Divemaster Job in Aqaba, Jordan 14th September - 20th September 2015

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‘I think I’m getting the hang of this!’ – Samwise Gamgee

Monday – Deepest dive ever braahhhh!
I went on my deepest dive EVER today to 38.4 metres. I was scared that I would get Nitrogen Narcosis and suck in water in order to breath. I’ll explain, Nitrogen Narcosis is something that happens when you go underwater and it is typically noticeable at 30 metres and it basically makes you thick. You think slow, solving problems can be slower and you can also feel happy and not really bother about your safety… In other words drunk.

I couldn’t help but think of the last deep dive I went on with Liene (a diving intern buddy), Mark (the guy who got me through my Divemaster in less than a week a.k.a. my saviour) and Pete (Tenerife Diving Academy owner man). This dive in Tenerife was to pass mine and Liene’s Advanced Open Water Course. I didn’t experience any Nitrogen Narcosis symptoms but Liene said to me after the deep dive that at one point she literally thought in her head for just a split second ‘Fuck this’ and was going to attempt to breath like a fish and without the regulator. Meaning she was in the beginning stages of Nitrogen Narcosis. But we all finished the dive safely with no casualties!

Fortunately that didn’t happen on my dive in Aqaba. However for me that was all I could think about as we were descending. Pierre who I was with on the dive said he has been deeper than 38 and he hasn’t experienced any Nitrogen Narcosis, so he’s safe which means he could look after me if I start grabbing his mask or regulator and pulling it off for ‘shits and gigs’.

As we were getting to 30 metres and below we were taking it nice and slowly. We were looking at each other ready assessing each other for symptoms. However none appeared! We got to a small open sandy plain in between the reefs and I wrote ‘38’ in the sand. Unfortunately you can’t see it all that well but I took a photo on my dive computer too.

I was constantly on the lookout for a whale shark too. I want to see one so badly. They’re the most amazing things ever. Apparently Mohamed was saying that you can see one in just 8 metres of water! UNREAL. So I thought at 38 metres down I would maybe see 4 and a half Whale Sharks… But Lady Luck wasn’t on my side.

On the last dive as we were approaching shore Mohamed noticed something peculiar. He peeked under a small lonely reef structure and pulled out an eel. It had quite far down in its body/ mouth a fishing hook and the fishing line was still attached with bits of fishing junk attached to it. None of us had a knife on us. In Tenerife I would always bring my diving knife with me to kill long black spined sea urchins. But here there is no need. So we were using everything from rocks to pulling at it to make it snap but it was simply too strong. We didn’t know what to do. Even some divers passed by us and they didn’t have any cutting tools. In the end we had to swim back to shore to find something sharp to cut it. Fortunately some people on the jetty helped us so we could cut it as quickly as possible. It was set free and everyone was happy!

Agnes completed her open water course today! So we decided to celebrate. Well just me, Agnes and Pierre. Mohamed was minding the shop and it is more ‘Divemastery’ to go out with customers rather than someone higher up like Mohamed (apparently). They asked me where is good to go and eat. I had no idea as I’ve never actually been ‘out out’ in Aqaba touristy areas yet. We asked Mohamed and he pointed us in the direction of a restaurant.

I was feeling adventurous so I ordered something which I didn't know what it was, it was called chicken Tassook (but it turns out it was just a chicken kebab) and some Humus in case I couldn't eat the Tassook. Pierre and Agnes ordered a salad, humus and another thing between themselves. I offered my food to them to share but they said ‘no, no, we’re okay’ with a smile. The chicken was amazing it had a little spicy kick to it and usually spicy stuff goes straight through me like laxatives but this was brilliant. I was telling Pierre and Agnes to try some but they weren’t budging. I kept on saying throughout the meal for them to try some. As I was trying quite a lot of their food as I didn’t have any lunch (they were offering). I looked at their food and noticed it didn’t have any meat. I asked them if they were vegetarian and they told me that they were. AWKS. After the meal we were all pretty exhausted as we had a long day with super fun dives. So we called it a night.

