Divemaster Job in Aqaba, Jordan 19th October - 25th October 2015

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Unusual weather we're having, ain't it? - The Cowardly Lion, Wizard of Oz

Monday – My ass hurts

I was teaching Ahmed some Spanish in the dive centre today as it was just me and him there for an hour or two. Nothing too useful of course I taught him ‘Mi cago en la puta’ which directly translates to ‘I shit on a whore’ (I know it’s very vulgar), puta has also been known to describe a prostitute as well. I love teaching him words (mainly dirty ones)! Like the other day I was teaching him some English when we were at a dive site. We were both sitting down on a bench and I was pointing at things and saying what they were in English like tanks, regulators, water etc and he was telling me them in Arabic. I then thought I would have some fun as I had to have a 1 hour surface interval before diving again so I told him that a 'bench' was actually ‘dick’ in English. This then led on to me teaching him the phrase ‘I sit on a dick’ and ‘please sit down on the dick’ and ‘this dick is very hard’. I was finding it hard to keep it in. My laughter, not my dick of course. I did in the end correct him before the customers came back from the dive with Mohamed as otherwise we might have had some funky reviews on TripAdvisor. But he can take a joke and so can I, so I’m sure he has done the same to me. However I did teach him a phrase that I am starting to regret and that is ‘You so sexy’. He says it all the time and not even when commenting on a woman. He will look at me, point and say ‘You so sexy’. He knows what it means but it is the ONLY phrase he remembers, therefore saying it every ten minutes. He doesn’t remember anything else that could even be remotely useful… For the moment at least.

But this morning I really wanted to see if there was any carnage from the fire in the road last night. So I used my new wheels to get to the centre this morning. Well it’s Mohamed’s bike but he lets me use it when I like to. Unfortunately there was no debris in the road or anything like that, the road was swept clean as if nothing had happened. Do do do do, do do do do, do do do do... You're travelling to another dimension... (That was the twilight zone theme music by the way if you couldn't get my hint).

The one and only dive we had today was with three people. Two truly beautiful Polish women and a Jordanian guy with potential (that was a joke). Mohamed was leading it as they were all first time divers and I was supervising and assisting. I was keeping my eye on the blonde one of the two women as she was struggling a bit and needed reassurance so I selflessly (wink wink) offered her my hand to hold throughout the dive. She relaxed and calmed down after that and we all enjoyed the dive. We were getting along like a house on fire but they had to leave to go to Petra and then on to Tel Aviv in the same day! Which if you look on a map are very far apart from one another so they had no time to stay in Aqaba.

Back at the DC (dive centre) Belal and Ahmed did their open water exam. Throughout they kept on asking me for help but I didn’t as it was an exam! I’m such a good Divemaster, I explained questions to them but that was all. I PROMISE… Moving on… Mohamed drove me home with the bicycle in the back of the van. This was welcome as I didn’t want to have to cycle all the way home for two reasons, one because my ass was hurting (from the cycling not from anything else) and two I didn’t want to have to deal with another roadblock made out of fire with people throwing rocks at me like yesterday. At home I just edited my blog, uploaded it and watched the new walking dead episode whilst eating some oreos, fun evening for moi.



Tuesday - Come dine with me in Jordan

Without realising I put my last carton of milk on the second to top shelf in my fridge. The top shelf is my freezer area but because it’s so damn poey anything on the shelf underneath makes it go slightly frozen. I decided to it wasn’t a big deal so I let it go as the cold never bothered me anyway.

I did a refresher course with a French woman today. She was with her boyfriend who was a more experienced diver and didn’t need much taking care of. But I must’ve spent around 30 minutes with her going through the regulator recovery and mask clearing on top of other things. When we actually went for the dive we just went to Rainbow Reef as I didn’t feel like it was best to go to Cedar Pride. She did her Open Water course 6 years ago and that was the only diving she has done, she only did the dives necessary for the open water course itself. She enjoyed the dive, as did the guy. Happy smiles all round!

Meanwhile at the DC Mohammed was cleaning up, I don't understand him sometimes. He comes in at around 15:30 to clean the centre and fill tanks but he insists on cleaning the centre at this time and not waiting for the customers to get back at usually 5ish who inevitably dirty the place up. When they bring in sand and bits of dirt in to the dive centre he looks at me and points to the floor where they have walked as if it’s my fault. What am I supposed to do? Not let them come back in and get changed? WHAT DOES HE WANT FROM ME?!

