Advertisement
Published: October 19th 2015
Refrigeration is underrated
Monday – ‘Idea’ Sgt Nicolas Angel, Hot Fuzz
I’m going to be totally honest here and I might sound like a true crazy person but sometimes when I’m drinking water I just let some of it dribble down myself, I find it oddly satisfying. Obviously I don’t do it with other beverages as water evaporates (and quickly in Aqaba) so there is no mess. I don’t drench myself, I just do it a little bit. It’s cooling and soothing.
As you can probably guess Monday was a quiet day. Nobody wanted to dive with us today so instead me and Belal also brainstormed ideas for the Dive Centre we came up with 30 in the end. Most of them are just minor things that we need like for example the light in the shower room broke today. But some more creative ones were when we get new certified divers who do their open water or any other qualification we use the picture that we take for them for their certification card and basically make a collage of hundreds of people in the Dive Centre, obviously we would ask the permission of the divers
beforehand. This idea is good for a number of reasons, the first reason is that it is nice to have a collection of all the divers that have come in to our dive centre. Number two when customers come in to the centre they can see the massive amount of people we have certified and therefore shows them that we know what we’re doing. Number three it gets the customers thinking about maybe doing their open water/ advanced or even higher, without me or Mohamed having to directly ask them if they want to do it which can put pressure on them. Number four when and if customers return they can find their picture on the wall! Which is just nice really. Other ideas we came up with was creating a timeline (idea indirectly from LFC) of Ahmed Qatawneh’s journey from becoming a diver in 1964 and right through to the present day including Ahmed working in Dubai in the 70’s, founding Aqaba International Dive Center in 1998, his son and award winning photographer Mohamed taking control in 2011 and then of course the best Divemaster ever Adam Scanlon coming in to make Aqaba International Dive Center number one on
TripAdvisor (which should be fact already, but I like a challenge).
Tuesday – Fridge go boom
I did a dive today with a French man from France of course! We did the regular location of Rainbow Reef as he was DSD (Discover Scuba Dive) or intro dive as Mohamed calls it. He was a nice guy and he said he would love to come back.
In the evening I went out for drinks with a friend of Natalie who was the woman who was here from Switzerland about a week ago. We only had one beer as he was very tired, having slept in Wadi Rum the night before and having his shoes stolen by a fox (but that’s another story). He was staying in a hotel near the Rainbow Reef dive site and he was diving with one of our rivals in that location as they convinced him to dive with them as he got a deal because he was staying in a hotel that the dive centre are close with. He was a bit concerned as he had never dived before so I ran through what to expect from the experience
and the main thing is to just remain calm and relaxed at all times. So we called it a night and I went home in a taxi.
After the 15 minute journey in the cab I was standing outside my house, about to put my key in the front door and I could smell a faint burning smell. I opened the door and it became stronger and stronger with every step. I prepared myself for the worst. The smell was so strong I had to cover my nose with my shirt. I wasn’t sure what was burning or burnt and I didn’t know where it was coming from but as Gandalf says in the Fellowship ‘If in doubt, Meriadoc, always follow your nose’ except this time I had to follow the foul smell and it took me to the kitchen. It was as I feared. The wall behind the fridge had a jet black streak stretching up to the ceiling. The fridge had burned out and had also stuck on a smooth sticky black layer of black stuff over everything that I had in there. Including my cereal, which is what I was most upset about. I purposefully
kept my cereal in the fridge in order to keep it safe from cockroaches. But I wasn’t expecting my fridge to betray me. My apartment had a small amount of the black stuff everywhere too. Every surface I touched I had it on my fingers. I rang Mo and he came in my house and he got Ahmed to come in and inspect it as he’s basically Tony Stark when it comes to machinery. He concluded that the fridge had overheated as it was pushed right back against the wall. There was obviously nothing we could do at this point so I just opened my windows and went to sleep! I of course made a trip to the shops to get some cereal before I slept otherwise I would’ve starved to death tomorrow.
Wednesday – The French are coming!