Tuesday – Oooohh mighty mighty! Mighty mighty mighty mighty mighty Clam!
My apologies but in regards to today I only remember a couple of things. Mid this week I was super busy, leaving the house at 8:30am and returning at around 10 or 11pm so I had no time for blogging. But here are the things that I remember:

So I was on a dive with the fam (Mo, Agnes and Pierre) and we were doing Agnes’ Deep Dive as part of her Advanced Open Water Course. Mohamed was playing games with her like noughts and crosses (tic tac toe) as on a deep dive you basically turn a bit stupid and slow. So thinking where to put your nought or cross takes a great deal more time.

Meanwhile myself and Pierre were circling around them like sharks looking for cool stuff to entertain ourselves. As we were swimming I saw THE biggest clam ever. It was pulsating slightly with a rhythm and I wanted to get it on video. So I did! I kept on swimming towards it at a steady pace and as I got close with my GoPro it started to close! So I kept on going trying to get it and all of a sudden I felt a massive shockwave from the clam and a loud bang when it shut completely. It was honestly one of the scariest things that happened when I was underwater. But also one of the coolest. It’s on my Facebook page. CHECK IT OUT HERE. https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10153297273493515

After the Deep Dive Assessment we went off again to finish the dive. At the end we were close to a jetty and in about 4 or 5 metres of water. I could see along the bottom lots of little black stringy things. I honestly thought they were shoe laces. But I was thinking to myself how can there be so many shoelaces? Upon closer inspection I found that the shoelaces were in fact sea horses! CHECK OUT THE PHOTOS MAN as I also saw a different type of seahorse too! A more common known one.



Wednesday – ‘I like turtles!’ – Zombie Kid…

Again my apologies but I can only remember a couple of things about today too! I know I did two dives, but one was more memorable than the other. It was the first dive and I was with just Agnes and Pierre! We done the normal routine of setting up the diving gear, got in the water and descended. Within literally 30 seconds of putting our faces under the water I saw a big ass turtle with 2 barnacles on him. I SHALL CALL HIM BARNEY. He was swimming off to the left and we were supposed to go to the right towards Rainbow Reef and on to Cedar Pride (shipwreck). But the turtle trumps the wreck. HOWEVER I then noticed an octopus swimming in the other direction to the right towards where we were originally supposed to go to Cedar Pride. They were making an ‘X’ shape with their swimming patterns. I didn’t know which one to follow. But I went with my gut and followed Barney with the backing of Pierre and Agnes. But it was a bad choice as after a few minutes of following him he disappeared off into the distance (I won't even bother putting the photos of him I took as you can barely even see him). We turned back towards Rainbow Reef to head back on course to Cedar Pride and try to find the octopus which was considerably slower than Barney. But we couldn’t find the octopus… Damn!

On the second dive we went around Japanese Garden! I saw some cool ink (not a tattoo) from a squid or something! But we couldn't find the said squid.

The sun set and when returning home I decided to treat myself to some take away food. This would be the first food I had that I bought by myself as a take away as usually Mohamed orders for me. I just pointed at something and that looked like chicken and gave a ‘one’ signal with my index finger and mouthing the word ‘one’ with my mouth, but in English. The shop caught my eye to walk in to as they had dangling animal carcasses on display in the window. Including the testicles of the pig. I wasn’t originally going to go in but the owner just as I was walking past swung around the pig carcass and the testicle flung round too, hitting the window. BALL SLAP.



Thursday – The Tank
Today we went to the Tank! The story behind the tank is that it was a Russian military tank and it was the King of Jordan’s idea to sink it and create a new site for divers and for fish to live off of. He said that he wants to create something that goes from war to peace or something that goes from taking life to supporting life. Or something like that. The Tank was like lion fish central. SO MANY LION FISH. The tank itself was badass too obviously and after about 10 minutes of studying it myself, Mo, Agnes, Pierre and two Israeli girls went to find some reefs by the tank. Soon after though one of the Israeli girls couldn’t equalise and she had to go back to shore with Mohamed. It was then up to Divemaster Scanlon to save the day and lead the dive. Using my trusty compass the 4 of us set off to explore the unknown reef that was apparently ahead of us.

