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Published: September 30th 2015
The Finn’s (plus Angela) have arrived
Monday – Some gas issues
Ok so in the morning when I and Mohamed are sitting in the van at our house. We don’t drive to the Dive Centre. We sit there for at least 2 minutes maybe even 4 or 5 on some days and Mohamed will just look at across the road. I thought to myself the past few weeks that he is just meditating or mentally preparing himself for the day. But I found out today that we don’t move after turning on the ignition because the van needs time to essentially ‘warm up’. DURHH.
Today the group from Finland who are Mohamed’s friends went on their first dive. Altogether there’s 5 of them. There’s Mama Finn (who’s not a diver but came to Aqaba for the ride), Papa Finn, Linda, Olga and Jarno who actually forgot his fins (flippers)! On our first dive! Lol! A Finn who forgot his fins.
We went to the Cedar Pride Wreck! Well we tried to. They grow them well in Finland and Papa Fin is taller than me and I’m 6 feet 4 inches and he’s
a bigger broader guy than me so he naturally uses more air on top of that he’s also a newish diver too who typically breathe much more. He was also using a full face mask with the regulator attached to it. So basically he looks like Bane from Batman. Except the mask doesn’t have speaking capabilities so he sounds like Kenny from South Park. His actual name is Arny as well so he’s even more badass. Arnold Schwarzenegger!
As we were approaching the Cedar Pride wreck after about 10 minutes we could just make out the wreck in the distance and I asked for an air check to Papa Finn first. I was surprised that he had just over 50 bar left in his tank. For non-divers this doesn’t mean anything but basically the tanks hold the air we breathe on a dive, of course. The way we monitor how much air we have left in our tanks is by looking at our SPG (Submersible Pressure Gauge) which registers how much pressure of air is left in the tank. You generally consider a full tank to be 200 bar and so as you breathe the air, the pressure
reading on the SPG decreases because there is less air in the tank. With me so far? If you are a bigger person you generally breathe more because you have a bigger body. Also if you are new to diving you generally breathe a lot more air than an experienced diver because it’s all new to you.
Therefore I sent back Arny (Papa Finn) back to shore with Jarno because Jarno is an experienced diver, he had lots of air left and he was his diving buddy (you assign divers to other divers called the buddy system under the water for safety reasons). I was a bit gutted for Arny because he hasn’t actually seen Cedar Pride yet but I’m sure he thought in his head ‘I’ll be back’.
So I was being escorted by Olga and Linda (and their lovely pink fins) to the Cedar Pride shipwreck. We went around the wreck saw cool shiz and returned back to shore. We did one more dive just to the Rainbow Reef as it’s shallower than Cedar Pride so you use less air. After some snacks and packing up the gear we headed back to the shop.
Later on in the day it was going to be the last dives for Agnes and Pierre! As they are flying in two days and you can’t dive a day before or after a flight because of the pressure and you will get decompression sickness (THE BENDS). But I couldn’t be with them on the dive as I was doing a DSD (Discover Scuba Diving) for Raquel’s friend called Bryll who is a pretty good photographer!
Me and Bryll got in the water and I was a bit nervy as it was my first DSD with just me myself and I. It was challenging and Bryll kept on saying that water was getting inside his mask and so I was telling him how to clear it (exhales out your nose, put two fingers on the top bridge of your mask and look up) but it just wasn’t happening. He kept on trying again and again and after many failed attempts it worked and he did it! He did it ‘Brylliantly’ but I had to give him my mask as it fit his face a bit better than the one he had previously. We swam around a
My emegency going out out equipment
I always have this packed in my bag in case of an impromptu night out, as my home is far awaybit checking out the fishies and I had to hold the tank valve as he kept on rolling over. A little while later I could see that he was getting cold as he had Goosebumps (Goosecunts) and was shaking a little so we surfaced and headed back to shore!
I later found out after that he can’t actually swim as he has only been in the water once before which is probably why he was rolling over when underwater. But he enjoyed it and he said that it was one off the bucket list for him! I was happy to be a part of it.
I was a bit jealous of Agnes and Pierre though as they said they saw a turtle on their last dive together! It was not swimming away either, it was very close to them. But I didn’t give them my GoPro so they couldn’t get a photo of it. I’m just happy it wasn’t a whale shark as I think I would’ve flipped out.
Tuesday – Goodbye to the family
I was with the Finnish group again today and we dove at the Tank site.
I was really concerned that the Papa Finn was going to use up 150 bar of air again and he would have to go back. But the Tank is shallow and closer to the shore than Cedar Pride so I knew that at least he would see the Tank. When I was preparing the gear I was doing a lot of the heavy lifting like taking the tanks to and from the dive site from the van, carrying the equipment etc. I can feel myself becoming more muscular and stronger. I can even feel my fingers becoming more hench! HENCH FINGERS!
