Puppies!!!

One of the dogs that hangs out at the Camp (accomodation) behind our shop had puppies and they are starting to venture out and visit us... They are so sweet!

Busy season has arrived

Today is my first day off in over a week and a half and is past due. I have just spent the past 5 days diving with a group of 12 Dutchies along with 2 other DM's and have to say I havent worked that hard in a while. Just loading, unloading tanks /equipment and loading again has my shoulders and back sore. We spent a day on a big liveaboard boat in the furthest south dive sites (not accessible by jeep) and did 3 dives there and came back and did a 67 min. night dive which left me dizzy and exhausted although it felt good to be so tired (& going to bed at 9:30 every night!). They are finally gone and have another group of 19 coming in tomorrow which we have recruited Cameron to guide some tec divers in the group which will be a nice change for him and also fun to be working with him again. The water temp. is starting to drop a few degrees along with the outside temp. so I have actually been getting chilly during and after my dives so think it's time to get out the vest and hood! I am really not looking forward to water temp dropping to 20 degrees. It has been 28 and is now 26 and am already cold! Guess I'll survive, will also be nice to have a few days in the shop to warm up during the colder months. Starting to count down the days until Jessi, Kat and Anna arrive and am working on finding Jess a place to stay here for a month. Other than work absolutely nothing exciting is going on and am just going to work as much as possible while it's busy so I can save up a little bit of money for traveling. Hope all is well at home! xo

Ramadan

So we changed our clocks back last week. I was told it was earlier than normal because of Ramadan, which started on Thursday. As expected things have slowed down even more around town-amazing it's possible to be even slower than it normal. Things at work have picked up very quickly and Cameron and I have been working everyday. Unfortunately for all the boys at work, we have new customers coming in everyday and they are pretty worn out as you can imagine. They give up food, drinks, smoking and even sex from 4:10am to 6pm. They can't even have water and I honestly dont know how they do it. One of the Divemasters at work is also Muslim and dives twice a day without food or water, which I think is quite dangerous because of the dehydration but they all say they are used to it. This lasts a month and from what they tell me they go home and eat all night and then wake up at 3am and eat again before going to the mosque to pray at 4:10am.

Like I said things at work have been busy, Im doing my fair share of diving and working at the shop and have been exhausted in the evenings. It's kind of nice to be working everyday again... I guess its been over a year since Ive had a full time job! Things will only be getting busier and we have a few big groups coming in the last half of this month, a group of 10, a group of 11 and a group of 19 not including all the random couples and others coming in here and there. They are all coming for guided diving which will be good for me to be in the water and making some money. The water is still quite warm and will stay so for a while longer but can tell the outside temperature has cooled down and am now a little chilly getting out of my wetsuit after dives, especially with the wind. We have the IDC (instructor development course) going on as well and Ive been helping out with that, being the student for the instructor candidates. Its been great for me to work on my skills and has also been a fun break in the middle of the day. I am helping tomorrow and will be working on knots and the use of lift bags which I dont have much experience with either so it should be interesting!

Hope everyone is enjoying fall, its my favorite season and definitely miss it!

xoxo

Pics from the other day

me trying to take pictures...
Lots of Lionfish
Our house reefs permanent resident...

BBQ in the Desert

The dive shop that Cam works for took all their customers to a BBQ in the desert last night and I got invited. About 8 of us drove up into the desert and had a Bedouin dinner. There were small tent like areas with carpets and cushions and they cooked chicken, fish rice, potatoes, etc... over an open fire pit which was interesting to watch and ended up being a delicious meal. The sky was incredible. So many stars and we all just sat around drinking and eating for hours. It was nice to do something different.
All else is good here just been working alot as we are coming into the busy season but Ive still managed to sneak in some fun dives as well. A friend of mine, Mike and I went for a fun dive the other day and stole the shop cameras to practice our skills... Must say I'm getting better but still have a long way to go.
Just found out that not only are Kat and Anna coming for a visit at the end of Oct. but Jessi is coming around the same time for maybe a month!!! Can't wait to have my girls here...
I had to order a new camera since my old one finally broke and Kat will be bringing it out so wont be too many pics for awhile except underwater-if you aren't sick of them yet:)
Will try to post some from the other day when I get a decent Internet connection!

