A man is sitting on an aircraft seat surrounded by an orange aircraft, he is torn by the desire to stare out of the window to determine where he is on the face of the Globe, or to try and lip read Fantastic Four - Rise of the Silver Surfer. Eventually his dilemma is solved as FF is replaced by In Her Shoes ("an attempt at making a pile of twaddle into an uplifting film" - Hayes Review of Unseen Films). As he turns his attention towards Alexandria, we see that it is Nick and that he is on his way to immerse his body in the Red Sea in exchange for vast amounts of Moolah.
I arrived at the enormous barn that is Sharm El Sheik airport, sadly just behind a Russian Behemoth. I chose a queue, after ten minutes the man in the booth suddenly woke up and started processing everyone at speed, this meant I was in the right queue, an uneasy feeling sidled into the echoing chamber that was my brain, and slid cool fingers down my spine. My ride turned up after five minutes of aimless wandering, though to be fair I didn't have any luggage. Then we zoomed through the nighttime desert, over the pass at 600m and into Dahab where after a quick wrap, I met my fellow guests; Victoria, Howard and Maggie, Joey and Nick, they offered me a beer - what civilised folk. Victoria, who was leaving the next day, told me that my instructor would be Roxy (her instructor from the previous week), and that Roxy was blonde and tanned - she failed to mention the crush she had, and the fact that she hoped I'd drown thus maintaining her exclusivity for a while longer.
I go to bed and sleep fitfully, perhaps the heat, perhaps whaddya call it? oh yeah, terror.
I work my way through the Egyptian breakfast and chat to Victoria, then Roxy arrives all 5 foot 10 inches of her, a blonde-crop South African Amazon
"Can you have a South African Amazon?" you may ask.
"Of course," I reply, "they were invented by the Greeks,"
She gets me to sign stuff and then tells me to take my clothes off,
"So soon. You old charmer." flashes across the frontal lobes before being rudely expunged by the arrival of Said with a wetsuit for me to try on.
She then plonks me down in front of the DVD, starts it running and disappears to don her bikini, occasionally she will appear with an admonition to drink more water, I do, diligently, and without argument (Hayes maxim: Never argue with anyone taller than you are, or women, in either case you will lose, in the event of both criteria applying, you will lose - big time.). When I press the pause button, a delighted shout of , "Toilet break!" greets me. I endure PADI videos for three hours, the term, "Good Job!" enters my lexicon of least favourite phrases, "Didn't drown - good job, high five!" I find myself involuntarily muttering the standard UK response to, "Good Job!" every time the DVD utters it, and it utters it often, so that we get a dialogue between a Mid-Western Diving Instructor full of fulsome praise for his winsome pupils, and a disgruntled Brit with a bad case of Tourette's syndrome.
I go to bed and sleep fitfully, perhaps the heat, perhaps whaddya call it? oh yeah, terror.
I work my way through the Egyptian breakfast and chat to Victoria, then Roxy arrives all 5 foot 10 inches of her, a blonde-crop South African Amazon
"Can you have a South African Amazon?" you may ask.
"Of course," I reply, "they were invented by the Greeks,"
She gets me to sign stuff and then tells me to take my clothes off,
"So soon. You old charmer." flashes across the frontal lobes before being rudely expunged by the arrival of Said with a wetsuit for me to try on.
She then plonks me down in front of the DVD, starts it running and disappears to don her bikini, occasionally she will appear with an admonition to drink more water, I do, diligently, and without argument (Hayes maxim: Never argue with anyone taller than you are, or women, in either case you will lose, in the event of both criteria applying, you will lose - big time.). When I press the pause button, a delighted shout of , "Toilet break!" greets me. I endure PADI videos for three hours, the term, "Good Job!" enters my lexicon of least favourite phrases, "Didn't drown - good job, high five!" I find myself involuntarily muttering the standard UK response to, "Good Job!" every time the DVD utters it, and it utters it often, so that we get a dialogue between a Mid-Western Diving Instructor full of fulsome praise for his winsome pupils, and a disgruntled Brit with a bad case of Tourette's syndrome.
I fill in the knowledge reviews at the end of the chapters, and then we get the gear set up, well Roxy does, I sort of make an attempt, then another, then another until the cylinder fails to fall out of the Buoyancy Control Device (BCD) harness. I then don my centimetre of neoprene and melt, climb into a Landrover - and melt, get out of the Landrover and have more than my entire body weight in lead strapped about my person and also slipped into every available orifice - on the BCD. After that I lock my knees and fail to stride manfully to the sea, I manage instead, to stump along like a bloke who's just discovered that someone has stuck an extra 25 kilos of various metal items about his person. Imagine our surprise when I fail to sink.