When I found the reef it stretched out much farther than any other that I’ve seen so far in Aqaba I couldn’t even see the end of it in any direction for the majority of the dive. Although there wasn’t a great difference to the fish or reef structures down there it was still very nice to explore.

Something really good about this dive site is that the tank is at about 6 metres down at the base. This of course means that the safety stop can be done at the tank! Happy days! For all ya’ll who are non-divers a safety stop is advised to be used at the end of every dive but it is not always necessary. It is basically when at the end of the dive the divers will for typically 3 minutes maintain a constant depth of 5 metres give or take a metre. The main reason for it is to allow extra time for absorbed nitrogen to be released from a diver’s body. If you don't allow for this then bad things happen! So do it!


Friday – People pick up your litter please
Another long day in Aqaba for me today. I did 3 dives in total! The first one I led a dive to a place that I have not visited before but using my quick wits, compass skills and general awesomeness I didn’t get lost for a moment! I was with Pierre, Agnes and two English newly certified divers. I did not have my GoPro with me as I forgot it (oopsy!) but nevertheless it was a good dive.
We dived at a site where maybe 80 or more divers where located. As today was ‘Clean Up The World’ day! There were T.V. Camera’s, interviews happening by the shore and one woman who for the purposes of an interview had to use my TUSA regulators as they look good and professional! Yeah buddy!

We swam out past a jetty in 4 metres of water. The reef structures were almost at the surface of the water, which meant that I had to swim around them and not over. So I had to almost pretend like I knew where I was going trying to swim around the underwater labyrinth.

I could see an opening in the reef structure so we swam through it and then I was in the clear! I turned right a little bit and we headed out to find some more reefs collecting bits of rubbish along the way. I collect rubbish on my dives but today I did especially (THE ENVIRONMENT IS IMPORTANT MMKAY).

We swam out across the many different and unique reef structures. All along the way I could see A HELLUVA LOT of rubbish. Bottles both plastic and glass, cans and crisp packets were the most common. But I did manage to find a broken snorkel! That was my first piece of SCUBA gear that I’ve found and I think that next on my list would be a nice diving camera! Mohamed said that he found an underwater camera once at about 30 metres but it could only go down to 20 metres so it was broken!

Looking around at the reefs I think I saw more divers than fish! There was loads of us! In the end I had to get the two English guys, Pierre and Agnes to be really really close in their spacing’s between each other because they could have easily gotten lost and accidently followed a wrong group. But I was keeping a watchful eye.

I don’t know how I managed to get everyone back to the exact same spot we left at the beginning of the dive. The visibility was quite bad because the sand was stirred up by the other divers picking up rubbish, cutting away fishing nets that glued themselves to coral and generally fannying about. But we emerged from the water and proceeded to get out. We were greeted by some lovely people offering us fruit and water! MOTHERLODE. I took my fair share of goodies and in return I handed them a whopping load of trash as payment. Everyone’s happy.

I am currently sitting in the Rovers Return (yes really, just in case you’re not from the UK the Rovers Return is a fictional pub set in Manchester for the T.V. show Coronation Street) writing my blog. I feel like one of those douchebags in Starbucks with an espresso writing. I’m exactly the same in all those ways I suppose except I have replaced the espresso with an Amstel beer. This could be in the UK apart from the fact that people are smoking inside and there’s a constant hum of air conditioning.

Agnes and Pierre joined me in the pub later on as we organised an outing. At about 9:30pm Linda who is one of Mohamed’s Finnish friends (part of the big Finnish group who are coming over this week) sat down with us and we all talked and drank beer until 11pm then it was time to hit the hay for me. I was exhausted.



