Divemaster Job in Aqaba, Jordan 9th November - 15th November 2015

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Dribs and Drabs



Monday – Good Irish people

I dove with Belal today with an Irish couple. They were good people and I expected them to be as they come from the ‘goodest country’ in the world. See this link for more details about the ‘goodest’ countries in the world and how they help mankind: http://www.goodcountry.org/overall

I do prefer Belal to Ahmed when I’m diving as much as I like telling Ahmed words that are incorrect in English like saying ‘bench’ is ‘dick’ and teaching him the phrase ‘sit on the dick’. I much more enjoy speaking in English to Belal as he speaks it very well. It is also much more easier preparing the equipment and talking to customers all together as one big happy family. Another thing that I prefer Belal for is the actual diving itself as he can stay in fucking formation. I don’t want military precision in the swimming formation of us when we are underwater but I know where Belal is at all times as he stays on one side of me. Whereas Ahmed could be either side of me. Many times I have seen him swim straight past in front of me circling like a shark and other times I have felt the sweet tickling of bubbles from him when he is under me. We went to Cedar Pride and Japanese Garden for the dives and mr friggin’ Scorpio (the big red Small Scale Scorpionfish) was chilling near to where the big grouper usually is.




Tuesday – What a palaver

Today I have called tits up Tuesday. The day consisted of 3 very spread out dives because of lacking equipment. I packed my own equipment and I packed Simon’s who dove with us on Sunday and I packed Mohamed’s. Belal and Ahmed were in charge of packing 2 divers who we had today who were intro divers. The site was Black Rock as Simon had already been to Cedar Pride and Japanese Garden and it is nice for intro divers so win win. We arrived at Black Rock, unloaded the gear and counted only 4 BCD’s including mine and Mohamed’s when all together me, Ahmed, Simon, Mohamed and the two intro all needed BCD’s as we were diving, totalling 6 BCD’s. We were at Black Rock and there wasn’t another dive centre here so me, Ahmed and Simon had to dive while Mo and the two intro waited at shore. To be honest I should have checked the van before we left and I usually do and 100% of the time everything is there, but today it wasn’t.

Simon had booked 2 dives with us but we had to have a very long surface interval because Mo had to take out the intro which typically can take over an hour which includes the dive itself but also the time before when you practice breathing at the surface etc.

Me and Simon were talking and we got along really well. His wife is pregnant and was back at the hotel pool area whilst he was here so this is his last holiday for a long time. I found a stick on the ground and picked it up. From the way it was shaped it looked a little bit like a pistol and I said to Simon ‘remember when you were a kid and you would play ‘army’ with sticks you find’. He smiled and nodded and it led on to a conversation about the generation of future children and his child which is on the way. He was a clever man and he has agreed with his wife that they will not have an iPad child. This is where you have a kid that is pacified with an iPad or something equivalent to shut them up or to keep them occupied. He said to me that he is planning on getting a dog so that he will go on walks with it and all go outside for family walks together.

Mohamed eventually surfaced and from his body language I could tell that he saw something nice. He saw a Manta Ray. Motherfucker! He said he saw it right at the beginning of the dive so me and Simon must’ve just missed it. Simon didn’t look happy but I prayed to the old gods and the new (too much Game of Thrones) that we would see something special. We did see something nice but it wasn’t until the end of the dive so for 90% of it I was just thinking ‘DAMN WHY COULDN’T WE SEE A MANTA’. We didn’t see a Manta but instead we saw an octopus that was completely in the open and not shy at all! I took some sweet ass photos of her. Amazing!

Returning back to the shop we had 2 intro divers waiting for us so we headed straight back out again to Rainbow Reef to do the dives. This time I checked the equipment and all was well. I took the both of them out for the dive and they were very good! I don’t know whether it was because they were naturally talented divers or it was because of me! I hope it was the latter! Hehe.

Back at the centre Simon came to get his photos of the octopus and other things that we saw. We chatted a bit more and this was his last day in Aqaba so we said our farewells and I wished him luck with the baby. I also managed to say ‘no iPad’s!’ just before he left. I am so funny!



Wednesday - Buzzing

In the middle of the week we tend to not get any divers and this day was no exception. I did get many hot drinks though! Let’s count how many…

The first coffee I had was when I was on the way to the dive centre with Mohamed. It’s really cool how they make it, they have hot stones underneath a big wok? I think it’s a wok. I definitely looks like a wok. Then in the wok they have sand which obviously is super-hot. They put the metal cups in the sand and it heats up the coffee inside! Cool brah!