But anyway we had two good dives at the same site but across two different parts of the reef and we were joined this time by Angela who’s from London and is a Rescue Diver. REPPING THE UK. So the 6 of us were diving and I felt really professional! For weeks Mohamed has been telling me about these Fins (the people not the ones you swim with) and that they are pro’s at diving. So I’ve constantly been thinking shit man I gotta up my game. But when I’m diving with them I think I do
things quite well and to a good standard!
Washing the equipment is starting to become a problem as the Fin’s have all their own gear but no hangers with them and there’s also not a lot of space to put their stuff as it is a small Dive Centre. But we will manage. We always do.
They also said that they want to do around 20 dives each in the 2 weeks that they’re here for. Which is a HELLUVA lot but it does mean that I should be diving with them on my 100
th dive. Which by my estimations should happen on Tuesday. The rule is that on your 100
th dive you MUST dive naked. However I don’t think that I’ve met anyone who has done it. Maybe I’ll just do it with a sock or something. The problem that I have with that is I only have those ‘invisible’ socks you wear when wearing shoes with shorts. I don’t want to sound big headed but I don’t think that they will be able to protect my manhood sufficiently from any stray fish thinking that they found a worm…
In the evening myself,
Mohamed, Agnes and Pierre went to this awesome little rooftop bar place and the manager there is a diver who I see regularly at the South Beach dive site where the Cedar Pride, Rainbow Reef and Japanese garden are located. So I said hi! The view was stunning over the water and the waiters brought over some nibbles! They were so good too and Agnes and Pierre are vegetarians so me and Mohamed got lots of meaty snacks! Happy days! After the snack bar we dropped them off at their hotel and said our goodbyes! The family has now broken up!
Wednesday – A little bit of shopping!
Bilal (I found out his name! He’s the new guy in the dive centre helping out with cleaning and who brings me food!) kept on asking me if I was shaving tonight. I don’t know why and I initially thought he was setting me up with his friend or something because he said ‘you must shave everywhere’… I later found out that tomorrow is the Islamic holiday of Eid so you must shave and I was actually planning a shave anyway so it worked out pretty well. You
also have to buy a new piece of clothing (I don’t know why either) so me and Mohamed went to a local shopping mall at night. I managed to find some beauties in the shopping mall. I of course took photos for my blog but I didn’t buy anything. I was merely there as Mohamed’s personal shopper helping him pick out clothes.
Bilal was also telling me that it was his dream to go to Europe. But now that he has found a job here in the dive centre he is happy. Which is nice! But I also told him that if he ever manages to get across the other side of Europe to the UK that he should meet up with me in Liverpool if I’m there.
I went on 2 dives today with the normal 4 Fin crew of Papa Fin, Jarno, Linda and Olga plus Angela of course. We were also joined by a guy and gal from Brazil! We could speak a little bit to each other as I speak a bit of Spanish and Portuguese is similar to Spanish. But we had to resort to English as it was starting to get
difficult when I was talking about specific diving things. The first dive was nice and it was just to Rainbow Reef. I didn’t want to take them all to Cedar Pride as Papa Fin was with us and I just wanted one more practice dive before going all the way out to see it again. Also the two Brazilians haven’t dived in a while either, so we just went to Rainbow Reef. Which to be fair is more than enough to see.
The second dive was to the Japanese Garden and we again saw a bunch of cool stuff. I was a little concerned as before we descended I could see a yellow boat. Which is the boat that has the submarine glass dome where people can see the underwater world but still stay dry. Cop outs. I pointed it out to everyone who was in my diving group as a hazard and said I will look out for it and notify everyone if it comes our way. Which fortunately it didn’t! The Japanese Garden was really nice today and for the entire dive I couldn’t get the song ‘Hotel California’ out of my head and I have
no idea why. Just one of those things.
Thursday – I nEid more sleep
This morning was the worst. I was woken up to the LOUDEST AND LONGEST I have ever heard the Mosque before. The guy speaking was properly going for it. Like his life depended on it. Of course I didn’t know what he was saying but I’m guessing it is in relation to the Islamic holiday of Eid which is today. Mohamed said it is like Christmas where you exchange gifts and be with your family. He was also telling me that if I converted to Islam that I would get a present (in a jokey way, don’t worry grandad).
Me, the Fin’s and Angela went on two dives and on the first one we saw a scorpionfish! PRETTY FUCKING HUGE SCORPION FISH. It was the size of my leg. Well I think it was a scorpionfish it could have been a stonefish. I don’t really know the difference. Check out the video HERE.
https://www.facebook.com/adam.scanlon.77/videos/10153302016308515/?pnref=story On the second dive it was a nice relaxing dive where there was a bit of a drift in the water carrying us
Clean up the world!