Saturday – Rubbing shoulders with the big wigs
2 was the number of dives today. Both of them were with the same people, the couple from England, an Australian and a French guy. I led the dive but I think that French guy wanted to lead it. Every frigging 5 minutes or so I would feel the tickling sensation of bubbles against me (bear in mind I’m just in my swimming trunks) and I would look down and see the bloody French guy swimming below cutting me off and getting ahead! I don’t know what he was doing. I continued to watch him and after a little bit I could tell he was looking around trying to find me. He eventually did and I gave him an assertive wave and look in the eyes as if to say ‘Yeah hi, how about you go back, stick with your buddy and stop tickling little Leslie’.

The day was getting better though as we were approaching the evening. Mohamed has been going on for weeks about the environmental campaign conference thing in regards to the clean-up dive we did. He was saying that there is every type of food you can imagine there. My mind was in a state of euphoria every time I would think about the scran. I purposefully didn’t eat in order to fill up on the good stuff. I even received a free T-shirt as I ‘Helped Clean Up The World’ but I thought that it wasn’t best to wear it to the event.

The environmental campaign event was in a very expensive looking hotel. I didn’t really know what was going on half the time in the conference even though there was a list of what was happening. Mohamed and his friend sat with me at a table at the back of the room (we’re not that important). We were chatting about diving and how great it is that they do something to protect the environment. Then all of a sudden the room became silent. Like the quietest a room has been ever. A group of people walked in. Two big guys in suits, one guy in a military uniform, a woman and a few other people. They sat down at the table at the very front (shit just got real). I could tell that the VIP was the woman but I hadn’t a clue who she was. Mohamed’s friend looked at me and asked me if I knew who she was. I shook my head. But it actually turns out that the woman was the Princess of Jordan and her name is Basma Bint Ali. She was visiting the event and she gave a speech in Arabic. There were other guest speakers too but they again were all speaking in Arabic so I didn’t really know what they were saying but I pretended like I did and of course I clapped at the end of everyone’s speech. 30 minutes had passed and after a long slideshow of the ‘Clean up the World’ campaign day the Princess left the room. Followed by her security which to be honest wasn't a lot considering she's royalty, if it was the British Royal Family I doubt I would even have seen her.

We were in the courtyard of the posh hotel. But the bountiful displays of food promised to me by Mohamed were nowhere to be seen! Just nibbles! NIBBLES!? I was starving as I was preparing myself for the gargantuan amounts of food promised. However there was a good selection with brownies, cakes, fruit etc. Mohamed was talking to a group of people but they were all speaking in Arabic so I decided to leave and find someone to have a chin wag with. But first I stocked some more food on my plate.

I got chatting to a man who was next to me and he was standing alone. I said ‘Did you come here alone?’ He probably thought I was gay at this point but I couldn’t think of another line to come up with to instigate a conversation. I then said (even more gayly) if he was here for business or pleasure. He said that he was here on business and so was here with some colleagues of his. I enquired as to what type of business and I was expecting some sort of environmental group. But it turns out he is the Nursery Manager at the Royal Botanic Garden (RBG). Basically he is the manager of a bunch of staff at the RBG. Pretty cool job! As his boss is actually the woman surrounded by the swarms of people A.K.A. Basma Bint Ali the Princess of Jordan. As it was the Princess who founded the Garden in the first place

We were chatting for ages about Jordan in regards to the weather mostly to begin with (true Brit) and we confronted the elephant in the room which is ISIS. Obviously Jordan is on Syria’s southern border and so they are close to each other. BUT I AM SAFE DON’T WORRY. Ryan was telling me how he broke the news to his mother back in California were he’s from and he said to her ‘Hey mom, have you heard about Jordan in the news?’ To which his mother replied ‘No I haven’t’. He then proceeded to say ‘Yeah ok good, I’m moving to Jordan’. I think I should have broken the news to my family in a similar way as it is quite clever!

After a chatting for a while a couple introduced themselves to me. They first said ‘Hey are you Adam?’ I was shocked! People know me! We got chatting and it turns out that this couple are called Paul and Tanya who have been living in Jordan for quite some time now and have been all over to see the length and breadth of the country. Interestingly it turns out that Paul works for the Royal Palace and if any of the Jordanian royal family want to go diving or become certified in all things divey, then Paul is the man who does all of that for them. Impressive stuff.

