Diving in the Red Sea

Last night I asked whether I had to choose how many dives I wanted to do or which dives and I was told not to worry about it and just to show up at 9.30 am by the reception area...

So I did as I was told and at 9.30 they gave us the briefing of the dives they were going to do in the morning and apart from the two Dutch ladies there was also a Spanish couple from Madrid, we started talking and we made friends with each other almost instantly. I don't usually come across a lot of Spanish people when I travel but these two, David and Irene were my kind of travellers.

I think this little story summarises their adventurous spirit...

They don't speak a word of Arabic (which is what people speak in these lands). You may get lucky and find someone who speaks a few words of English but that's rare...

So they came from Spain and landed in Amman, rented a car with no GPS, I still can't work out whether this was on purpose or not but anyway, imagine this... you are in a country where you don't speak the language so you can't ask for directions, they hand you a car over at one in the morning at the airport, everything is pitch dark and they drove all the way to the city centre, searched for the hotel they had booked and found it!!!

And if you could see how people drive in this country, I can assure you that you would be impressed twice over.

Anyway, coming back to the diving... The first dive was the Gorgone One

Esentially a fairly shallow dive with 3 pinacles full of coral

This was my first dive from a beach. Usually you go on a boat,  jump into the water and let yourself go down and down and down ... which puts a lot of pressure on your ears and makes you having to equilise all the time, but by starting from the beach you descend very slowly which is a lot nicer plus you don't need to take drugs (seasick medication) in order to get your breakfast to survive the trip on the boat which for someone like me it's a big plus.

Don't take me wrong, I'm not against feeding the fish but I'd rather chucking some breadcrumbs rather than giving them my breakfast.

Let's just say right out of the bat that I didn't have a good start. When snorkling the normal procedure is to put your fins on the shore and then walk bakwards into the water and that's precisely what I was doing when the dive master called me and gestured me to go inside the water and put them in there... so I took them off and went in...

By the time I reached everybody else they were already moving so I quickly put my fins on as fast as I could and went in pursue... a minute or so later I felt like I was losing propulsion but I didn't give it too much importance...I just kicked harder... and then suddenly I had no propulsion whatsoever... something was wrong!... I looked back and out in the distance I could see a blue fin sinking...

oh!... it's blue!... just like mine I thought...

C\%$# it's mine!!!!!

I looked at my feet and realised I had lost both my fins... which would explain the sudden lack of propulsion...

I turned around and sprinted until I reached the first fin... and as soon as I grabbed it started searhing for the other but couldn't see it so I went further back and still couldn't see it until someone that was snorkling burst out of the water with my fin in one hand and saying "I found it"!, "It's here"!...

I thanked the good Samaritan, put both my fins on and this time I tighten them really tight so much so that when I came out of the water I had burns on my feet from having them so tight.

As soon as I was about to sprint again and try to find my group the dive master (who by this time was probably very worried to lose someone so early in the dive) asked me if everything was ok... I gave him my best smile and gestured that I was peachy so he asked me to follow him and so I did... I probably spent half the tank on those first 5 minutes... O:-)

The high quality pictures are the ones that David took... the low res bad lighting ones... they are all mine. :-)

After the first dive some people changed their tanks and went for a second one but David, Irene and I decided to wait and do the afternoon dive to the "Cedar Pride".

The "Cedar Pride" is a wreck sunk under the orders of the king of Jordan who I was told ... is quite a keen diver. It's not very deep, most wrecks tend to start at 25-30 metres whereas this one is quite shallow for a wreck as the maximum depth is about 20-25 metres, which allows you to enjoy it for longer. :-)

On the first dive I was told that the water would be at about 25C so I thought that would be nice and warm as when I do open water swims I usually do so in water at 15C or so... unfortunately the neoprene I was wearing wasn't the highest quality judging by the rips and tears everywhere... it was almost like wishing I had a neoprene rather than actually wearing one. By the time I came out of the first dive I was shivering uncontrollingly... we took off all the gear and walked to the resort in full neoprene (about 5-10 mins walk from the beach)... the temperature outside was about 30+ and by the time I got to the resort I was still shivering... but another 10 minutes under the scorching sun fixed that problem.

So by the time I was ready to go for the second dive, I was wearing two neoprenes one on top of the other...

You'll be glad to know that this time I managed to keep my fins with me all the way. :-)

Then we went inside...

There was an air pocket inside 

The beach was a bit surrealist... If you pay close attention to the small details on the below picture you'll see women wearing a burqa, horses and people coming in and out of the water with full scuba gear (in this particular case it's me... with both my fins!!!)... 

David and Irene after the Cedar Pride dive

The rest of the day was dedicated to eating, drinking and resting by the pool... it was hard but I am happy to report that I didn't shy away from my duties and I endured it like a champ. :-)