We bought a brush for the dive shop and I was wearing my 'Clean up the World' shirt. So I carried the brush and everyone was giving me nice looks like I was a volunteer in the mall. to our required destination. Towards the end of the dive I was doing the ‘Gangnam Style’ dance where Psy is riding a horse. Everyone looked up at me and I pointed at around 15 seahorses on the grassy floor below. I knew that at the end of the dive we would see lots of Seahorses so I came up with a diving sign for it which is the Psy Gangnam Style dance.
Today was also the first day since about 5 or 6 days where I’ve eaten food in the house. All the other past few days’ people have just given me food. Unfortunately I bought lots of food around a week ago, which means I have around £30 worth of food slowly approaching its sell by date. I ate hotdogs and breaded chicken for tea. I need more vegetables. Badly. But my poos are becoming denser which is a good sign.
Friday – CHANGE? DOES ANYBODY HAVE ANY CHANGE?
I drove the van this morning! It went ok… But just ok. I naturally kept on going to the left lane as that is the normal slow lane in the UK but
of course they drive on the other side of the road here. Mohamed and the other motorists on the road weren’t too happy.
I was also going way too fast over the speed bumps because I’m used to going faster over them in the UK with my Ford Fiesta. But this van is a bit more delicate so I could see out of the corner of my eye Mohamed’s tense attitude just before going over the next bump… And his panicking attitude just after going over the bump and telling me to go much slower and questioning the validity of my driving license. BANTS.
The Fins and Angela went to Wadi Rum today! Well Mama and Papa fin didn’t they went to the Dead Sea up north. I want to go to both places and of course Petra but I know that people who visit me will want to see it also so I think it’s just best to wait until they arrive as I imagine I’ll be going to these places a lot.
There’s a guy who has been in the Dive Centre all day and he has been chewing my ear off.
He doesn’t speak a lot of English but he blabs on his phone to someone for hours on end. I literally don’t know why he is here. He doesn’t need to be here. I am here. And it’s not as if he’s talking at a normal volume. He is almost shouting down the phone! I think he might be the announcer at my Mosque by my house. Unfortunately he had his phone plugged in while speaking so I had no hope of his phone dying. But he does seem to be a friendly person. Maybe a bit too friendly as he gave me a back massage for no reason.
I had to get a cab home because Mohamed had to run an errand and something that really irritates me about the taxis here is that irrelevant to whether or not they have people inside they will always have the light on that says ‘Taxi’ on the roof. So when you can see one for a distance you don’t know if they have people in and you go and look for another one.
But eventually you find one and it goes either one way or the other.
By that I mean you can either have a taxi driver that chews your ear off or doesn’t make a noise. The one this day didn’t speak and I liked that because I just wanted to some peace and quiet. Something that also annoys me about taxi’s here is that they assume I’m a tourist because I’m a white guy obviously. So they always try and charge me more money than they would if I was a local and even though Mohamed gives me the money back when he can’t take me back home it still annoys me.
HOWEVER SCANLON HAS AN ACE UP HIS SLEEVE. Mohamed taught me a phrase which is pronounced ‘Ana boshtgell hon’. It translates to ‘I work here’ in other words ‘give me a fair price’. I make sure that every taxi ride I take I say it as soon as I enter the cab, at least once on the journey to my destination depending on how talkative they are and then one more time when I’m about to get out. Most of the time though they still try and charge me more and if I don’t have the correct change then they
will say that they don’t have any change to give me and so I have to pay 50p extra. I know it’s not a lot but it does add up and it’s the principle!
Saturday – A DSD day
I think everything that could have went wrong today did. The day began with a late start as the Finnish group went to Wadi Rum (badass desert near Aqaba) yesterday so I was expecting them to come in a bit late because they would’ve left Wadi Rum only this morning. But before they arrived I realised I left my GoPro in the shop so I told Mohamed and he said ok I’m going back to the house anyway to get something so we both went back to the house, got what we needed and headed back to the shop.
Upon arriving at the shop the Finnish people had arrived! But it was just Olga, Jarno, and Papa Fin as I think Angela and Linda were knackered riding camels all day in Wadi Rum. So we got all of our gear and headed to the dive site with 3 intro divers from Jordan. When
we were nearly at the dive site I realised that I didn’t put my memory card in the GoPro from my phone. My heart sank and I felt sick! I confessed to Mohamed and he wasn’t happy but luckily Jarno has a GoPro with the memory card in it and Olga has her camera with her so they will still be able to get photos. So I took Jarno’s memory card and put it in my GoPro. THANK YOU JARNO! I’LL BUY YOU A BEER!
The beach was rammed today with people because it’s the holiday of Eid over these next few days. There were so many people on the beach which is mad as on Monday this week it was just the Aqaba International Dive Centre on the beach. Nobody else was there. The roads were chocker too so the normal 15 minutes journey to the dive site, took us around 25 minutes with most of the time spent in a small 300 metres section of the road.