The conversation was flowing and we were all having a ball! Paul and Tanya both had to leave but we all exchanged contact details so we could still talk and organise trips and excursions etc in the future. I asked Ryan what he was doing after the event (I was again being pretty gay) and he said that he was planning on going to a local pub that he goes to when he’s in Aqaba. He asked me what I was doing and I said that I was free and we should go out. And so we did!

The pub said outside ‘Irish Pub’ but I have no idea what was so Irish about it. There were no clovers, nothing was green, the owner was Jordanian, the bartender was Russian, the music was American folk and they didn’t have any Guinness. However it was a great little place to get drunk! So I suppose it was a little bit Irish. Ryan knew the owner who was called Mike, and Mike knows Mohamed from my Dive Centre! Aqaba is a small place if you haven’t figured out already.

Me and Ryan talked for at least 4 or 5 pints (I don’t know how long we were there for in terms of time) and it was a nice chilled out vibe. We talked about many different things. Something which is quite funny that he was telling me was that when he was younger for about 6 or 7 years of his teenage life he kept aquariums in his house in Californee way (South Park). He said that he had different themes for the different tanks. I assumed something like a pirate themed one or something. But he said that it was even nerdier than that so I said maybe superheroes as American’s love their comic books. However it was even nerdier than that! He had one tank for the tropical rivers of the Amazon, the ice cold waters of the arctic, the naturally occurring cave river systems of North America etc. VERY NERDY. But I think it’s also really cool. As that is something he enjoyed doing, and for a 13 year old lad to do something as sophisticated as that it’s quite something. It’s also something that not a lot of kids do but actually doing that would have undoubtedly led him to be where he is today.

I will definitely be returning to that pub as the beer is cheaper than the Rovers Return and I do like the atmosphere more. It’s very small maybe 8 metres by 8 metres but it’s a very nice place to sit and chill with a cold beer.

When I got home I still had some of a falafel wrap that Mo bought me the other day in the fridge! So I ate it, collapsed on my bed and fell asleep.


Sunday – Can’t believe I missed it.
Two dives today. The first one was a bit of a disappointment. I went on a dive with a nice Croatian guy to Cedar Pride. We got some great photos, enjoyed the wreck and it was a good normal dive. However on returning to the surface I heard that some divers who I could see for about 15 minutes or so on our 40 minute dive that they had seen a big tiger shark. A tiger shark. I can’t believe it. I was not a happy bunny… Ok yeah if it was a whale shark my shit would have hit the fan all over the beach but still it was a Tiger Shark! And I must’ve missed it by less than 5 minutes!

The second dive was with the Croatian guy’s girlfriend who was on her third dive ever. We went to the Japanese Garden which is a great reef site and it is also shallow and more or less close to the shore, meaning if needed to we can quickly get back if we become low on air. The girl needed more practice with her buoyancy and so for the whole dive besides the last 5 or 10 minutes I swam next to her holding her LPI (Low Pressure Inflator hose, the thing which controls the buoyancy) to keep her buoyancy in check. It’s actually quite difficult! As I don’t know her breathing patterns so when she breaths in a full lung full of air then she will start ascending so I take air out of her BCD (Buoyancy Control Device, the jacket) thinking that she needs less air in there but then when she exhaled fully she sunk back down to the floor so then I add more. IT WAS CHALLENGING BUT I THINK SHE AND I GOT THE HANG OF IT AT THE END.

When I’m on a dive people ask me why I chose Jordan to work and I make up an answer like ‘The weather, the people, and the falafel’. When the actual reason is that it was the first and only job I could get my hands on… I don’t want to sound desperate but it’s the truth.

We have this new guy in the Dive Centre to help out with cleaning as he’s not a certified diver yet and for the life of me I can’t remember his name. I know it’s really bad of me. It’s even worse because he’s such a nice guy! When he goes home for lunch he comes back and brings me food from his house that his mother made! I will find it out soon… I need to. I’m glad I’m working at this Dive Centre though, I am really quite enjoying it! Until next time! Hasta Luego Caimans!

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