Divemaster Job in Aqaba, Jordan 26th October - 1st November 2015

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It’s quiet… Too quiet.



Monday – Brought to you by DHL

I GOT SOME SWEETIES TODAY. Namely from mi madre via the long awaited DHL parcel which was actually in Amman for about a week awaiting further address information… But it is here! Of course the parcel didn’t come all this way just to deliver some sugar snacks from Liverpool. I thought that a nice book would make me look more grown-up in front of my new work colleagues. The book is a fish identification book of over 1200 species of underwater life. The book is super interesting! Not only does it have the names of the fish but it has the habits of them, where to find them, average size, whether they are hazardous etc. From the photo you can see the extent of treats I received and I am very happy to share with my Jordanian friends but I think I will take them home with me and ration them out daily because otherwise they will be gobbled up faster than an obese burger in the reaching distance of Adam Richman.

We unfortunately had no divers for the whole duration of this day! When divers do come though we will be prepared as we have some very nice Ikea bags which was brought all the way over from Denmark (I think, don’t kill me Linda if I got that wrong) from a Danish woman (Durrr) but she was told to bring them here from Linda, who was the Finnish woman here a few weeks ago. The Finnish people are still making ripples in Aqaba!

In the evening a 5 person strong Swedish family came in looking for a snorkelling trip to do tomorrow. I gave them the sales pitch and they seemed very happy! They gave me a 20JD deposit and off they went. After they left I left! As it was 8pm and that is the Dive Centre’s closing time. The taxi ride home was a bit… Strange. The taxi driver was really friendly… Maybe a little too friendly. He asked me many personal and frankly fucking odd questions. One of them was that he asked me if I cooked. WTF?! Do I cook? I’ve just met the man. I’m not about to cook some food for him or with him or whatever! He went on to ask me for my phone number. I felt like I had to give it to him as he knew where I lived. He said ‘if you want to go out for coffee with me or if you don’t want to that’s fine! But give me your number’. Not the most romantic way to be asked out to be honest. I said that I don’t know my phone number so he gave me his and asked me to give him a one bell. I complied as we weren’t at my house yet. Otherwise I would’ve darted it and never looked back. I one belled him and he looked super happy. I said goodbye and went to give him some money but he said that it was for free. I know finally know what it’s feels like to be a hot girl who gets a taxi home after a night out with a creepy taxi man. It feels really fucking weird.

When I got out the cab back home Ahmed Qatawneh and Mo’s uncle were sitting outside Ahmed’s apartment which I walk past to get to my apartment. I stopped to chat for a while about life and what my job was before arriving here which was a Tour Guide for Liverpool Football Club. We got on to the subject of diving inevitably. I said that my first dive was back in 2010 and then after that I dived in 2013. But in March this year after my 21^st birthday I was thinking of a job that I would really enjoy but would also allow me to see the world and live in a different culture. I then explained that I watched a documentary on SCUBA diving and I thought I’d become a Divemaster.

He asked me where I first dived and I replied that it was in Sharm El Sheikh. He told me to repeat what I said because he didn’t understand what I said. I more clearly said ‘Sharm El Sheikh’ and he said ‘oh! In Egypt?!’ He then went on to say that the way I said it made it sound like I said an ‘old man’s ass’. I don’t know if he was messing with me or not so I played it off by laughing with him and then saying ‘So yeah my first dive was in an old man’s and I loved it so much I wanted to do it more’. I could see the cogs in his head turning as he was trying to figure out what the feck I just said. After a few moments he realised and we all laughed together harmoniously. I thought I would leave on a high so I said my goodbyes and said I was going to eat some food and sleep. Adios!



Tuesday – Swedish Snorkelling

Mohamed spoke to me in the morning and apparently the Swedish Snorkelers who came in last night requested that I go with them. I didn’t have any dives to do so I went along with Mohamed in the van as we were meeting with them at their hotel to pick them up because they were staying near the beach. I brought along my GoPro for great customers service reasons and in case we saw something special! There was the mum and dad and 3 daughters, one was about 8 and the other two were around 15 or 16. They were teaching me some Swedish phrases and apparently ‘Hello’ in Swedish is ‘Hey’! Very easy to remember! What are the chances of that? Although it was just snorkelling it felt nice to get back in the water after a few days of being just in the Dive Centre. Also considering that we could only stay on the surface we saw quite a lot! Highlights being a grey moray eel and a shortfin dwarf lionfish (at least I think it was). As I was taking a photo of it its fins started to branch out and show off a beautiful display of orange, black and yellow. NICE.

