I start my week straight in at the deep end, literally… guiding Ras Mohammed. We had a bunch of fairly experienced divers, including one very experienced instructor who had taught me my divemaster course!! Nothing like the pressure being on. No not really, he was just very chilled at the back of the other group, so no pressure really.

We had an awesome drop on Shark Reef.. the currents were really flying (have been for about six weeks now, for some reason) and I plunged in the water right into the shoal of snappers. Very cool. Unfortunately, by the time my divers had got themselves in the water, they were now considerably down current of the shoal, so despite attempting to work against the current for a bit and sit with them, we soon gave up and went with the flow, enjoying the ride.. woo hoo…

We had a very cool dive, with loads of fish action, and somehow by the time we reached the wreckage of the Yolande, the current had eased off enough for us to chill out over the cargo admiring the toilets etc for a bit. In the current once again, we flew over the car and rolls of linoleum whilst I was barely able to point at them long enough for a fleeting glimpse.. All fun n games.

Our next dive was Jackfish Alley, one of my favourite dives this summer. I love it all, the little swim throughs, the carpet anenome and cleaner shrimp, glassfish pinnacle and then to round it all off a good half our hanging over the satellite reef encircled by the hordes of fusiliers. I left it as late as possible to head back to the main reef, simply because it was sooo pretty. Even back on the main reef, it was nice just to chill out and hang on our safety stop. Hmmm.

I will say my ropey old wetsuit is not doing me any favours at the moment. It is 27ºC in the water, but when every seam is ripped, and what was once 5mm is now more like 2.5mm, is it any wonder that I am blue and shaking like a neurotic by the time we hit 40mins into the dive.. brrrr. I will be taking my drysuit for repairs shortly… hmmph.

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The confined sessions were done in the shallows of Naama Bay Beach which made the whole transition to Open Water so much easier. It can be challenging in winter though, if it gets rough (!). In fact, we did our first Open Water dive like a Discover Scuba session, straight after the first confined water session. This was great, as we got to see fish and reef straight away on day one, making the course all the more appealing. We saw a large napoleon wrasse within the first five minutes which was impressive.

Once all the teaching was done, we hit the boat and the reefs of Ras Katy and Ras um Sid… Ras Katy was lovely as always, although Ras Um Sid was better. We had quite a lively current at one point (thankfully my student was quite relaxed, so dealt with it really well) and whilst we were in this, got a good five minutes in the company of a young girlie turtle. She was very cute, all shiny and new, with no scratches, nicks or damage to her shell at all…. Very cool. We watched her feed for a bit, rise up for breath and then come back down again, for some more munching of coral. Very cool.

Once qualified my guy wanted to dive with his friends in Dahab, and do some adventure dives, so off we went to do his deep and multilevel dives in Dahab. Very nice indeed.

In the Blue Hole, part of the attraction was just watching the free divers practice plunging to its depths. All very good stuff.

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Over the last few weeks, I had begun to name myself the Jonah or Albatross, as I seemed to be actively avoiding anything bigger than a jackfish in the water. If everyone else saw a manta, I would be at the other end of the dive site, marvelling over a scorpion fish… the day I jumped the back of Jackson reef, we swam against a current for the whole dive, braved the swell and saw not a single shark, yet that morning and the very next day, everyone else had been joined by the hammer head sharks on the same dive!!! Seriously this was beginning to get me down. The pressure has been on, but to be honest, by now I had given up on ever seeing a shark again.

Well this week has now made up for my summer’s losses.

The first sign of a tiny turn in my fortunes was in Dahab, we had two lovely dives, and whilst I didn’t see anything particularly massive on the Canyon dive, we saw a lovely turtle in the Blue Hole (in fact my guests had seen another one earlier in the dive at the Bells, whilst I was busy pointing out where to swim through the arch! Hmmm… still inklings of the Jonah there)

By the time we got to the lip, where the reef drops to around 7m, allowing you to swim over it and into the hole itself, my luck was on the turn and we were greeted by a lovely little girlie hawksbill turtle. Most cute. We saw her again once inside the hole itself, although she was getting a little harried by the snorklers above duck diving down to get a closer look. With the good vis, she could be seen plunging down to safety right down the middle of the hole.

And today was the true turn around. Our first dive was Jack Fish Alley, where we jumped in and sat on the satellite reef in a cloud of fusiliers for the first half of the dive. We were surrounded, when along came a couple of giant trevallies, one huge, followed by a whole shoal of them! And there was me saying I didn’t normally see any more jack fish here than anywhere else! This was followed by another turtle and a giant barracuda. Very cool. We even got to do the swim throughs, both the chimney and the normal one… just in time to end the dive in an hour.