In the night time I tried my best to cook some Jordanian style food… I failed miserably of course. I bought some rice (I was sold as soon as I saw the really cool rice bag), something creamy (I thought it was the yoghurt thing you mix with rice, but it was basically liquid dairy lea cheese). I also bought some sweetcorn as every time I’ve been given sweetcorn with rice I’ve really loved it so i assumed it does something to the rice however when I got home I realised I didn’t have a can opener. The can opener I thought I had was actually just… A… I don’t know what it is, a squasher? I could have asked Mohamed to borrow one, but I didn’t want to bother him. So I ate my rice and creamy cheese dish with hummus and bread and Oreos for dessert. I think I get top marks for trying but if I was on ‘come dine with me’ I would have some sympathetic 3 out of 10’s, no doubt my entertainment could push me to a 4 or 5 if I'm lucky.




Wednesday - The 1st Annual Lunchtime Hunger Games!

I dove with an Aussie fella from Perth today and what a good little diver he was! Much easier to manage than the French woman from yesterday and we both enjoyed the dives so a win win. I didn’t bring my GoPro with me so I was praying that we wouldn’t see anything fantastic. It was cloudy today which means that the visibility is good but fortunately or unfortunately we didn’t see any whale sharks PHEW! What we did see on the Japanese Garden dive was a big frigging grouper. I swear the thing was huge and it was underneath the big reef structure at the Garden. I will hopefully be able to get a good photo of it soon, but it is very shy. Mohamed says that it eats the smaller fish around the reef but when it sees divers it hides away underneath the reef. But there are small holes that you can see through and I could just see her eyes. Which were about the size of a tennis ball, pretty big! The body was about 2 metres (from what I could see). So a pretty sizeable creature!

I’m awaiting for a parcel from mi madre but it hasn’t arrived yet. Even though it was sent last week with DHL. I went to the DHL place and they said that I needed the tracking number but I couldn’t get a hold of my mum in time so we had to leave. When I eventually got the tracking number from my mum I looked on the internet and it was still in Amman. I’m not entirely sure why but it was something to do with the address information on the package. It should be here by Monday and I’m not entirely sure what’s in it as I forgot what I asked my mum for! Much like the episode of South Park 'Insecurity' with the UPS men.

Ahmed has a hat that looks a little like Indiana Jones’ hat so in the centre me, Belal and Ahmed play this game to decide who goes to get lunch. We turn one of the ceiling fans off and wait for it to stop and we put his hat on one of the blades and turn on the fan. We have 1/3 space each around the fan and whoever’s area the hat lands on then that person has to go for lunch. Unless you catch it, if you catch it when it’s about to land in your area you are out of the game and are safe. Then the game is continued with 2 people until a winner/ loser is decided. Belal lost today and I realised when he came back with the falafel that I haven’t eaten meat in about a week. I didn’t mean to not eat it, I just haven’t eaten it! I think I would like to become vegetarian one day or maybe just cut down on eating meat because I do love a bacon butty every now and again… I don’t think I’ll find any bacon here though.



Thursday - Efficiency isn't just for the Germans

You know when a day just runs like clockwork? Well that was today! I did 2 dives with 2 French men and an Aussie guy who were all certified. Mohamed had a guy who was friends with the Finnish group and had a badass camera, the thing looked like an alien creature. CRAZY. The first dive was to my love, Cedar Pride. Everyone loved it, it truly is magnificent. I’ve been reading up on the vessel and found out some more interesting stuff about it. It was first built in 1964 in Spain called ‘Mone Dos’ and it is 74 metres long weighing 1,161 tonnes. In July 1982 she arrived at the port of Aqaba and on the 2^nd August a fire started and spread rapidly through the engine room claiming the lives of two crew members. The fire damage left the Cedar Pride as a write off, although the hull was still intact and she was still afloat. For the next few years she stayed stagnant with nobody claiming responsibility for her mooring and harbour fees. This led to the King of Jordan who had the idea to sink the ship in the hope it would become a great wreck dive and it certainly has! I couldn’t find a better video than this one but you can actually watch the sinking of the ship here on this website:

http://www.aqabadivingseastar.com/dive-sites/aqaba-wrecks/159-cedar-pride.html



The ship is only 130 metres from shore and the maximum depth is just 26 metres! With the shallowest being only 10 metres!

After the Cedar dive we had a 45 minute surface interval and then went off to Japanese Garden where we saw a lovely little puffer fish among other things of course. Unfortunately I couldn’t find the big grouper to take a photo of it but I’m hopefully I will before this week is out!

We packed up all the gear and got back to the dive centre at 2:09pm and we had 2 intro divers who would be with Mohamed and then I had an intro diver and a certified diver. My two guys were Dutch, so they were lovely obviously and they were a couple. The guy was the intro diver and the girl who was called Krystal who was Advanced Open Water. We first had problems with his moustache as it was quite bushy and therefore letting in a little bit of water inside as he submerged his face. But DM (Divemaster) Scanlon sorted the issue out without shaving his moustache off! But I won’t tell you how… A magician never reveals his secrets…


Friday - Return customers!