The van got a little bit of ‘Pimp My Ride’ going on in the afternoon. We finally put on the ‘Aqaba International Dive Center’ across both sides of it with our logo. The printer guy also looked at plans for my stamp that I would use instead of my signature on peoples logbooks! The stamp should be ready in a week. The design is a little bit too complicated and needs to be simplified but he said he will see what he can do! I want to include a map of Jordan on it because I think it would be a good idea to have a map of the country of each place I will work in as a Divemaster and an Instructor one day. It is kind of a collection that I can keep on adding to! I also want to have my name in Arabic which is what is written on the top because I think it would be nice to have on my stamps so when I go to other countries I can do the same. The number 50 which is on the photo is the days after I became a fully-fledged Divemaster so I think that will be a nice little addition too!

When I got home Ahmed gave me some food cooked for me by his wife! Whenever Mo or Ahmed give me food I am overwhelmingly overjoyed. It’s so awesome as it is ten times better than what I can make (at the moment) and it is ready instantly!



Wednesday – Warning the first row may get wet.

I woke up this morning at about 2am and my stomach just felt awful. I had the feeling of what you have before you puke your guts up. I stayed lying in bed hoping it would pass and I could get back to sleep but of course this didn’t happen... Now I’ve been wondering whether or not I should write what I’m about to write down here on my flog (fun blog) because it is rather disgusting. I have decided not to write about it because there isn’t a nice way to write what happened and people read my blog including my Nan and Grandad among others. So sorry not sorry.

We had a few divers in the morning and they were nice guys, they were Arab so Mohamed, Belal and Ahmed took them out for some intro dives as it was their first… ONLY JOKNG. I’ll talk about the ‘toilet’ episode as it’s my blog brahhhh if you don’t want to read it, don’t read it. So after getting out of bed I waddled on over to the toilet like a constipated penguin with an arched back. After plopping my bottom on the toilet seat I hoped that squeezing out a Mr. Hanky would be enough to make me feel better. After letting out some questionable contents from my body, the queasiness in my stomach had not changed. Breathing in and out, breathing in and out, I was concentrating hard on not being sick as I didn’t want to get off the toilet to puke in it because of course I would get some splashback from what was already in there... Fortunately however I turned to my right and there was my shower, clean as a whistle and located in a prime spot for me. It was very close and it had high curved sides meaning that the ‘splash zone’ would be marginally contained. I didn’t want to force myself to puke up as I could already feel it coming and why make myself feel more uncomfortable? But you never exactly know when until just before it happens. I was still trying to let out more brown bears from the cave to relieve the pain from my stomach but the ache was still there. Therefore with my eyes shut I felt my body prepare itself for what was to come. My head was now over the shower drain ready and awaiting the inevitable. I involuntarily arched my back like Quasimodo and my face probably looking a little bit like him, I let out the first wave of my stomach contents. Over and over again I released the Kraken. This carried on until my stomach was completely empty and bear in mind I had a big meal cooked for me by Ahmed’s wife. Therefore I was filling up the shower faster than the little drain could handle and so it was becoming a small pool! Also bear in mind that I was dropping anchors at the same time as you kind of lose control of your body when puking. So like Darth Maul’s lightsabre, stuff was coming out at both ends. Eventually and thankfully the convulsions stopped and I was an empty vessel, ready to recover.

Now for the difficult part which is the actual clean up job. The shower drain has very small holes which meant it was a bit more of a challenge for me to get Ahmed’s food down the shower drain than it was to get it down my throat. After sloshing about the mess with added water from my shower it started to slowly disappear away. By this point I was an absolute state. Mainly my feet and the lower part of my legs had most of the splashback but also the shower itself too and around the lower part of the bathroom tiles. After standing up off the toilet I cleaned up the curved rim of the shower and myself afterwards. It was now about 4:20am and I was wide awake. FML. I put on some South Park to ease my sorrows and hopefully soothe me to sleep, although I’m not entirely sure how long it took me to get to sleep.