We had 3 people come in to the centre today, one guy and two girls. They were all friends and from France. The 3 musketeers you might say. They seemed a bit annoyed at us as soon as they walked in, mainly the guy of the group although I haven’t a clue why. Professionalism is
key. They were just wondering about diving over the next two days and so I was talking to them about the dive sites and where is good to go etc.
They decided to choose us as their dive centre but it was just the guy and one of the girls, as the other girl didn’t like diving. LOL WHAT?! We went diving with them in the afternoon and I really had to pull out my A game to make them enjoy themselves. Undoubtedly they did of course! We did 3 dives with them, the first one being to Rainbow Reef, the second dive to Cedar Pride and the final one to… Yes! You guessed it! Japanese Garden. On the Cedar Pride dive the guy had 100 bar by the time we had reached the ship. I don’t know how he managed that, but I just adjusted the dive slightly instead of going around the ship and to the side of it instead we would go to a shallower depth and swim over a section of the ship which meant missing the front of the ship. But what was I to do? I made the right call.
An awesome turtle...
... But it was swimming away!When we returned to the dive centre we said our goodbyes to them, but they were coming tomorrow as the woman who I dived with wanted 3 more dives tomorrow. Ahmed (Mo’s dad, not the new guy) rang me and said that he had cleaned all of my apartment from top to bottom! What a legend. Bear in mind he is 77 years of age and he cleaned an apartment by himself that is a hard task. He kind of reminds me about my grandad as that is something he would do. He knows he is old but he still every now and again surprises everyone with some mad physical challenge and they are both still very independent. When I arrived home the place was spotless and all the black burnt wall was scrubbed clean.
Thursday – If Carlsberg made sandwiches…
Today was the day of all days to beat all the days I’ve had here. I went for three dives and they were all with just the French lady from yesterday. We had to plan our dives carefully as at 12pm we had 3 guys from New Zealand doing 2 dives with us and
they wanted to dive at the Cedar Pride wreck. But obviously we couldn't take the French woman back to Cedar with the other group as she went to see it yesterday and she wanted to do 3 dives again today so we couldn't take her to exactly the same sites, so we came up with a cunning plan. I would dive with her at Black Rock in the morning (number 6 on the map) then on the second dive we would exchange the empty tanks with the new tanks with Mohamed who was waiting at shore. When Mo gets the empty tanks at 11:30 he would go back to the dive centre and arrive there just before 12 to get the equipment with the Kiwi group. Mo would then drive to South Beach and the Cedar Pride site (number 8 on the map). Meanwhile I have my 2
nd dive to do so we did a drift dive from number 6 to number 8. We went over Cable Valley which is where the real electrical cables are that connect Jordan to Egypt. So that’s what we did! The French woman was explained to before she even booked her dives with us
This is my wetsuit
The photo was taken back home in the UK that 3 dives might not happen depending how busy we are, but we still delivered even though we are busy!
For the first dive I decided to wear my iron man/ power ranger wetsuit. I haven’t needed to wear it yet as it’s just too hot hot hot. However due to the fact I was with a diver I know is a good diver and it will just be me and her, I decided to give it a go. Maybe it would bring me luck I thought to myself. Oh how right I was. We entered the water at the next to the jetty where I did my naked dive and instead of going left towards the Cedar Pride area we went right to Black Rock. But around 5 or 6 minutes into the dive I saw the majestic and the magnificent turtle. It was swimming from the right hand side of us to the left so it was swimming in the direction that we are going to go on our next dive! I was so gutted that we couldn’t follow it all the way as it was going at a reasonably slow speed! But the fact that
This is my wetsuit
The photo was taken back home in the UK I even saw one is enough to warrant this dive a good dive. But wait! It gets better!