P.S.- 2 years ago along with a few friends I ran a 1/2 marathon for the Luekemia and Lymphoma Society and each area gets an honored teammate. Ours was a little girl named Cameron who happened to be te cousin of another little girl I knew... She had leukemia and I just found out that she died the other day. So I thought I would tell you all thank you-without my friends and family I wouldn't be here at all let alone living an amazing life halfway across the world.
xoxoxoxoxo

Work

We have a badminton court out back of the dive shop, where the boys play almost every evening, and here are some Bedouins trying to learn. Pretty funny to watch until I tried to play... I definitely need more practice.
Samir and Ahmed retrieving the clumps of dates from the trees.
These are the boys I have to deal with! Our boat captain, our driver, the boy who fill tanks, one that cleans the shop (and fixes my bike) and Hany who fixes equipment and also make really good cheeseburgers along with the 2 full time instructors. Something is wrong with this male to female ratio!
Not much to report from here... Im sure you are sick of hearing about diving and that's pretty much all Ive been up to lately. Cam and I are planning for Kat and Anna to come out in a bit and may have another visit from Cameron's brother as well. Slowly slowly the heat is coming down and pretty soon should be cool in the evenings, which will be nice for walks or bike riding or beach bars. We went to the beach bar last night and a camel came past to snack on the plants they have surrounding it. It was quickly shooed away and then just went on it's way down the beach. Tis the season for puppies... there have been a few dogs recently having them and have been checking up on a few but have somehow resisted bringing any home. Sorry I dont have more exciting stories... Hope all is well at home, can't believe the summer is almost over!

Stolen pics for my brother

Here are some pics from the Thistlegorm wreck that a friend took... It's an awesome dive, unfortunately Ive only been once, but I know my brother wants to see more pictures of wrecks... so here they are:)

Underwater Pics

here are a few pics one of my divers took and emailed me... the last one is of the little cleaner wrasses cleaning my mouth out:)

I'm a Technical Diver!

Well, not really but I did get to dive on a ReBreather which is kind of on the cutting edge of scuba now a days... but mostly only for people with lots of money... We have one at the shop and offer intro dives on it so the tech instructor took me on it to see how it felt. Basically it's closed circuit scuba which means no bubbles!!! You wear this big box on your back that has cylinders of regular air and oxygen and it somehow filters out the oxygen you breath out, gets rid of the CO2 and you can also program it to stay at a certain partial pressure of oxygen no mater what depth you go to, and if you are still awake I have to tell you it's amazing! Not only are there no bubbles but it is completely silent. It was almost freaky how quiet it was, you get so used to the sound of you breathing in and out and I was thinking am I even getting air from this thing? It was quite big and bulky and hard to get used to the buoyancy because it is completely different from what Im used to but I could get so close to fish and they just didnt care... usually big groups of fish disperse when you roll by because of the noise and bubbles but I had fish swimming right in front of my face like I wasn't even there!!! It was awesome. Other than working not much has been going on here... Cam and I both have working bikes now & have off tomorrow and are thinking of taking a bike ride tomorrow... Miss everyone!

Day in Dahab

I was walking to work this morning and as usual some camel was taking an early morning stroll down my street. He found a pile of sand and laid down and literally rolled around on it on one side then sat up flipped over and rolled around on the other side. He looked like a little puppy rolling around in the grass although much bigger- the top of his back was about 6 &1/2 ft off the ground... they are huge.

Just working in the shop today, had lunch right next to the sea and laid and read my book, then yelled at some tourist that were trying to tear apart a sea urchin and then back to work and will be going home in a few hours...
Very exciting stuff:)
Hope everyone is well!!!

I LOVE SEAHORSES!!!

Stolen pics of Red Sea diving

Inside a wreck
School of barracuda with an oceanic black tip in the middle

Leftovers from a of a ship carrying toilets, sinks and bathtubs...this is the only site Ive been to in theses pictures... so far at least! Amazing!!!

HAMMERHEADS!!!

Some friends of ours did a wreck safari liveaboard South of Sharm and I thought I would share some of their cool pics. There is another one coming up this month but we cant really afford to do it so I might just take a day trip to the Tiran Islands which is where the SHARKS are... WAHOOOOOOO!!!

If these dont want to make you dive I dont know what will:)

Long time no write...

Here are a few random pics from a friends going away party and then one of my friend Flip and I doing her equipment exchange for her Divemaster Training. Basically you have to swap all your equipment including fins, BCD, mask and do it while buddy breathing... not the most fun thing and Im not sure how her husband talked me into doing it but I think we did well (not that I was being tested plus Ive done it before)

All here is good. Braving the heat and drinking loads of water. I have been working quite often, in the dive shop and diving as well so that's awesome. I saw a seahorse yesterday and did a early morning dive at the Canyon, my favorite divesite and we were the only people in the water it was GREAT! So I did 2 dives today and was finished by 1pm... Cant get any better than that plus I only had one diver and he was great so it felt like fun dives to me.