The first four tests go well, Roxy demos and I follow, most of it (if you'll pardon the pun) comes flooding back. A few tests later and I'm thinking, "A man has cut your throat, no, my throat, and is going to punch me in the chest, no, your chest, no, as you were, my chest (not that there's anything wrong with your chest, quite the opposite - if I'd noticed, which, of course, I haven't). HANG ON- NO AIR! Take my alternative source! Now you're holding my hand and we're waving at someone in the distance. we're going away on our honeymoon - cor!"
I discovered later that we were pretending to ascend. Three hours after, I realised that the reason we were "ascending" was because one of us had run out of air and that continuing to pootle around the ocean sharing a tank was thought to be "bad form".
The first four tests go well, Roxy demos and I follow, most of it (if you'll pardon the pun) comes flooding back. A few tests later and I'm thinking, "A man has cut your throat, no, my throat, and is going to punch me in the chest, no, your chest, no, as you were, my chest (not that there's anything wrong with your chest, quite the opposite - if I'd noticed, which, of course, I haven't). HANG ON- NO AIR! Take my alternative source! Now you're holding my hand and we're waving at someone in the distance. we're going away on our honeymoon - cor!"
I discovered later that we were pretending to ascend. Three hours after, I realised that the reason we were "ascending" was because one of us had run out of air and that continuing to pootle around the ocean sharing a tank was thought to be "bad form".
Anyway such was my skill that we went off to have a look at the reef for the rest of the tank. The approach to the reef looks like the approach to the edge of an overburgeoning landfill (this is sometimes added to by the presence of plastic bags, both stuck to the coral and drifting past). All sorts of bits of refuse tumble down to the sand. When you get close you realise that this is thousands of blocks of different corals, all fighting for space. Within the gaps in the coral there are fish, and within the coral itself other things live, so that Brain Corals sport Giant Clam embedded in them.
We first come upon a pair of Leafy Cup Corals populated by some, ummm, really pretty fish, in the distance the reef edge looms, a 15 m cliff, patrolled by "big" fish; Unicorns and Parrot. Underneath me I have a Boxfish about 25cm long with a Cleaner Wrasse giving it a going over. There are Orchid Dottybacks of a bright, electric violet, there are big Wrasse with soleful, doleful eyes giving reproachful stares from under their patch. There are... there are a lot of fish. A useful website can be found here .
We return and Roxy, after complaining that her "Patooties" are freezing off, (Afrikaans for feet, I presume), orders me to strip - again.
"What here?" I think, "In front of all these people?" then it dawns, I have to prove I can swim and float. I give an exhibition, Front Crawl (normal and bilateral breathing), Breaststroke, Sidestroke, Backstroke and finally Doggy Paddle, with added spluttering (the latter only appreciated by true connoisseurs of the natatory arts). I then float on the World's second saltiest sea for ten minutes, not floating is not an option, 4 stone anorectics could float on this. After my forehead crisps I turn away from the sun. Roxy remains on shore, slumped in a lounger, presumably warming her patooties.
We return, rinse the gear and fill in the log book. Ever the glutton for punishment I head out to the reef for a snorkel, passing a Puffer fish on the way, he lies moribund on the bottom secure in the knowledge of his toxic skin, this is a fish without ambition. I patrol the reef for a bit until I get cold and then return past a small grey moray, who still threatens me (the Glaswegians of the aquatic world), a Glass-Finned Lion Fish preparing to go on the evening prowl, and back past the Puffer who would roll his eyes and sigh if he could.
In the evening I have some sort of steak in some sort of sauce and then stroll into town, past a series of restaurant touts, and meet up with Ali at the fountain where we discuss (in order of priority) his shop and its contents, the relative merits of girls of different nationalities, his shop, would I like a girl of a different nationality and finally, his shop. When I say "discuss" my side consisted of nodding, raising an eyebrow and saying goodnight.
I returned home and went to bed after first sweeping the cockroach leg decorating the bathroom floor into the drain, I found the owner, dessicated, behind the window grill, later.
Fruit pancakes with yoghurt and honey for breakfast, this would continue to be my breakfast for the rest of the holiday, such was its fuelling power. Roxy got me to give her the dive briefing and then we were off back to Lighthouse, the wind having come up and Lighthouse being sheltered, for some more tests ( Eh? Sorry, I was watching that girl swim past from underneath, smashing ars.... Oh right - recover my regulator.) and a pootle over the tyre dump. We returned to Lighthouse in the afternoon where Roxy found a small Blue-Spotted Ray hiding in the coral, as she shifted onto the next dead bit of coral to allow me to see properly an unseen Scorpion/Stonefish took off from underneath her hand, first time I spotted her breathe twice in a row.
That evening was Maggie and Howard's last so we ended up in Ali Baba (which boasts a hygiene certificate). As I was halfway through my Barracuda steak Howard came up with, "Do you know what ciguatoxic is?"
"No."
He explained that animals that are lower in the food chain may be toxic, when they get eaten those toxins pass into the body of the predator, and so on up the food chain so that the large predators may actually be poisonous.
"Predators like Barracuda."
I ceased to be hungry.