I woke up at 7:30am as I always do but despite last night’s drama I was surprisingly not tired! Maybe my body has been storing some reserve fuel for me seen as though I go to bed at a good hour 90% of the time. I think the worst part about last night is that I wasted so much food, and it was delicious food too. But at least I had the joy of eating it! Don’t worry though I’m not turning bulimic.

As I said we had divers today who went with Mohamed as they were Arab so I didn’t dive, BOO HOO. We told them to be here for 12pm but they ended up turning up here at 11:30 because customers. Damn customers. We assembled their equipment and Belal, Ahmed, Mohamed and the four of them went for a dive at Rainbow Reef! Meanwhile I was at the Dive Centre writing le blog mainly but also practicing Arabic with the guy who provides the general area of where our dive centre is with coffee. He carries it on this lovely little tray that is really fancy. In the evening 2 guys came in looking for a dive and I said yes of course be here at 9:30am as they were driving. As it stands at the moment we have 7 divers tomorrow which is just ridiculous! For nearly the past week we have had no divers, today we have 4 and tomorrow we have 7?! It’s always the way I suppose.


Thursday – Why all in one day?

We had divers today! Altogether we had 7 divers consisting of 3 couples and Ole who is the guy with the badass camera. For 6 days we have had no divers and now we had 7… DUH FUCK?! I dove with Ole this time round and so I was able to witness his camera in action. AMAZING. The first dive we did was to Japanese Garden and we went a bit deeper than I usually take people because this guy had dived with us before and he is a Divemaster after all. We went to the Pinnacle which is where the big grouper is located and I was praying that we could see her but alas it wasn’t meant to be and she was nowhere to be found. What we did see was the usual grey moral eels, pufferfish, porcupine fish, nudibranchs (specifically the African Chomodorid and Pyjama Chomodorid but there are 32 other species in the Red Sea).

The second dive was to go underneath Cedar Pride and to the platform which is the concrete platform that was used in aid of sinking the Cedar Pride back in ’85. Again nothing too phenomenal to see except for some Spotted Shrimpfish! There were 5 or 6 of them in total but when I first saw them I thought they were floating blades of seagrass. Usually there is some floating seagrass that get plucked up by some fish but as I was watching them they weren’t moving a part from one another or going in their own individual direction, they were staying together. As I moved in closer and closer I looked at them and it truly was amazing as I’ve never seen them before. The way that they swim is upright so they look tall and skinny (like me) but they really reminded me of Bobba Fett’s ship in Star Wars, what with the really bad aerodynamically flight that ship has and the amount of drag that these fish must have with that way that they swim as they aren’t very well streamlined. We went under the ship and turned left towards the platform taking many photos along the way. Both of our dives together today lasted for over an hour so he could get some good snaps and also to give us both more time to see some cool shiz.

Mohamed left the dive centre at about 5:15pm today as he had to take his kids to a 5:30 football match. He returned with his two kids, Nouris and Ahmed at about 7:15 and we all stayed in the DC until 8pm when it was time to close. His kids are boss and they make me laugh. I’m not entirely sure the extent of the English language they know because they are still a little bit shy when talking to me, but every high five I get from them brings them more out of their shell.

Before I left the DC (Dive Centre) I ordered a coffee from the coffee guy who brings people coffee (I KNOW HOW CRAZY?). I said to him that I would like a Nescafe with biscuits. I didn’t know what biscuit was in Arabic so instead of saying the word I just gave him the ‘dunking’ gesture when you put a biscuit in a hot beverage. He didn’t understand so it was google translate to the rescue. To my surprise however ‘biscuit’ in Arabic is pronounced ‘Buscuit’. He came back with two different types, strawberry and chocolate. I went with the chocolate as they look a bit manlier than the bright pink strawberry ones. He gave me my treats and left and as he walked out the door he patted his head whilst looking at me. I have no idea why but I patted mine to in order to be polite. There we were patting our heads while looking and smiling at each other. I think he thought I knew what it meant but I had no idea.