Around 10 minutes after seeing the turtle I see a strange creature lurking underneath a small rock. The fluid motions and the colour changing of this undersea dweller could only mean one thing. It had to be an octopus. I got the attention of Frenchy (I can’t remember her name so it’s now Frenchy) and we crept closer to the rock and ultimately we looked underneath it. But we couldn’t see a thing. It was nowhere to be seen! I was really afraid that I got her hopes up of an octopus as I did the octopus signal to her. Upon a further inspection of the rock it turns out that half of the rock we were looking at was the octopus itself. We could just make out the eyes and it began to move further under the rock as we came closer and closer. By the time I was a good distance away to take a photo you could barely see it. What a shame. So we continued the dive, leaving Doctor Octopus. As we were swimming away I
looked back and the octopus fully came out of the rock and it was jet black, they change their colour so rapidly. I signalled Frenchy and we headed back to Doc Oc. But again as soon as we started to go over to her she retreated back underneath the damn rock! We decided to call it a day with the octopus as we didn’t have time to play hide and seek.
Black Rock is an amazingly wonderful dive site. It was made all the while better that we saw another octopus! This one was smaller but still very nice to look at! This truly was amazing we saw a turtle and 2 octopus in one dive! What more could I ask for? Well I suppose another turtle would be nice. A turtle, 2 octopus and another turtle would complete a turtle octopus sandwich. But what are the chances of that happening? At the end of the dive we were about to head out back to shore when I saw a cute little moray eel peeking out of some cabbage coral. I took a photo of it and turned around when all of a sudden another turtle YES ANOTHER
TURTLE was swimming right at us. I got my turtle sandwich! This one was swimming in the same direction as the other one but because we were returning to the entry/ exit point of our dive it was swimming in the same direction as us! Needless to say I got much better photos as it was much closer. Me and Frenchy were looking at each other and I could tell we were both thinking the same thing, and that is ‘FUCK YEAH BRAAAAH!!! A turtle octopus sandwich!’ Unbelievable.
We finished the dive, grabbed the tanks from Mohamed and Belal who were waiting at shore and we said farewell as they were going back to the centre to get the Kiwis and would be meeting us at the Cedar Pride beach site called South Beach. Me and Frenchy needed a break and so we had a 55 minute surface interval to allow the nitrogen to leave our bodies and so we could have an increased ABT (Actual Bottom time) on our second dive to South Beach via Cable Valley. If you don’t know what nitrogen does to our bodies when diving or what ABT is then look it up
or do your Open Water Course! I know a great Dive Centre in Aqaba that will give you good prices…
After our SI (Surface Interval) we headed back to the entry point by the jetty and descended. Plotting our course left towards South Beach I had my fingers crossed for a Whale Shark which would just send me into haywire. Unfortunately though we didn’t see one or another turtle for that matter. However it was still a good dive dude. On the last dive with French we went to Cedar but this time we spent more time at the site than yesterday and we swam underneath the gap of the Cedar Pride wreck.
In the evening I got a taxi home and the fella who was driving the thing was crazy. He was fist pumping the air to his tunes that he had on a loop in his car. But he wasn’t fist pumping inside the car, his hand was out of the window so everyone could see what a raving loony he was. I felt like I was in the actual taxi in the movie ‘Taxi’ when they drive super crazy, which as a matter
of fact was filmed in Jordan.
When I got home I didn’t have a lot of food and the food I had was going to go off and spoil soon. So I decided to eat all the hummus I had left which was half a litre. Quite a lot but it’s so fucking delicious I still enjoyed it.
Friday – Too many cooks
Today I did one dive and honestly it was enough for me. In the morning we had 2 intro divers, something that we can handle more than well so we packed up the equipment plus spare equipment and Ahmed and Belal packed the van with me. Mohamed then went to dive with the 2 intro’s who were Arab girls. They were due back at 12pm and I was told that we would have another 2 certified divers who would be with me for a dive at the Tank site. Again this was easy to pack and be ready for. But then 3 people walked in saying that they pre-booked a reservation and Belal seemed to know about all of this. I questioned him about it and he said that Mohamed
knew this. I was a bit flustered because I didn’t know they were coming and so we weren’t prepared with the equipment and other things too. It was now 11:40 ish and we just got all the equipment for the three guys. Then another two people walked in and they said that they pre-booked. What? I wasn’t expecting 5 extra people for an intro dive. Plus the fact that we had my 2 certified divers coming in 20 minutes made the morning very stressful. It was made even more stressful because when we packed spare equipment for the two intro divers with Mo in the morning we now needed that equipment for these 5 new guys to try on. I was running round like a headless chicken frantically trying to get everything for everyone but I was keeping a calm mood to make the customers reflect my exterior. It was also stressful because that guy who loves to talk lots and lots was in the Dive Centre. I mentioned him briefly a few weeks ago, he was the guy who blabs on his phone. I still have no idea why he comes in, he’s a friend of Mohamed but he
From Black Rock to Rainbow Reef, via Cable Valley
This boxfish was sitting on top of one of the cables got on my nerves a bit. For example when I was getting stuff ready he was asking me questions throughout like how many regulators we have, when he can quite clearly see how many regulators we put in the box etc.
