out. This may sound unbelievable to Brit’s but there weren’t any parking bays. I KNOW. So the guy who parked behind our car was blocking our exit. There were also two cars either side which were blocking us too. But we had no beef with them, they were parked ‘British Legally’. So Mohamed was BEEPING THE HORN (I KNOW ANOTHER NO NO IN BRITAIN) trying to get the attention of the guy who was parked behind us so that he would walk out of whatever shop he was in. But he was nowhere to be seen. He beeped again and again and again. Still the man or woman did not show. I could tell Mohamed was getting a bit peed off by this point and rightly so. I could tell as I said out loud ‘Why would he even park there…’ Which I said under my breath and kind of a rhetorical question, to which Mohamed replied ‘because he’s an asshole!’ About 10 minutes had passed and still the person whose car it was did not show. Mohamed was left with no choice but to leave after the cars either side of us had left. But he wanted to see the guy who parked behind us to ‘just see his face’.

For the rest of the day I just ate some more GREAT food courtesy of Mohamed’s wife again! I asked Mohamed if he would like some money for the food. As soon as I said this, I knew I shouldn’t have. Mohamed smiled, looked at me and said ‘You know it is rude to say that’. I of course apologised straight away. I think even before he said that. But then he went on to say ‘You are family, we are brothers!’ YAY! I didn’t realise that you could be adopted so quickly in Jordan.



12^th September – WHO THE MAN?

This was the best day so far! In terms of diving at least! I ended my diving drought and did two dives today! Hip Hip Hooray! Mohamed said that two English people, a guy and a girl who were open water divers (first certification in PADI) and they were coming in for 2 dives in the morning. So they arrived and a little bit after one man and woman called Pierre and Agnes popped in as Agnes wanted to do her Open Water Course and Pierre was a Divemaster (which is my certification level and he was a stereotypical diver! As in the long hair, beard, laid back and fun attitude) meaning he was just here on behalf of Agnes to get her into diving. So I would take out the 2 open water divers and the DM (Divemaster) called Pierre to see The Cedar Pride Shipwreck and then on to the Japanese Garden. Whereas Agnes (the newbie diver) would be with Mohamed starting her Open Water Course.

At the beach we got all of our gear together, I did the normal routine of dive brief, showed them the map, went over signals etc. So we spat in our masks and walked into the Gulf of Aqaba. We had to go over some of the skills as a Refresher Course for the two open water divers as they haven’t dived in a while. A Refresher Course is practicing skills such as mask, regulator clearing and swimming underwater at neutral buoyancy (for non-divers reading this neutral buoyancy is when you’re not scraping the bottom which is negative buoyancy and not staying at the surface which is positive buoyancy, A FREE LESSON FOR YOU). After that we were off to see the Cedar Pride!

The dive sites here (in my opinion) are super easy to get to (I don’t know how I even got a little bit lost at the beginning of this week) and get back and I’m fairly comfortable now with taking people there and back, no issues! We got to the wreck, took some nice photos and watched the ship move with life. It truly is amazing the amount of life that the Cedar Pride supports.

We swam out of the sea and walked to the shaded area. Had some refreshments and headed straight back in the water maaann! This time to the Japanese Garden which again is astonishing. It looks like an alien world, with the strange reef structures, weird sounds and the abundance of strange life. 2 very good dives with 3 very competent divers. What more can I ask for?

The day ended with a trip to the shops to buy some Oreo’s and milk. In preparation for my movie night (which is every night… but still). I managed to find a decent copy of the Avengers: Age of Ultron! (from Rainierland.com) I was made up, as its two and a half hours of awesomeness. I didn’t even finish watching it all so I’ll finish watching it tomorrow! Ahhh life’s good.



13^th September – I saw a turtle head!

Now I also did see the body of the turtle of course. But it does make for a funny title. This day began like any other. Set up the dive shop ready for people to come in. Get the gear ready as Agnes was doing day two of her Open Water Course. Pierre who is her uncle would be diving with me on a deep dive to the right of rainbow reef. We waited for the temporary diving van to arrive as our diving van was still being painted. It’s been put behind schedule for a few days because of the sandstorm. But the temp. van arrived without any delay and we were swiftly taken to the beach.

Myself and Pierre went on a dive to 26.6 metres. I was still only wearing my swimming trunks and diving top! The water is still warm! Oh Aqaba, I love you. We circled back on ourselves and we were heading up to a giant reef. It was extended about 4 metres high from where we were currently at. I was ascending a little faster than Pierre because I was leading the dive and therefore was ahead. My head was peeking over the top of the reef when I see a dark shadow plunge down in to the water. I thought my eyes were deceiving me when I saw her. The turtle was skimming along the top of the reef ducking and moving effortlessly between the reefs and fish. I looked back to Pierre who was looking in the completely opposite direction! I went down to him, tapped him on the shoulder, pointed towards the turtle and made the ‘Awkward turtle’ gesture with my hands. His eyes lit up and we were swimming over to her instantaneously. She turned around away from us and started to head over the top and down off of the reef and on to a small sunken open sandy plain to another giant reef. Just before she got to this next reef I managed to pull out my GoPro and start filming. I apologise for the shaky camera footage and the fact I didn’t use a red filter (which makes it more colourful, as I have mentioned before) but I was excited! It was my first ever turtle sighting in its natural habitat. I followed it for about 60 seconds in total with Pierre. But in the end it was too fast and I didn’t want to over-exert myself, AS THAT WOULD HAVE BEEN BAD DIVING PRACTICE MMKAY.

So the turtle escaped my clutches before I could even get any sort of photo of her (The video is on my facebook page). But that is one of my list of things to see. I would like to see another one much closer. For now though however it will do. It is another great way to end my 2^nd week here in Aqaba. But next on my list is a Whale Shark! (The image I’ve uploaded of the Whale Shark is not one that I took of course, it’s from Google).

Until next time children. Goodbye!

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Photos

Day 1 of sandstorm Sandy
The view from my front door

Day 1 of sandstorm Sandy
The route to the dive centre, you can't see any mountains

Day 2 of sandstorm Sandy
Still no visible mountains

Day 3 of sandstorm Sandy
You can just make out the mountains in the distance

26.6 metres down!
I found a tree!