Cameron has been working solid, actually I can't remember when the last day he had off was and supposedly Sept and Oct will be REALLY busy.

A few days ago a couple of girls and I rented a mini bus and drove to Sharm to a proper grocery store and let me tell you that was what I call exciting... We all walked in and I didn't know where to look it was great. I got some avacados and we had tacos and guacamole... Oh it was excellent. Made me miss Central America.

I was walking to work yesterday and saw a goat standing on top of a jeep and one trying to climb inside the passenger side... not sure but they may have been trying to eat it. Too bad I didnt have my camera which by the way may be donzo. I dropped it and ever since I havent been able to work it... will have to steal Camerons. I am so used to having that thing with me, especially in the past year it has always been there for those special moments like when the goats are trying to climb trees just to get to the leaves or when the camels are trying to scare the cats out of the rubbish pile... guess camels dont like sharing, by the way they cant get rid of the cats. Well if it is halas (arabic for finished, almost said sp? but there really isnt a proper way to spell in our letters anyways), it has lasted longer than I thought after all the abuse it's gone through esp in Roatan.
Been trying to learn some Arabic, the boys at work are teaching me but I just chose the words that are easy to say and just say them in any situation. Like the word yanni, they use it quite alot usually at the end of sentences, it sort of means maybe... so that's how I answer them in the morning when they say good morning or how are you... They get a good laugh.

The wind has started to pick up and has taken some of the scorch off which has been nice. But we thank our lucky stars to have air-con everyday! Most of our friends dont have it and I really dont know how they deal. A few nights ago we lost power for a few hours and I was sleeping with a frozen water bottle like it was a teddy bear. Thank goodness it came back on at about 1am.

Hopefully we will be quite busy in Sept and Oct and not sure how long we'll stay here but told Cam that we have to do some of the touristy stuff before we go... Like Cairo, Luxor and Petra in Jordan. We are also expecting Kat and Anna (the girls I met up with in Amsterdam) to come for a visit sometime in October and I cant wait!!!

Offer is still open to anyone else that wants to come for a visit!!! I swear it will cool down in a few months:)

Braving the Heat...

Here is a random picture I stole from someone else... this is the beach bar we hang out at often, the sea is to the right and there are swings at the bar instead of bar stools... Oh yeah and camels.

Dahab is melting me... I was just looking at the weather online and has been about 114 degrees and will get up to a little over 118 on Saturday... It's almost torture being outside in the sun unless you are about to jump into the pool or the sea. Also on Tues there was a public service announcement warning for Northern Africa the Middle East and other places that the UV rays were going to reach a hazardous level... I guess we were right under the huge whole that's in the ozone layer. Spent the afternoon on Tues at the pool but stayed in the shade. On Monday I helped Cam out with his students (the royal marines) because some had ear problems and so on... Anyways I had a nice day of diving and hanging out with the boys... The hotel had a big BBQ for them for their last night up at the pool and inevitably all the instructors got thrown in with many others... Good thing Cameron gave me his phone and money earlier in the night. Then the majority of them came out and we had a great night of drinking and dancing at TOTA, a bar that is shaped like a boat. Cam and I have both had a few days off together and have been hanging out at the pool with friends and relaxing. Trying to stay cool... Well, back to work tomorrow... Hope everyone at home is staying cool...

7 years

Today is my 7 year anniversary of my bone marrow transplant... I can't believe it's been that long but it also feels like a lifetime ago. Never in a million years would I have thought that I would be living in Egypt 7 years later! Luckily I have today off from work and plan on going up to the pool and hanging out with friends, Cameron is working, and then we and I are going to go out to dinner tonight. The dive shop next to the hotel that has the pool had 60 british marines arrive a few days ago and they are all doing their open water and adv. courses and Cameron has 6 of them and has been working really hard. I went up to the pool yesterday afternoon and Cam and all the other boys came up and hung out with us and had beers after they got back from diving. Im assuming we will do the same today... life's not too bad ay?
I guess I have my brother to thank for all this-without him I wouldnt be here.
LOVE YOU CHRISTOPHER!!!

dates

Did you know that dates grew on palm trees???

