Divemaster Job in Aqaba, Jordan 2nd November - 8th November 2015

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Winter is coming...

Monday - Mucky

I was supposed to dive with Mohamed and Ole today to do some Muck diving! Muck diving is when you dive at a site where nobody really dives because there is so much human waste (litter not poo). There is many things that you can see there that you wouldn’t normally see so I was super excited to go! But instead 2 South African’s turned up. They were a couple in their 70’s and the guy was a veteran diver and his wife just wanted to snorkel. I was a bit concerned as the guy was in his early 70’s and old divers don’t have healthy bodies like they used too! What if he keeled over on the dive! Before I continue I would just like to say that he thankfully didn’t. He had a camera with him with a dive housing and a flash mount. The camera was not as big as Ole’s but it’s not the size! It’s how you use it! He had over 1000 logged dives and I’m sure he has many more as he started to dive at the age of 21. Which coincidentally is the same age as me when I started! For the dives we went to Cedar Pride and Japanese Garden.



Tuesday - Two for Tuesday!

Both dives today were with a Swedish couple and Ahmed joined too for the ride and oh em gee what a ride it was. Well the first dive to Cedar Pride wasn’t anything special as we just stayed at 12 metres because the woman wasn’t a certified diver but she was good enough under the water to be considered as one as she has dived many times before but just isn’t certified. But the second dive was eventful! It began like any other dive to Japanese Garden but I was really hoping that the big grouper would be underneath the pinnacle hiding away… It was there! Aaaahh!! I had my GoPro with me and I was about to take a photo when all of a sudden a big bloody dragon decided to land right next to me! Ok it wasn’t a dragon but it was a very large Small Scale Scorpionfish which was about the size of my arm. I took a few photos of that first of all and then went on to take some of the big grouper. As I pressed the button it didn’t take the photo and instead it said ‘SD card full’. NO. NOT NOW. NO! I was gutted! Maybe this was the scorpionfishes plan all along. To upstage the shy grouper and take my last couple of photos away and on to the scorpionfish.

However I had a cunning plan! But not without its risks. I decided the best plan of action was to leave the grouper where it was as the chances of it leaving the hidy hole were small. I would finish seeing the rest of Japanese Garden whilst deleting some old photos on my memory card and by the time I returned HOPEFULLY it would still be there and I could then take photos of it with my newly freed space. But there was another wrench in my plans though because I was down to one bar of battery on my GoPro and it had been on that for a while so it was only a matter of time before it went to no bars and flashy empty battery. However lady luck was smiling on me because by the time I returned the grouper was still there and I had enough battery remaining. Happy days!

This really would’ve finished up the dives quite well with the Swedes but something had to go wrong. As we were swimming back to the ascent/ descent point I was looking back towards my 3 divers and I saw the woman point at something behind me. I turned around and what I saw made my blood boil. There was a 3 feet high net anchored to the bottom with weights and it was stretched out across at least a 10 metres by 10 metre radius. Many fish were caught in the net and some were still alive trying to struggle free. Now before you start judging me for being all PETA and saying it’s the man’s livelihood to fish, humans have been doing it for thousands of year’s blah blah blah. The site that we are at is a Marine Protected site. Which makes it illegal for this man to be fishing here and the fish that you can catch there are small and besides he’s taking away my livelihood because if there’s no fish nobody will dive!

The Real Madrid and Paris Saint-Germain game was on tonight and kick off was 9:45pm Jordanian time so me, Belal and Ahmed were planning on going out to a local pool table place that shows all the football. On our way to it Belal asked me if I was good at *he then did some chest compressions in the air* I looked at him bemused and replied yes. He took me a few steps back and there was a man inside a dive centre on the floor with towels around him and puddles of some liquid. There were about 4 or 5 people standing over him and I thought to myself are they practicing their EFR training? We went inside and Belal was speaking to them in Arabic so I didn’t know what was being exchanged from both sides. We all walked over to the guy who was unconscious and there was a guy kneeling over him shaking him quite aggressively because the casualty wasn’t responding to him and he appeared to be his friend. The casualty’s eyes were open and extremely bloodshot looking directly straight upwards but not focusing on anything and he was lying on his back with puke pouring from the sides of his mouth. I could tell that he was really struggling to breath because of the vomit in his mouth. I said ‘Yalla yalla’ which means ‘let’s go’ or ‘quickly’ to the guy who was kneeling over the casualty. I needed to remove him from the situation as he was in the way. I asked the 5 guys what the casualties name was but I won’t say what it is on my blog. I was saying his name over and over again to try and get some kind of movement from him. I asked Belal to ask him in Arabic if he can move his eyes but there was still no response. I then said to Belal to keep on talking to him in Arabic and ask his friends if they have called an ambulance whilst I put him in the recovery position. His body was very stiff but I managed to lie him on his side with his airway open. When I did turn him lots puke poured out from his mouth and he started convulsing, puking and coughing some more all over the floor. By this point there was another pool of stomach contents around his head and his friends started to wipe it and his mouth with a towel. There was nothing more I could do other than wait with him until the paramedics arrived as he was now breathing much more easily. After about 5 minutes the casualty started to move his head and he appeared to be semi-conscious. Not long after the paramedics arrived and I went to go and thoroughly clean my hands over and over in the dive centre’s toilets. When I came back the paramedics had already left. I asked Belal where they went and he said ‘They’re assholes! They just left!’ There was nothing more that I could do for the casualty so I just told his friends to keep checking that he is breathing every five minutes, make sure his airway is open and if his situation worsens call 911 again or come and find me as the pool place wasn’t far away.

