Thursday, June 29th, 2006

Ok… so I’m the guilty one. It seems as though my cold has spread around the dive centre… great, that’ll make me popular!

First my flatmate started sneezing, and now my boyfriend is doing the same… oops. I wonder how long it will be before everyone falls victim. And of course, it is one of those sneaky ones that really goes straight for the sinuses, so we’ll have a dive centre full of guides who can’t dive… oops.

So once again I am on dry land, while the rest of Sharm is out shark spotting: black tips, white tips, oceanics and hammer heads are on the list so far, Oh, and a whale shark! The tigers have not yet made an appearance, but it will only be a matter of time, and let’s hope we’ll all be back in the water by then.

In the meantime, whilst I have become a total slob, my flatmate has proceeded to repair her wetsuit, sticking herself to it and the floor in the process. Ok that’s a slight exaggeration there, but that glue is strong stuff!

Whilst battling with my dodgy snotty nose and bunged up ears (I know!) I did have a couple of very nice dives yesterday.

The water has really warmed up, even though my computer doesn’t seem to be registering it… I almost felt too warm on the first dive yay!

The first potter was at the infamous Ras Katy, supposedly a nice mild mannered site, however for the area, the current was positively howling today! We trudged against it for 20 mins and then drifted back in 5!

The same happened on Temple, which was great for all the fish coming out in their hordes, but not so much for my guests on their first day of the week. This is not normally a site where I have to encourage people to tuck down against the current, but I had to on this dive, using the pinnacles themselves as shelter against the full force. Ok we are not talking Shark and Yolande here, but for a local dive, it was quite a lively one.

I even wore a shorty on this dive too.. and had I been wearing a snug jacket, I would have been fairly warm. As it was, I got more than a bit nippy.. brrr. I guess I was being a little too hopeful there.

Well… hopefully tomorrow.

I am back on a boat guiding which should be fun. So long as the cold that’s brewing does not materialise that is… typical, I haven’t been in the water for the best part of a week and today I start sneezing like I’ve breathed pepper!

Friday, June 23rd, 2006

Well, it’s the fourth day on dry land for me, and for anyone who has been in Sharm at this time of year, you’ll know how hot it can get if you don’t get in the water at least a couple of times a day.

I have been stood up by a student… ! I had a one pack Scuba Diver course, and the guy (who the other day had turned up at 2pm expecting to join a course that had started at 8am… hasn’t showed up once again… his phone is off the hook so short of going to his room and knocking on the door, there is no other way of tracking him down. I guess he went out on the lash last night and decided an 8am start was just a little too early for him.

So… what to do with my day off…?

Thursday, June 22nd, 2006

It’s happening already.. the sea is flattening out and the winds of the last few weeks have finally died down a touch.

For the first time in ages we have been able to dive the back of the Tiran reefs! And yesterday was true to form… on the back of Jackson there was a mega pod of dolphins on the surface… filling the sea as far as the eye could reach. The divers below were joined by hammerheads.. cooool.

Sadly I was in the office! But hey.. it’s a quiet week, so if I’m off later in the week, I think a little fun diving is the order of the day.

Sunday, June 18th, 2006

OK so my dive log has been a bit lacking of late.. I hang my head in shame. If it is any consolation, my last written log was back in March.. oops.

Well, Ras Mohammed is once again the place to be at the moment… I haven’t yet seen any of the sharks, but even without the big boys, everything else is just heaving!

The wall of snappers is back, just off Shark Reef, I descended into it the other day which was truly awesome… a little tough to see all my guests mind, as they really had formed a big old wall, and half of my guys were hanging on the opposite side to me.

We have also seen the shoaling masked puffer fish which are totally cuuute! They only gather together for a couple of weeks in the year, and swim around in their usual ungainly fashion as a gang, for a while, before going their separate, solitary ways once again.

Even the local sites are getting good too… I saw a bunch of quite meaty barracudas on Temple the other day, and then in the afternoon descended into the shoal of baby barracudas that usually hangs around the lagoon area, really cool.

So the day finally came when we decided to get Betty (the mother of our kittens) spayed. Two kittens really are enough, and the cat population of Hadaba really doesn’t need any more additions… cruel though it seems.

Having said that, when the time actually came last week to drag the poor lady down to the vet, I felt like a completely evil and twisted butcherer. As it happened, it turned out that she was already up the duff, having got frisky with a boy cat barely weeks after giving birth, and we would have been host to another four babies had we left it a couple of weeks longer!

Thankfully all went well, and after a few gruesome days watching her struggle onto her feet and scowl at us from under the couch, she has kind of returned to her normal self a touch. I don’t think she quite entirely trusts me yet, but I guess that is to be expected.

Of course the kittens are oblivious to their mother’s trauma and have ended up with a few swift swipes from her for trying to interfere where they are not wanted.