Well it has been all fun and games in and around Shaab Ali this week… well, you could argue that it has been far from fun and games, but thankfully no one has been hurt.

The first nightmare was on Shag rock, just up from the Thistlegorm wreck and prone to the same kind of hairy currents! Two divers (both very experienced locals) went missing during a dive. For two days we all held our breath whilst the search team looked for them, however eventually it was sadly called off. A day later though, sighs of relief were felt throughout the town when we heard that the divers had actually only drifted for 4 hours, before finding a small wreck on another patch of reef. There they sheltered for the next couple of days until they were picked up by some local fishermen on a felluca and returned home very sunburned and dehydrated, a bit scratched and scuffed, but otherwise OK.

The other event was yesterday just south of this on the Thistlegorm itself. The swell was up all over Sharm and the wreck is one place where if there is a bit of lumpiness in the water, it is going to be at its biggest here. So two boats from our dive centre were there, and unfortunately both almost came a cropper! The bow line snapped on one causing it to spin on its stern line, snapping the anchor line of its fellow boat… pretty soon neither boat was on a mooring, guides were trying to heave guests out of the water, and one boat even ended up ramming its bow into the window of the other! As I said no one was hurt, the conditions under the water were actually perfect, and the videographer sold loads of dvd’s that day, so I think the adrenaline got everyone going.

Well, you would be if I didn’t actually quite love diving and actually enjoyed my job (sorry). As it is, a couple of days to myself has given me the time to get cracking on updating the site a touch, adding to the blog (I have discovered how to change the date code, so sorry if you get bombarded with stuff from the past!).
I have also been working on some funky DB tee shirts… watch this space for more info. At present they will solely be available here in Sharm (great excuse for a holiday I say) but they will soon be up for grabs in a dive store near you (if all goes to plan of course!).

Meanwhile my flatmate has gone up to the roof to fry! Yes the fiery burn is finally ebbing out of the sun and now is the time that we actually start to get tanned ourselves.

Thursday, September 14th, 2006

Well, maybe I am being a little dramatic here… but we were under attack yesterday!
Those of you who have dived here in Sharm may have had the pleasure of diving a site named Fiddle Garden where you will find a couple of cleaner wrasse who have discovered that it is much easier to clean the divers that pass by at regular intervals.
Well, as usual we headed out that way, keen to see the novelty, however I had forgotten about a graze on my knee! Ooh it was like bees to honey! The two wrasse who do this trick, attacked my knee with such gusto, they pulled the scab off and ate it (yik) coming back for more once that was done! I had to put my hand over my now bleeding knee to stop their feast… OK I’m being a wuss here, it didn’t hurt, but I did kind of prefer it when they were happy to nibble your ear a little! We also noticed a third, smaller wrasse has cottoned on to the little trick, I wonder how long it will take for the word to spread!

I popped along to the Blue Ventures Blog today and found myself being brought straight back to my time with them.

Scroll past the French bit (unless you speak French of course!) and you will see a few entries from some of their current volunteer team. Just reading about their initial impressions of the camp, the project and how life is out there just brought it all flooding back. What an awesome time I had whilst out there with them a couple of years ago read about it here…. And I can safely say that had I not done that, I may well have never gone on to become the instructor that I am today.

Within 2 days of my return to the UK, I had booked my Divemaster course and realised that somehow I was meant to go diving everyday!

Amazing isn’t it, we live in a country where it is pretty much “scorchio” every day, but weather is still an issue!

Already there is talk of winter being around the corner… the sea temp has taken a tiny dip (ok if you are diving Tiran a bit of a plummet) and here we are talking dry suits already.

On a serious note, things have not gone that far just yet. The weather is still toasty hot, the sea lovely and warm, we are just spoilt wusses that like 30ºC in the water and around 40º on the surface.

On a positive side, the slight dip downwards has meant that the sharks are back, and this time by the reef… cooool. This week hammers and black tips have been seen in their usual haunts. So all is still pretty good.

The temperature has dropped a few degrees to around 27º but the slight drop in air temp (high 30’s) is probably a relief for most.