His friends thanked me and we left the dive centre to watch the match. The one thing that annoyed me about what just happened was not getting some puke on my feet, not the fact that the reason he was like that was because of drugs and he is a diver (his friends told me and that’s why I didn’t say the guy’s name) but it was the fact that at least one of the guys out of the casualty’s 5 friends was a diver and is always taking out customers on dives. Meaning that he doesn’t have first aid training, yet I always see him at the beach taking out Europeans and Jordanians alike. My mind can only think what if he is alone at the beach with a diver he just took out and they’re not breathing or something, he wouldn’t be able to do anything. Really fucking stupid.

Moving on at the pool place called Istanbul café we played only one game as we got there a bit late because of what happened in the dive centre. Belal won the game fair and square. But he added some strange rules to it where you can only pot certain balls in certain pockets so I blame my defeat on that. After the game we watched the match until just after midnight. Real Madrid won 1 – 0 but PSG had way too many chances to score, Real were quite lucky! Pretty much everyone in Istanbul café supported PSG… I learnt this the hard way as when Real scored only me and two or three other guys cheered. Belal and Ahmed both were supporting PSG. Every time PSG would miss a shot (which was a lot) Ahmed would bite MY leg out of frustration! What the fuck? It was starting to get a bit weird and people were looking at us so Belal told him to stop before they thought we were ‘special friends’.

Wednesday – What happened?
No dives… literally nothing. Nothing at all today. But Belal told me a funny story that Ahmed told him in Arabic. Apparently when Ahmed went home last night he puked because he remembered when the guy was puking in the dive centre! He was also sick when he was in the dive centre but he did it in the toilet. I didn’t even know he did that! I don’t know what he will be like when he does the rescue course. I have Quaker Oats in my apartment so I really want to make some fake vomit for when he does practice scenarios… I need to prepare him for every eventuality.

Although diving was in short supply today, what wasn’t was the coffee’s. Speaking just a little bit of Arabic can get you really far. I have had free coffee on most days by just muttering the words ‘hello, how are you?' in Arabic to the coffee guy day after day. I know the way I pronounce it is probably wrong and I don’t know more than even 20 words but the Jordanian people are really astounded when I speak any Arabic and very grateful too.



Thursday & Friday – Merged the two days together as they were both uneventful!

Thursday was supposed to be a busy day but the weather has different plans. 2 ladies who live in Amman but originally from Spain were supposed to come down to Aqaba as one of them was doing her Open Water course and the other one was doing her Advanced Open Water course but they did not show up! They were recommended to us by the Spanish who were here around a month or so ago. But they were not answering any calls or WhatsApp’s from Mohamed. We sussed out that the reason that they are not here is because of the weather in Amman and they were probably stranded. There is waist high water flowing through Amman, some of it at considerable speed moving bins, cars (with people inside) and even some vans. From the videos that Mohamed has shown me it looks like a fast flowing Willy Wonka chocolate river. Augustus Gloop wouldn’t last 10 seconds in there. But all joking aside it would be fucking terrifying to be trapped there and there’s even been 4 or 5 people killed so far. Therefore we didn’t do anything today besides clean some regulators and other odd jobs around the dive centre. Friday was just another quiet day in Aqaba.



Saturday - Bloody face

Why all in one day again! We had 11 people come in today for a dive! Unbelievable that’s more today than every other day this week combined. There was 4 intro divers from France, 4 intro divers from various parts of Europe and I had 3 certified divers. One of the guys was called Jurgen! Klopp was not his last name but his is the only name I can remember for that reason. The first dive was at Black Rock with the Swedish guy from Tuesday and the open water guy who worked on the Harry Potter films who was here about a week or so ago.

2^nd dive was a bit nasty as we were with the 4 intro divers from France and one of the guys’ mask kept on filling up and he had to clear it after every breath. Mohamed then told us to swap masks at the surface which I don’t really have a problem with but he had a little bit of blood in his mask! Nothing bad happened, intro divers do tend to get blood coming out of their nose every now and again. It’s because on their first dive they can forget to equalise by pinching their nostrils and gently trying to blow through them and then they try to force equalisation. For example at 7 metres if a diver hasn’t equalised their ears, they will need to ascend in order to do so. However a new diver does not want to leave the group and they will try to force equalisation which ruptures the inner lining and capillaries of the nose septum and sinus, causing the nosebleed. So I had to swap my mask with ol’ bloody face.