After using google translate to aid me in getting ‘buscuits’ I ran out of internet! NO! Without internet what am I to do? Mohamed changed the Dive Centre’s internet password because every bugger uses it. I would have to wait until the 1^st of November on Sunday when it renews. But I have no downloaded films or T.V. shows so my nights at home will be very boring.

When I got home I tried to cook some food but I was out of gas! They use propane gas tanks here imported from somewhere. I rang Ahmed Qatawneh and he said I could cook whatever I wanted at his place until I got a new gas tank. Such a nice guy. He even gave me some of his wife’s famous rice that I adore and really want to know how to make one day.



Friday - Longest dive ever brahh

I dived with Ole (pronounced like the skin care brand Olay btw) today and we saw 2 octopuses today which makes my total number of octopuses to 4 and they have all been at Black Rock. The first dive was 74 minutes long with maximum depth of 18 metres but we spent most of the dive below 10 metres, but this time makes this dive the longest dive I’ve ever done. Obviously Ole had his big badass camera so he took some photos of a whole bunch of aquatic life and in Black Rock it is teeming with it.

We spent around 10 minutes at the beginning of the dive at the base of the jetty because it is just so beautiful. There is so much to see from large schools of fish and pipefish to the slightly larger lionfish and moray eels. After we left the jetty area we headed right towards the Black Rock site and that is where we found the octopus. They are so shy! Therefore I can never really get a good photo of it and I didn’t want to poke it to bring it out of the reef because that isn’t nice! So we said goodbye and moved on to try and find something more fantastic. We did find another octopus, a large puffer fish and various types of eels.

We finished the dive at 74 minutes and headed back to shore where Ole’s wife was sunbathing and Mohamed was chatting to this guy from the Berenice hotel who lets us in to dive there. The Berenice Tourist Beach Club is the official name but it’s basically a hotel with its grounds over the Black Rock site. Also there is a massive reef structure running along the coast of the hotel, which would make you think that the people at this Beach Club would have a look. But every time I have been there most of the sunbeds have been taken up but nobody is in the water lapping up the sights of the underwater world.

On the second dive we headed left towards Cable Canyon but because Ole covers less ground on a dive because he stops to take photos on his camera I knew we wouldn’t actually make it to the big cables. We did just make it to a place I have nicknamed ‘The Shire’ because it looks like the rolling hills of The Shire in Lord of the Rings. We found 6 squid but they were very quick and because my GoPro has a wide camera lens I couldn’t really get a clear photo of them but I saw them! I promise! We made this dive last a little bit shorter as we had to be back at the shop to meet some customers at 1:30pm so we made it last still a very satisfactory 51 minutes, got to make the people happy. Ole’s camera just looks awesome underwater and we were talking and he told me that he has added bits to it here and there and it altogether has cost him around 8,000 Euros. Jeeze Louise! I don’t think I could afford one of those anytime soon.

Back at DC HQ we were waiting for the customers to arrive but only one out of the 3 turned up! It was an Arab girl who was a Divemaster and so it was just Mohamed who went diving with her to Cedar Pride and Japanese Garden. Meanwhile I was left to read my fish book and learn some of the Latin names of them because why not? I sound super smart when I say Arothron Stellatus rather than the English name which is Starry Puffer or Balistapus Undulatus rather than Orange-striped Triggerfish.

It was me and Belal in the Dive Centre in the evening and we were talking and we planned an impromptu social gathering between mutual friends and acquaintances. This is me trying to sound smart again when actually it was just a bunch of guys having a sit off in my house. Belal brought a few of his mates and Ahmed as well (the dive centre Ahmed not the first diver in Jordan Ahmed who’s the father of Mohamed). Ahmed’s surname is actually pronounced ‘shower’, no for real I’m being serious. I was laughing to myself when Mohamed was typing it in to PADI for his Open Water card and qualification. But I’ve given him a new nickname which is Mr FLAP, it’s an acronym. F stands for . L stands for lazy which is pretty self-explanatory. A is and P is panic because he has panicked before when some water has got inside his mask.