The second coffee was when I went to see Mohamed’s friend upstairs who owns a photo studio. He took some photos of me and I took a coffee. He took some photos of me on a swing that he has in his studio with a backdrop of some leafy things and he took some more outside with me looking off into the distance looking epic and looking straight down the lens of the camera. We got chatting as you do and the coffee guy who brings me Nescafé and biscuits in the evenings brought us some tea in a kettle and left the kettle with us so I managed to have 2 cups to myself!

The third coffee was in a barbers that Belal took me too. I couldn’t refuse even though this was the 5^th hot beverage I have had in about 6 hours. He gave me a facial too, he put on some cream thing that kept on crumbling into my coffee and reminded me of the scene in Mrs Doubtfire where he puts his face in the pie and it drips into the tea that Robin Williams makes for the old lady who visits. Fortunately the crumbly bits weren’t as big as the one in Mrs Doubtfire otherwise I wouldn’t have drank it. The barber was a nice guy and because I was with Belal he gave me discount! I think it was about 3 JD which is £3. What a bargain a haircut, coffee and a facial all for £3. That was the end of my hot bev’s 5 in total in the space of 5 hours.




Thursday – Luck

Today was supposed to be mad busy as 25 intro divers reserved places for today. But alas they didn’t come and rang in the morning to reschedule to tomorrow instead. Which is annoying because we purposefully told some divers to come tomorrow instead of today as we are fully booked but now we will have to give them to another dive centre. Instead today we had two divers from Singapore. Both were women and both were intro divers but had dived in the past. They wanted to do 2 dives and to see the shipwreck. They were both good underwater so we made it happen. Cedar Pride has a shallowest point of 10 metres therefore intro divers can go there providing that they have some skill under the water. The two girls did have some skill and they had some luck too. On the first dive which was to Rainbow Reef we saw 2 turtles! They didn’t even know that you could see turtles here so they were really pleasantly surprised. The 2^nd dive was to Cedar Pride and it was a maximum depth of 10 metres again and I had Ahmed with me to assist and keep on an eye on them too which was helpful.

Ahmed cooked lunch for everybody and it was pretty tasty to be fair although I’m not entirely sure of its contents check out the photo.




Friday – 14 *stone* (divers) in a day… Peter Kay

Today was the busiest day ever. We had 14 intro divers instead of 25 as 11 cancelled. I knew that I would be in the water for a long time so I wore my 5mm full suit to brave the ‘icy’ 26 degrees Celsius water. I am glad of it as I spent 3 and a half hours in the water which is longer than the frigging hobbit movie. I didn’t even change my tank as I only needed one because most of the time I was babysitting nervous/ panicked intro divers. Belal and Ahmed were at the shore sending and taking in 5 divers at a time and the last group they would send 4. All of the 14 men who dived with us were doctors from Morocco. They work in a Syrian refugee camp and had a few days break to themselves. I was chatting to one of them after the dives and I said I would like to go and help out in one of the camps. I don’t know what I can do but I’m sure another person to go there and maybe bring toys or something would be appreciative.

To make things go smoother for us Mohamed has gout and it is super painful for him to walk but he couldn’t turn away 14 divers so he soldiered through it. The first 5 to come on down were probably the most problematic. 3 of them were good and good dive almost straight away and one of them looked the absolute spitting image of Barrack Obama. I was humming the stars and stripes in my head when I was looking at him. The two guys who had problems were a real big deal as soon after the dive started one of the guys was complaining about a problem but I didn’t know what the problem was as he didn’t tell me. I kept on asking him what it was but he kept saying ‘nerh’. While I was speaking to him another diver panicked behind me and was freaking out. I inflated his BCD and I took them both back to shallower water while Mohamed took out Obama and his two bodyguards. I spoke to the panicked diver and he panicked because of the sounds of the bubbles. Bubbles are an inevitability with diving and there isn’t much I can do to stop the damn things. So practicing breathing was the best remedy. One at a time I took them down in shallow water to practice breathing fully submerged. I then made them practice swimming to me with the regulator in whilst at the surface of the water. They both seemed calmer and Mohamed took them for the dive and they both enjoyed it as I went with them too for morale support.

The second dive was a bit easier than the first although still I had to hang back with 2 divers while Mohamed went with the other 3. One of the guys was swimming but trying to go really deep really quick without equalising. He was also not looking where he was going and on more than 3 occasions I had to protect his head from someone else tank that he was about to swim into. He wasn’t even looking straight down he was looking at the straps on his chest so I he wasn’t even looking for lil’ fishies.