Just before 12pm my two guys arrived who I would be diving with at the tank. We would be taking their car to the dive site and it would just be me and those two. About 10 minutes later Mohamed arrived and before you could say ‘Welcome Aqaba International Dive Center’ the guy who talks a lot packed all of the gear on to the van. He did it very speedily, but the only problem is that he packed all of my gear and the gear of my two divers too mixing it all up with the other 5 intro divers. *Facepalm*. We then had to unload everything recount what we had and distribute it accordingly.
As soon as all of our gear was loaded we shot off to the dive site. Mohamed told me prior to this dive that I have to keep an extra sharp eye on these two divers and boy was
he right. I think everything that could have been against me on this dive was. The two divers did their open water course in April with Mohamed and they are lovely people from Amman. They said that they've done the Cedar, Rainbow and Japanese Garden dive at least 10 or 15 times so they wanted a change which is why we took them to the tank. I think they were a couple but I didn’t ask if they were actually together. The guy said to me that he breathes a lot of air and the woman backed him up on that and said that she always gets annoyed at him because of it as she is a small woman and therefore doesn’t breathe a lot so she always finishes on much more air than he does. So that was one concern for me and I made sure that on the dive every 5 minutes I was asking for an air check. Another thing against me was the tide, it was very choppy today and the tide was low meaning that the small gap in the reef structure that we need to get out through was even more treacherous as it
was difficult to manoeuvre through it. I decided to surface swim out of the reef structure as the visibility was around 3 metres because of the strong waves. But obviously there was a lot of surf because of the waves, but we managed to get out and in to the open. When we did get out and past the reef, we headed off to find the tank. Now when I go to the tank the usual point of references that I use like certain reef and rock formations were now not visible because of the poor visibility. It had improved from 3 metres to around 8 metres but it still was the worst I’ve ever experienced here.
I could see a black blur in the distance and it was the tank. We swam over to it and there were 3 other divers there checking it out. We gave them some space and in turn they gave us some.
I said to the couple before the dive started about the possibility of the glass bottom boats coming close to the tank and if that happens just stay low and we will all be ok. The girl said
My name in Arabic!
Don't forget my name in Arabic starts from right to left... And don't worry Nan I won't have this as a tattoo wrapped around my arm to me ‘how can you stay calm when you have a boat so close to you…’ I can’t remember my response but it seemed to calm her down. But Jesus Christ you won’t believe what decided to pay us a damn visit underwater. After about 8 minutes I could hear a faint motor running. But it was louder and felt stronger on my chest like when you are in a concert and the music is bouncing in your rib cage. I said to my guys to stay low as it was fast approaching. I could hear the motor getting louder and louder and it was the loudest motor I’ve heard underwater so I knew it was bigger than the normal glass bottom boat. I saw a gigantic shadow approach the tank and directly to us. It became clearer and clearer and this boat had a large bottom that extended further down than a normal boat. I couldn’t believe my 'luck' when I realised what it was. The motherfucking Neptune was here. The large bottom that extended further down was the glass dome filled with people gawping at us like we were some Orcas in SeaWorld. My two divers were looking
at me at this point and hadn’t noticed The Neptune behind them. I had to point it out to them as if they turned around and saw it they could panic and panicking when you have a big rotating motor near you isn’t the best scenario to happen on a dive. They looked at it and seemed relaxed. I sighed in relief releasing bubbles. But I then looked at the guy of my couple and I could see that he was signalling to go up to the surface as he was coughing on his regulator. FUCK NO NOT NOW PLEASE. The Neptune wasn’t above our heads but ascending right next to it isn’t the best thing to do. I went over to my guy and had my octopus (alternate regulator) in my hand thrusting it towards him. Just before I was about to grab him by the shoulder strap of the BCD to reassure him he signalled that he was ok and that he could breathe fine. I could see the Neptune out of the corner of my eye make a speedy exit. Maybe they saw what was happening with me and my guy and thought that the best idea
was to not allow kids on their boat to see a guy drown or near drown.