The third and final dive was with just the open water guy and Jurgen Klopp. The swede didn’t dive again as he was flying later on tonight around midnight and so it wouldn’t be safe for him to fly. The dive was good despite no dastardly Whale Sharks. On the return journey I had to rush back to the ascent/ descent point as the open water guy had to be at the bus station by 3pm and it we got out of the water just before 2:30pm. When I got back to the beach Belal hadn’t taken back any of the equipment to the van! So I was mad hurrying to get all the gear squared away. I was shouting ‘Yalla! Yalla!’ to Belal to make him hurry but he was going at a Jordanian pace which isn’t very quick. Causing me to be more assertive and shout the word yalla even more. I think I hit a nerve as he was moody for the rest of the day.

In the evening after diving the Liverpool match was on… Well I thought it was anyway. On the fixture list I brought with me from LFC it says the match between Crystal Palace and Liverpool will be played on the 7^th November. So I went to Mike’s bar but after speaking to a guy outside of it I found out it wasn’t open until 7pm and kick-off was at 5pm so I needed to find somewhere else. I went to another restaurant bar place which is on the other side of the Dive Centre near where I get my Falafel. I said to them if they will put on the Liverpool match for me and they said ‘Manchester?’. Did it sound like I said Manchester… I repeated myself and said ‘No, Liverpool vs. Crystal Palace!’ They understood and said ‘yes sir, no problem’. I went back to the dive centre to pack up my stuff and walk back with my bag to get some falafel as I didn’t want to pay 8 JD for a meal when I can get more Falafel than my belly can handle for 1.50 JD. I ate the falafel around the corner from the restaurant bar place where I would watch my footy. It was by this point getting to 5pm and I only took one bite of my Super Shrak (name of falafel wrap) and I had two whole ones to eat. I ate them down at record speed and it was 5:05pm. Still with a mouthful of food I walked into my chosen venue and mumbled ‘Salam!’ (hello). The staff member who I’d been speaking to then told me that the match wasn’t until tomorrow on the 8^th November. What?! I was a little annoyed because I could’ve enjoyed my Falafel a bit more. But oh well! At least I still got to go home early (early being just after 5pm). For my tea I couldn’t be bothered cooking so I just had cereal and watched Game of Thrones from Season 1. I’m caught up with the series (no spoilers from the books please) but I haven’t seen the first season in ages. I feel really bad because I’m watching an episode I’m thinking to myself ‘everyone in this scene is going to die and I know how they will die’. I also really love the Starks and I know what is going to happen to them. It’s a sad, sad situation.



Sunday

I had two dives with guy from Denmark, his wife didn’t dive or even snorkel at the risk of becoming a human submarine (She is pregnant). Cedar Pride and Japanese Garden were the dive sites. At the Surface Interval we were chatting about where I am from, Liverpool! He said he had been there many times and to Anfield and I said did you go on a tour or watch the match and he said both! I was amazed! He went 2 years ago so he might have even been on my tour! Amazing! I said that I watched the Istanbul final last week (that was a lie I watched it a few months ago) because it was such an amazing match and he said that he was there at the Ataturk stadium! Ah ma gawd! He got goosebumps (goosecunts) when he was talking about the fans starting to sing YNWA at half time. I told him the story about when my dad came home from the pub! The story goes that I was watching the match on the T.V. with a few of my school friends. My dad came home from half time distraught and moody. To make him feel better I said ‘hey dad! We might win!’. He didn’t look amused and he went on to say that if Liverpool win he will give me and all 5 of my friends with me £10. It was the best amount of money he’s ever given away.

So after the shenanigans from yesterday I thought that finally watching the Liverpool game would round off my week nicely. First of all I was sat down in my own booth in the restaurant/ bar and I had the whole room to myself! Very nice! I was given the menu with a selection of food and drinks on it. But I couldn’t see any alcohol. I WANTED A BEER. I haven’t had one in a while and I was watching football! I was disappointed. I was then moved outside to a long row of tables and chairs with a big projector in front of me but I felt out of place and it felt too big as I was the only one there… We didn't win the game but I still enjoyed watching it, we seem to be moving in the right direction as a team. I did also like Klopp’s interview about the fans leaving after the 82^nd minute goal from Crystal Palace. He said he felt ‘lonely’ and to be honest the amount of money it is now for a ticket why wouldn’t you stay for the full 90 plus stoppage time? It’s a bit odd.

I don’t want to leave this week on a downer so here’s a picture of Ahmed Shower staring at some birds he bought for his house. Hasta luego caimans.

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Photos

This is what i eat most days
It's Falafel and the name of it is called Super Shrak... It's even more super because I made it have a cape

Ahmed's birds...
Either he really likes them or wants to kill them judging by the look on his face