The third dive was the easiest as we only had 4 divers and Ahmed came along too to have another pair of eyes on everyone. He was close to one guy I was close to the other 3 and Mohamed was leading. One guy called Yusef who was close to Ahmed was having difficulty equalising and I could see this. So I told him to go up a little bit so there was less pressure on his air spaces in his head. Ahmed then grabbed his nose and by that I don’t mean that Ahmed grabbed Ahmed’s nose I mean that Ahmed grabbed Yusef’s nose to equalise. I couldn’t stop laughing!

In the evening I made a HO and by that I mean I made a Halloumi Omelette! I don’t know what else to write about it but it was inspired by Ahmed’s creation from yesterday.




Saturday – Dive. Dive. Play.

The first dive that I did today was with John (open water guy), Ahmed and 2 French people and I had to do tandem (where I hold her tank and swim for her) with the woman of the couple because she just couldn’t get her buoyancy right and I need practice of what to do in those situations other than resort to tandem. When we were at the stern of Cedar Pride I saw a Napoleon fish which for those of you who don’t know is a big freaking fish about 2 metres I was trying to point it out to everyone but I couldn’t find John. I looked all around me but he was nowhere to be seen. To be honest I was a little concerned as although we were at maybe 8 or 9 metres he is still a fresh open water diver. I looked to my right where the French woman was whose tank I was holding and she inhaled. This caused no bubbles of course to rise up and I could see John. The bubbles of the French woman were quite close to me as I was holding her tank and John was behind them which meant whenever the French woman exhaled I couldn’t see him at this point because of where he was. I told John to get back in formation and he did. Everybody is a happy bunny except for John who didn’t see the Napoleon fish. At the end of the dive I saw an eel poking out of the sand but I didn’t have time to identify it.

The 2^nd dive to Japanese Garden was with Ahmed, an old Hungarian guy and John. The Hungarian guy last dived in 2008 which was when I was 14 years old. I couldn’t help but think to myself who’d have thought a 14 year old English boy would one day take him out on a dive in the Middle East. At the beginning of the dive we saw a shortfin dwarf lionfish and a doubled ended pipefish at the end of the dive which was very big! Probably the biggest one I have ever seen. Due to the fact he hadn’t dived in a while and he didn’t speak English this dive was going to be a toughie. Trying to control him was hard as he kept on playing with the LPI (Low Pressure Inflator hose) which controls the buoyancy on the dive. He also kept on swimming in the wrong direction even though I was pointing every 5 minutes of where to go.

Back at the dive centre I made Belal watch the first episode of Game of Thrones and needless to say he enjoyed the boobs, violence and magic. In that order of course. Myself and Belal also went to go and play some PlayStation in a game centre. About 30 consoles with comfy couches and flat screens were in this small game centre and every single one was being used by 2 or more people. It was £1 for an hour and it is a good idea but it wouldn’t work in the UK. Maybe in some poorer parts… Maybe but for the majority it wouldn’t work. Which is a shame because the vibe of the place was really cool. We monged it for an hour on PES (thrashed twice by Belal) and Black Ops on zombies (making it to round 9, I’m a bit rusty). I’m a bit of a nerd (especially with video games) and wanted to play more but Belal’s friend had to feed his dog. Oh real life…



Sunday – No touch

I did two dives today with 2 Polish men, one of them was certified and the other had never dived before. They were a bit rowdy and boisterous so in the safety brief I was quite firm with the rules like no going past 10 metres, if you hear me rattle look at me, don’t touch anything underwater. The first dive was good and they weren’t really a problem and whenever I rattled them looked at me straight away. On the second dive it was the same story up until the end. There was a small buoy about half a metre from the bottom. There were also about 6 or 7 small common lionfish around it and I said to the intro guy look at the lionfish. He then proceeded to grab on to the buoy. Is he for real?! There were lionfish all around it and I explicitly told him not to touch anything but he went to grab the buoy. I pulled him away, smacked him on the hand so he would let go and we headed back to shore after that. We were approaching the 25 minute mark so it was the end of the dive anyway.

At night me and Belal went to play some PlayStation again. Since I had a taste of it yesterday I really wanted to play it again to get to a higher level on zombies. We did! About round 15… So it’s an improvement. Tomorrow Mohamed was telling me that we have some sort of a Festival down at South Beach where the Cedar Pride is with special guests and stuff so that will be fun! Till then hasta luego caimans.

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Photos

My first selfie in a mirror
#lovethecup

Liverpool vs. Manchester United
I lost unfortunately... SOZ LIVERPOOL