They all arrived at mi casa at around 9:30pm. This gave me over an hour to tidy up my house, which it was in a much need of. I set up a table in the middle with a big cup so we could play Ring of Fire with my ‘This is Anfield’ playing cards. I brought my mini fridge from my bedroom in to my lounge or drawing room if you’re posh. This was of course to allow the beers to be cool and the maximum refreshment for when we drank them. My mini fridge is very cold and the perfect beer storing temperature. We played Ring of Fire and I was explaining the rules along the way to Belal who would translate it in to Arabic for his friends. Needless to say it was a slow start but once we got going they would start putting their hands up to heaven when they flipped over the number 7 and beginning ‘Ace waterfall’ without me reminding them what it meant.



Saturday – Move aside David Beckham

Just the one dive today with Ole! We went to the Cedar Pride location as we had 2 intro divers from Britain along for the ride too and they wanted to see the ship. So Mohamed took out the two intros and I went out with Ole again to keep things the same and comfortable. Ole brought his camera of course but this time he had a wide angle lens to give a fishbowl look on the photos and it is much better when taking wide photos such as a photo of a shipwreck. I was the model for today and he took photos of me at various points at the wreck whilst holding a small light from the centre of my body. This is because I was a dark silhouette and the light gives it more character? I don’t know why you shine a small light but I did as he told me to and said that this is what you do! I suppose you just look cooler. The photos that he took he will send to me and they should be on his website in a few weeks as he needs to edit them so I will add them to my Facebook page.

On the dive we saw 2 turtles! Well I don’t actually know if it was 2 turtles as it was at two separate times with the first time being at the beginning of the dive and the 2^nd time being at the end of it. On both Ole took photos of me next to her and I can’t wait to get those. The second time we saw the turtle it was swimming past and away from us so we were trying to swim alongside it to get the photo. Ole was giving me signals to go up and go down to get the perfect photo. No doubt he did get some good photos and I can’t wait to see them! We would have got more but we were starting to become low on air and we didn’t want to drown on account of the turtle. So we concluded we had to head back to shore and so that we did.



Sunday – Games with coffee man (I should really learn his name)

A guy from Minnesota, U.S. came in today looking for a snorkelling trip but he was our only customer and so I did a spot of upselling. I convinced him to go on a try dive as it really is more worthwhile. I took him for the dive as I am a DSD Leader and he really enjoyed it! He has been snorkelling before but not actually SCUBA diving so he was a wee bit worried which is to be expected. I was checking his SPG to see how much air he had in his tank and he consumed around the same amount of air as me! He does triathlons so he is a fit but for an intro diver he did very well! A natural you might say!

For the rest of the day we had story time. Me, Belal and Ahmed all sat round the table outside and I went through my fish book pointing out the most common fish that we see on the dives at Rainbow Reef as that is where they will dive the most. I gave them the behaviours, names and whether they were poisonous or not. It was educational to say the least and they couldn’t believe the amount of poisonous things that are under the water and the fact that you can even die from some of them. Don’t be scared now I’ll be safe I don’t touch anything underwater especially if I don’t know exactly what it is. The rule of diving is if you don’t know what it is don’t touch it as it could be harmless or be very dangerous. An example of this is if you look at a picture I took of my book at the Textile cone. That can and has ‘caused many human fatalities’. So yeah… No touch!

I ordered another Nescafe and ‘buscuits’ for story time and I did the patting head to the coffee guy. I asked Belal what it means when someone pats their head while looking at you. Belal told me that if someone does this it means that they respect you a lot. NICE. I then tried to make the coffee guy do the coordination game where you rub your belly in a circular motion and pat your head at the same time. I don’t mean to brag but I do it pretty well but he couldn’t do it. Belal and Ahmed tried to do it and even they couldn’t do it! We all had a giggle together. Whenever the coffee guy sees me we do the ‘rub belly, pat head’ thing. It’s our greeting to one another rather than a handshake or wave.

Until next time. Bye bye caimans.

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Photos

My lil' idea for my stamp
I forgot to put on my instructor number... Ooops

... After
I think we need a bigger logo as it looks a bit small!

The coffee guy!
Apologies for the photo but I assure you he does have the top of his head