We continued the dive as he was ok and so was the girl. We saw some cool stuff along the way including a Nudibranch and a weird looking spider that was huge! It had really weird creepy hairy legs too and I have no idea what it is, but I will find out and get a photo as I’m sure I will see it again! A little while later the guy was again coughing in his regulator and this time he had to actually take my octopus and take a few breaths from it. His regulator was fine, it’s one of the best ones we have so I don’t know what the problem was. But he said at the end of the dive that he does cough when breathing underwater occasionally. Nothing else eventful (thank god) happened on this dive. They both also said they loved it and it was one of if not the best dives that they have been on. Music to my ears.
In the evening I was so hungry. Like the most hungry I’ve been ever.
It was also my turn to go home early so I selflessly offered to buy everyone food. Mo said that he wanted 3 Falafels to eat and I was going to buy 3 too for myself as I was super hungry and I couldn’t wait until I got home for two reasons. Number one is that I would’ve had to wait maybe another hour or two until I got home and went food shopping and number two is I’m living a hand to mouth existence at the moment with no fridge. So falafel was the way to go! Before I left Belal then asked me if I wanted to eat at his place with Ahmed which would mean waiting longer... Before I came to Aqaba I made a promise to myself that I won’t ever turn down the opportunity for food, a night out or some sort of social gathering. So I wanted to keep my promise. I said to Belal when we would leave for his house and he said he didn’t know as he can’t get in touch with his mother because his phone screen is broken. So we both went to the falafel place to buy some
Tea at Belal's
This was just some of the food by the way! There was much more! food for Mohamed. On the return journey to the dive centre Belal got in touch with his mother and she told him that we would have to wait for 30 minutes for the food. Which although is a long time because I was very hungry, I wasn’t going to complain as it's nice that Belal even invited me for food and Belal's mum is cooking something for me!
We got back to the centre and like a dog I was watching Mohamed eat the delicious falafel. I’m just glad it doesn’t give off a strong smell otherwise I would’ve pounced on the food. Then Mo said that he had to leave because his kids had to go to football practice. Meaning that I would have to wait until 19:30 to leave and it was 18:00 by this point. URGHHH I WAS SO FUCKING HUNGRY. I grudgingly said goodbye to Mo who had a bellyful of food.
Like a kid waiting for the school bell to go, I kept on checking my watch for the 19:25 mark so that I could then pack up shop and leave to Belal’s house. We had to walk to Belal’s house
and it was about a 20 minute walk which worked up my appetite even more. But when we arrived the food was very good! We had fish and a meat (chicken?) in a sauce and lots of other things which I can’t even name. Half the things I eat here I have no idea what it is which is good and bad. It’s good because I’m trying things I have never tried before but it’s bad because if it becomes my new favourite food then when I return to the UK I probably won’t be able to find it.
Saturday – ‘Guess whose back? Back again’ - Eminem
In the morning we were told by Mohamed that we would have no divers! However by 10am we had 6 divers booked in with us! Plans can always change! We had a return visitor too! The guy who was here maybe 2 weeks ago I think and he went diving with me and the regulator situation happened were the small boy had his knocked out of his mouth. He came back and I spoke to him about the last time he was
My new bedside table
Yeah ok my room is a bit messy... I wasn't expecting visitors! here, not about the regulator situation but about when he stood me up. He was supposed to meet me for chicken in the dive centre with his buddies but he didn’t show up. He apologised a lot for it but I was still annoyed at him. I was so damn hungry. But as he was a paying customer I said that everything was ok. As Pumba says ‘you gotta put your behind in your past’.