Due to the fact that I give great customer service the two French guys from yesterday came for two more dives with us! This time we of course changed the dive site to Black Rock and Cable Canyon (I know I called it Cable Valley last Flog but I think that Cable Canyon sounds much cooler). I had my fingers and toes crossed that we would see just half of what I saw when I was with the Spanish woman when I had the turtle octopus sandwich. Unfortunately there were no octopus or turtles to be seen but we did find at least 4 different large clams. Which is strange because when I was with the Spanish woman I didn’t see any clams and of course clams don’t move so we must’ve been distracted by the turtles and octopuses. I got some great videos and photos for them and we went out for drinks in the evening. They were a gay couple(contrary to what most people believe who I have spoken to back home, homosexuality is legal in Jordan) and were a great laugh. The only thing I had to wear was either my work shirt with Aqaba International Dive Center spread across it or a flowery blue shirt. I of course went with the flowery one and they were both wearing blue shirts! We didn't plan it!

We went to Mike’s bar A.K.A. the Irish bar that isn’t Irish. I arrived first and I pre-paid for 3 beers so that I contributed something to the evening and because I was drinking for 30 minutes by myself in the corner of Mike’s because they had to take the rental car back to the shop I went to the toilet early, breaking the seal. I knew that the two guys would take advantage of my broken seal and pay when I was in the toilet, so that’s why I pre-paid for the first 3 beers.



Saturday – What a poo day

The biggest thing that happened today was that I had a poo. The poo itself wasn’t big but I did it in the dive centre, I KNOW. Work poos are always risky and debateable whether they should happen or not but I wouldn’t have been able to hold it for sufficient time to get home as I needed it at midday and I wasn't ave the leave until 8pm. I haven’t had many poos in work you could probably count it on one hand but I think this one takes the cake for most eventful. It was just me and Ahmed in the dive centre as Belal and Mohamed were out with 4 Arab intro divers. Just before dropping the bomb Belal brought some food from his house that his lovely mother made. I ate some humus with bread but the humus had some red powder on it. I didn’t know what the red powder was but it made my bowels feel queasy. A few minutes after Belal and Mohamed left I had to go to drop the kids off at the pool. I went to the loo, dropped my shorts to bake the brownies and relief was strewn across my face. I looked for some tissue and my heart sank as I couldn’t find any. I slid open the door to get Ahmed’s attention and with a gap between the door and wall at about as wide as tic tac I could see Ahmed. I shouted ‘tissue, tissue!’ desperately hoping that he knew enough English to know what tissue meant. He looked in my direction but couldn’t see me and didn’t know what I was saying. I shouted ‘TISSUE TISSUE’ louder… He still didn’t know what I was talking about. This is when I thought all those dirty words I teach him could come in handy. He might know what ‘ass’ means, so I shouted ‘my ass! My ass! Tissue for my ass!’.

He still didn’t know what the hell I was saying so I flung the door open in one smooth sweeping movement and shouted ‘my ass! My ass!’ whilst pointing at my ass and doing a wiping hand motion. I must’ve been there for about 5 minutes shouting ‘my ass! My ass! Tissue! Tissue!’ and doing many different hand gestures and motions BUT HE STILL DIDN’T UNDERSTAND. Either he was doing this to make me feel more uncomfortable than I already was for shits and gigs or he wasn’t bothered about me. I didn’t know which one I would prefer more at this point. I couldn’t stand up for obvious reasons and I didn’t have any internet on my phone to use google translate, fuck you 21^st Century. So I looked around my general area for anything at all to assist me. Tucked away was the empty packet of tissues from the previous roll of toilet paper so I waved it about, pointing at it and saying ‘please you go buy, go buy tissue please, yalla yalla’ (yalla means quickly/ let’s go/ come on). He continued to look at his phone! DUH FUCK. All the while this was happening I couldn’t help but think what would happen if a customer or group of customers walked in who only spoke English looking for a dive. What would Ahmed say to them? He doesn’t speak English and so the only thing he could do was get my attention to talk to them but I would be on the toilet with no chance of standing up. Fortunately after throwing the tissue wrapper out of the toilet Ahmed got up and began walking out of the dive centre. THANK GOD, that could have gone at lot worse… But of course Ahmed wasn’t going to get tissue… He went next door to get the guy who speaks a little bit more English to see what the problem was and to come in to the dive centre and speak to me. Oh yeah Ahmed just bring the whole fucking neighbourhood round to see the crazy white guy on the loo dropping anchor. To be fair though as soon as he got the neighbour the issue with the tissue was resolved and I was a happy chappy

Today I also ended my vegetarian streak out of fear of possible getting giant sores (vaginas) all over my skin like Stan from South Park. So I ate a pretty big burger... I thought I deserved it after my fiasco earlier.


Sunday – Today made me wet.