So it was me and Mohamed with 3 Jordanians who were doing the DSD (Discover Scuba Diving) and one of them after about 10 minutes said he
couldn’t do it. It is strange for me to see people who can’t actually Scuba dive, I don’t want to sound big headed or cocky but for me it was easy to get in the water to start off with. But some people can really struggle with it sometimes. So anyway I waited with the guy whilst his friends were still underwater. This of course meant I couldn’t actually go and dive. I was babysitting. After Mohamed returned we all got out of the water and headed back to shore.
We returned back to the shop in the afternoon and we tidied all the gear up and prepared for the arrival of 7 more intro divers for DSD’s. 2 were girls from Israel and the other group was 5 guys from somewhere in Jordan. The season is picking up! When I was packing up the gear for the 7 of us with Bilal I told Mohamed that there were 8 tanks. He did respond to me but I don’t think he understood me as he was answering questions that the Israeli girls were asking him about diving. I assumed that he knew someone at the dive site that
had tanks because he didn’t make a fuss. But you should never assume as my dad says ‘it will make an ASS out of U and ME’.
After loading up the van we proceeded back to the Rainbow Reef dive site. Mohamed saw how many tanks we had and questioned me about them… It wasn’t good… BUT in the end we had enough as the 5 guys went first so they used up their around 50-100 bar (1/4 – ½) of a 200 bar tank and Mohamed doesn’t use much air on the dive and neither did I because I was babysitting again. So I changed around the tanks and gave the two Israeli chicas mine and Mohamed’s tanks.
Everyone made it in the end and we all had at least 100 bar remaining in the tanks so it’s all good. The Israeli girls loved it and said that they would return so Mohamed got their details and they said they will bring more people next time. Which would be nice because they were both lovely girls! Also now of course I have friends in Israel which is DEFINITELY a place I want to visit before
I leave this part of the world. It’s not what you know…
Sunday – This looks like Snorkeler Central
I went to a new dive site today. I’m not sure of the name so I will call Forbidden Pass… I will explain. When we arrived at the dive site there was quite a lot of people on the beach. There is also a huge Reef causing a Great Barrier about 20 or 30 metres out from shore. Along this massive reef there was a single skinny opening for divers AND snorkelers to pass through which I will call Forbidden Pass. I couldn’t extend by my arms by my sides at some points and it was less than 2 metres deep at other parts. Which meant that me, the 4 fin crew and Angela had to swim in a single file through the pass which reminded me of the scene on Finding Nemo where Dori and Nemo’s dad go over the reef and find all the jellyfish. That however wasn’t an option for us, unless we wanted to be beached like whales which from experience I know is not a good thing.
Swimming through the pass most of the snorkelers were watching us like vultures from above. Others were swimming by us and getting in our way. Annoying. One of them apparently also knocked out the regulator (the thing you breathe from) out of Linda’s mouth.
But we eventually we made it through and continued the dive. I am at that point now where I can go to a dive site even if I haven’t been there before and still find my way around it and make it back. Yeah ok I did have a compass but as I said along this massive reef barrier there was only one opening where we had to go in and out from and I found it pretty easily!
On the second dive we were about to set off and descend into the water but I couldn’t find my compass… I had it when I was putting my mask on by the edge of the shore line. The water was less than 1 metre visibility where I thought I dropped it and I couldn’t find it around me. I signalled everyone to come up and I told them what happened. We searched
Lionfish
No touch... and searched. If I don’t have my compass for the dive there is no way I would take them out diving. It’s too risky. We would end up swimming to Egypt. We were in about 1 and a half metres of water so it wasn’t deep but the sand was kicked up by the waves of the sea. So it was nearly impossible to even make out what was the seabed because it was all the same whitish sandy colour. By a stroke of luck Olga found it and brought it up like she had just won a trophy. Absolute saviour. After getting back my compass we continued the dive and through the Forbidden Pass.
There were so many snorkelers. It was really sad too because most of the reef in the Forbidden Pass was dead. But the further you got out you saw much more lively fishy activities. There were however the odd bit of litter than got through the barrier reef.
People litter everywhere here and with littering being my pet hate, it isn’t easy being green. Just now I saw someone throw a bag full of McDonald’s stuff on the floor. It’s not as if there are no bins, I see them everywhere! Speaking of McDonald’s I feel quite proud of myself that I haven’t eaten there. There is only one McDonalds in Aqaba and it is literally a 60 second walk across the road from the Dive Centre to get to. I think I might have to give in to the temptation someday. But until then it’s Humus and Kellogg’s Crunchy Nut for me! This ends the holiday of Eid and my fourth week in Aqaba! Hasta luego Caimans. Eid Mubarak.
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