We all went out for some good diving and I had a DSD guy from India who was actually here a few weeks ago but just did snorkelling! He was good underwater and I didn’t have to manage him too much at the end of the dive but at the beginning I basically had to hold his tank valve to keep him balanced. By far the best thing about taking out DSD’s is the look on their face when they surface from the water and look at me. The astonishment in their face and the realisation that what they have just seen is the closest expression you can get to see another world. They really enjoy it as it is truly amazing, as
Trying to make a pizza
I came home late on Sunday and I was very tired. So I just picked this up in the shop... I really fancied some Pizza PADI say ‘Diving is fun’.
In the evening the guy who stood me up once before didn’t invite me out to chicken. I think he was busy but I would have went with him as he was a nice man and he did genuinely forget. However I had a nice little surprise when I returned home though! I found a mini fridge outside my door! Ahmed bought me one and now I have my dream bedside table! I can literally have breakfast in bed without having to leave the warmth of my bed. AWESOME.
Sunday – I swear this blog will be the death of me
No diving today! But I have a new transportation method. Mohamed bought a 2
nd hand bicycle a few days ago, but as Mohamed took the morning off I got to ride it to the centre! It was actually really fun but the main problem with it is that I can’t change gear it’s stuck in 1
st. So when I’m pedalling I have to pedal really really fast to go anywhere. I need to change the chain to put it on a different gear but I tried to
and it was too small to move up a gear, I’ll figure it out next week. It took me about 25 minutes to get to the centre. I of course got many looks from the locals but I made sure to wave at every single one and shout ‘Marhaba!’ which is ‘hello’. They laughed, waved back and said ‘hello’ to me, I must integrate in Aqaba! Riding a bicycle you never forget how to but I still, at the age of 21 can’t ride a bicycle with no hands. It’s just too damn difficult. I can do one handed quite easily as I said, I was waving at people like a loony. But two handed is impossible for me to do right now. But we will see! Practice makes perfect!
When I got to the dive centre I whipped Ahmed and Belal into shape. We could have spent 90% of this day doing nothing and messing about but I thought no let’s be productive. Between the three of us we got some supplies for the dive centre such as a white marker pen to mark the boots, small portable whiteboard for teaching and explaining the RDP tables (LOOK
UP WHAT RDP TABLES ARE), we organised the boot rack (which was a bitch as most of the boots have had their labels ripped out through normal wear and therefore there was no way to tell there sizes) and put numbers on the boots with the white marker pen, put in order every single wetsuit with shorties and full wetsuits separated and we also organised an order for the BCD’s. All of this took us around 3-4 hours to do but it was truly beautiful to look at it all completed and especially the boot rack! Check out the photo! I am so proud! We did other things too like come up with more ideas about the dive centre and make a list of the things we need to find and buy such as find a glass display case to have Ahmed’s diving manuals from 1977 on display but also protected.
On my return journey home I cycled all the way back but it took me about an hour rather than 25 minutes. The reason for this is because there was a big fiery roadblock in the street. I took some photos purely for interest purposes (and for
Fire!
This was just before they started to throw rocks and they were apparently some bad Bedouin kids doing this, so they were not the average Jordanian the blog to immortalise this memory) but after a couple of minutes the teenagers who made the fire started to throw rocks (about the size of my first) in my direction at cars and undoubtedly at me too. I thought that this was the point to turn back and find another way around. They blocked a three lane road on a dual carriageway so I just crossed to the other carriageway and cycled back but I could see a guy start to walk in my direction signalling me to stop. Like fuck I was going to stop. I pumped my long legs to go faster (although speed was limited in first gear) so I could slide on by him and avoid behind possibly clotheslined. I made it home and this ended another weekend in Jordan for me! But I assure you that Jordan is safe! My daily workout was done for today, it was time to hit the hay, hasta luego caiman.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.404s; Tpl: 0.107s; cc: 9; qc: 50; dbt: 0.0513s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