There was a sandstorm in the morning in Aqaba today. I’m glad of it because there has been a lot of flies lately and the sandstorm kills them. But this is good for a whole bunch of other reasons too but also some bad ones. The good things is that the clouds and sand block out direct sunlight, causing the visibility under the water to be super fantastic. The bad thing is that no customers want to dive ever when there’s a sandstorm, but this could also be seen as a good thing because it means me, Mo, Belal and Ahmed can dive with great visibility without fear of customers possibly swinging around the dive centre! Also the fact that there is no customers means that the dive sites will be deserted.

At about 10am Mo went out with Ahmed and Belal to check out the sea and see if it is calm or not whilst I was in the dive centre. If it was calm then we would dive and Mohamed said that you can see the whole of the Cedar Pride from the edge of Rainbow Reef! Which if I’m not mistaken will mean that we can see at a distance of around 80 metres! That is quite unbelievable and I think Mohamed will be exaggerating a bit as the ship itself is about 74 metres but we shall see!

However before Mohamed returned it started to rain… Although this rain made me feel at home in Liverpool it also brought to me a sudden realisation that I wouldn’t be diving. As it meant that the heavy rain causes more water to flow into the sea and therefore reducing visibility. DAMN. To rub even more salt in the wounds Popcorn time has stopped working! I looked up on the internet and it seems as though the law has caught up to them, much like what happened with Mega Video and Pirate Bay.

But I had some light at the end of the tunnel. Mohamed said 7 words to me that made my heart skip a beat, he said ‘someone has wrote about you on TripAdvisor’. I immediately had sweaty hands and shouted to Mohamed (who was sitting next to me) ‘don’t tell me anymore! I want to read it!’ I’m glad to report that the review is positive and reads a 5 out of 5! the following is what was said about me:

We did two easy shore dives (Cedar Pride and Japanese Garden) with Adam as our dive master. Even though Adam is young he acted with a lot of experience and we felt safe on both well-planned dives. As a bonus he was kind enought to bring his camera and send the pics to us afterwards - great service!

you can check out the full review and other reviews here: http://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g298101-d637773-Reviews-Aqaba_International_Dive_Center-Aqaba_Al_Aqabah_Governorate.html

At around 8:45pm Belal rang me so I picked up the phone and I answered. He wanted me to come out and meet up with his friends to go for a walk and enjoy the evening. I felt like this was code language for ‘pick up some hot girls’ so I asked him, but no he genuinely meant just to go for a nice innocent walk, me and my mind eh. I was debating whether or not to go as my bedtime is to try and fall asleep before 11pm so I wake up fresh every morning and Belal said that we wouldn’t meet up until after 9:30. If of course I go out for drinks which means my bedtime is extended but this was just a walk. I was on the fence of not going and going as I really comfy watching The Flash and to just go all the way to Belal’s house for a walk seemed a bit too much. However I thought back to when I was in Liverpool and what I promised myself which is that I would never turn down an opportunity to go on an outing of any kind or sort. So I agreed with Belal and I said I will call him when I’m close to his house.

I thought it would be a nice idea to cycle to Belal’s house as from what I remember it wasn’t that far away, it was before the dive centre after all so I would get there soon right? I got on the bike and started to ride and within less than about 5 minutes into my journey it started to rain again. I could have turned back as I had only just left the house but from what I remember the dive centre is a 30 minute journey and Belal’s house is less than that so another 10 minutes or so wouldn’t do me much harm. Also the fact that it was raining meant that any roadblocks made with big ol’ logs and pallets couldn’t stand in my way unlike the last Sunday where I got rocks pelted at me from a fiery blaze.

I was cycling for another 10 minutes and I was sure that Belal’s house was near but I wasn’t sure where as all the streets look the same. I was criss-crossing the roads trying to find a point of reference to know where I was but I couldn’t find anything. I could hear my phone ringing and it was Belal. He asked me where I was as I said I would be at his house by 9:50pm at the latest and it was 10pm by this point.

Luckily I can ride the bike with one hand (coz I'm a badass laaa) so I could hold the phone in the other and speak to Belal. Unfortunately my balance isn’t the best and because of the flooded roads many of the grids that drain the water were completely lifted up and therefore open and the grid was laying against the curb. However because of the sheer amount of water flooding the roads I had no way of knowing where exactly the big hole in road was that could swallow me up like that scene on the Vicar of Dibley (watch the scene here

Photos

The bag of rice!
It even came with a zip! (zip means penis in Arabic, I mean it came with a zip to reseal the bag)

I forgot to take a photo of the guys camera but it looked similar to this
... I didn't really forget I just couldn't find an opportunity to take a photo of his camera when he wasn't there and I didn't want to look weird

Scorpion fish!
No it's not well endowed that it is a

A little piccy of Mikes bar...
... I like the décor...

The view from the toilet
After I opened it a bit more

Part the Red Sea...
I had to cross the water to get into the car...

I didn't want to cross this...
... So I went on the pavement