Our second dive was on Shark and Yolaned Reefs, and like on Jackfish the current was running opposite to normal. Boy was it running!!! Hehe…. it was a classic flyer… one guest tried to solve a problem on the surface…and… oops, we had flown over the whole of the Yolande wreck by the time he got down! It took six minutes to fly from one end of the dive to the other! So… on we flew to Anenome City. Here I saw a dense ball of fusiliers.. very cool so I thought I’d take a look… and guess what, swimming through this shoal was a large leopard shark!! Oh wow! So much screaming and pointing ensued in the hope that all my guests would also see this fantastic sight. Some saw, but not all… so I had to bang my tank (which often scares sharks away), then turned back and the shark was still with us. It was like a scene from the Blue Planet. This glorious creature was meandering through the fusiliers, circling and then coming around again… what an amaaaayzing sight. This totally made up for all those shark free dives I have had this summer. Totally.. to spend five minutes watching this spectacle, right up close n personal, made it all worthwhile. What a great way to end my week.

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A few tired diver tows later, on goes the video and I get an hour and a half to play with! What to do with myself?? So I end up playing with the DiveBunnie site.

My star students had even turned up with all their books read and knowledge reviews filled in so these were gone over pretty quickly after lunch, and we were back into the pool for the afternoon.

Great fun was had with rescuing a panicked diver, the guy was a very good panicker… so much so that he panicked us the length of the pool and into the path of Jilly and her IDC (Instructor Development Course) students sat at the other end! Ooops! Sorry Jilly! Her poor student was trying to do the perfect skills demonstration and gets kicked in the face by a set of frantic fins!! Eeeek!

Back to my course, and the deep end, at one point, whilst his partner was clung to the back of his tank, to demonstrate the value of this method of holding a panicker, I told him to do his best to grab his rescuer… huge arm flailing ensued and wow! He managed to break her snorkel off. Oops again. Doh, maybe I should have got her to demonstrate that one hehe.

Anyway, as the day got longer we continued with our exercises, learning how not to be a girlie when throwing a line (hmm) alternative ways of helping someone struggling in the water, how to cope with two problem people etc.

Day two was off the beach… my idea but boy did I make a rod for my own back. It was great to get practice at dragging people out of the water etc, however it was quite hard work. But we did it, Sarah had the pleasure of going off and getting lost first (not that hard within a confined water area really), and the students got to learn their search patterns and how to organise a rescue. All good fun. My students were great, very organised. The tows whilst giving rescue breaths and de-kitting were fun too. Always interesting the first time, but much smoother on the re-run. Thank god for Sarah, as an instructor too, she was able to assess as well, so we could take it in turns to be the victim, giving each other a break (it always gets my neck for some reason).

Day three was scenario day on the boat. Always a tough one for both students and instructors. We had our set scenarios that needed to be done for the certification, as well as whatever we decided was worth throwing in as well for extra practice. So inevitably the odd “non swimmer” would end up falling in.. oops. Hmmm classic case of “stop breathe think act” ensued with one rescue… yes he wore his mask fins and snorkel, but he didn’t take in any form of float (ooops!) and he approached the swimmer from the front (oops again). That’s one way to remember how not to do it! But all in all they worked very well together, and my girlie turned out to be excellent at controlling the scene and maintaining the calm.

We had the old missing diver scenario which we ran all the way back and onto the boat, which went very well. My guys made a very good team. We had someone gash a leg, someone fall down the stairs and a case of the bends just after lunch. A good chance to practice their other first aid skills. By the end of the day we were all shattered… but I think a great day was had by all, and two new rescue divers are out and about in the world. Yay.

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So this week has been a bit of a shock to the system. I might have mentioned that last week on I think Wednesday, the sea temperature plummeted 3 degrees (OK before you all point the finger, I know.. it is still lovely n warm here… but believe me 27ºC can feel pretty chilly when you have just about got accustomed to a balmy 30ºC!). I have even had to struggle into my full wetsuit on a couple of occasions… for what good it is worth, there are so many holes it barely does the job. Sadly I went to buy a new one, and none fit! Noooo! Why don’t they make snug suits for the little people out there??

Well I think the thermoclines have blended a little now, reducing the temperature by a degree or two. Sadly this is heralding the end of summer here, however as we all know, autumn and even winter here is far from freezing by any stretch of the imagination!

So another week of guiding was had, and I had a baby group all week! Only 6 divers! How fantastic. We had a lovely time, dived Tiran (managed to get around the back of Jackson by the skin of our teeth however didn’t get to see the hammerheads), Ras Mohammed and the famous Thistlegorm…

Finally today it was back to the beach for discover scuba diving. I had a group of three who all did really well.. and enjoyed their little dive off around the reef there. For the last few days there has been a rather large green turtle hanging around the seagrass meadow there, however it is just at a point where lots of speed boats head over, and just on the edge of 12m, so a little close to the maximum depth for my liking, so we didn’t get to see him

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