Happy Days

I've been quite busy lately... I have a more steady job now. I'm friends with a girl who works at a dive center I've been freelancing with and she wanted more days off to dive, so I will be working 3 days a week at the shop and then the other few days I will be working as a Divemaster there (when they need me)... So I started on last Wed. and things have been going well. Went diving today and it was gorgeous... a bunch of squid, eels and a little aggressive cleaner wrasse that Cam told me about... they usually hang out in certain areas and clean fish but this one tries to clean us so I took my regulator out of my mouth and it cleaned my lips, tongue and teeth... just little nibbles. Funny.
Last week a lot of people had off work so about 10 of us went up to one of the hotels pools, which is a little out of town, on the water but next to the mountains. The pool is a few stories up and you can see the view of the ocean, feel like you are surrounded by mountains and get to lazy daze in the pool with your friends and have people bring you beers... It was great.
This Italian owned restaurant which has amazing food closed for 2 months and are opening tonight and giving out free pizza so we are meeting some friends at the beach bar and then heading for some good food...
Hope everyone is well.

Egyptian BBQ

Can't remember if I had said but Cameron was working when I got home and on his last day I got called for a few days of work... it was sooo good to be back in the water and had a few really good dives finding a new seahorse I hadn't seen before and some other stuff but won't bore you to death with the diving details. So after I finished we decided to head a bit out of our neighborhood for a day together. We decided to go to the lagoon which is about a 7 min taxi ride, still in Dahab but is actually where most of the nice hotels like the Hilton are and also happens to be home to windsurfer heaven. Apparently it's because this curved strip of sand bar comes around to make a crescent shape protecting them from the waves but still giving plenty of wind. Anyways, we had lunch and laid on the beach, read our books, went for a swim and just relaxed. It was really nice because it felt like we were in a totally different place. We will probably go back so Cam can try some windsurfing... as for me I am fine just laying on the beach.It feels less like Egypt and more like a beach resort. Here are a few pics...

We went to a BBQ on the beach, furry thursdays, and had a great time watching the huge orange moon rise up behind the mountains... I felt so lucky.

We also had our first BBQ at our house last night and was really nice. I made my Grandmothers potato salad and everyone loved it! We just sat in the garden until about 12:30 and had a nice chilled out night. We have begun to make some really cool friends here and hopefully will be jumping on a girls trip to the big 'Metro' grocery store in Sharm. Everyone gets VERY excited about it... I have to admit it does sound exciting. Not too much planned for the coming week for me, Cam has a course starting tomorrow but that's about it...

Hope everyone had a good 4th of July!!!

Here are a few photos from the wedding weekend in random order...

My groomsman was also the photographer during the rehearsal

Mom and I at the reception

Mimosas at the hairdressers
Ash and I
My groomsman, Frank
Kim and all the girls

Kim bought us these tops to wear the day before the wedding...

They say Team Bride, sexy little thing... which was a fun one when her grandmother who is hard of hearing wanted to know what our shirts say as we are all yelling, SEXY LITTLE THING! ha
Ashley, my goddaughter before the rehearsal and yes I did get a tad bit sunburned that day...
Rehearsal

Thanks

So my time at home was great fun... I managed to get sunburned twice, don't ask me how, had a great time seeing all my family and friends and got to go shopping! I spent 4 days on the eastern shore for Kim's wedding and had a blast. The whole wedding party stayed all weekend at a really nice hotel on the water and I fell in love with stoli raspberry and sprites! The weather was perfect and the party was even better, we danced all night long.


I wanted to say thanks to everyone for making an effort to see me while I was home especially all my friends with kids! Everyone always makes me feel special and I just wanted to say I have the best friends and family... People were giving me their cars and going out of their way to hang out even taking off work (Julie and Pam:) As always it felt that my time home was too short but before you know it I will be home again, even if it's just for a bit. Especially thanks to Clay, Kim and the Davidson's for always taking such good care of me and for giving me such an amazing weekend! I love you guys...


Been back in Dahab for a few days now, sleeping a lot and trying to trace down my bag! Aghh... so annoying. Hopefully I will get it today. It was great to see Cameron even though he's been working everyday since I've been back. Not much has seemed to change here and feels like I never left although it has def gotten hotter! Hopefully I will get some work soon to just get back into the swing of things, can't wait to get back under water.

Back in the desert

After 2 days, 4 flights and no bag, I'm finally home...
Will take a few days to get back on schedule and get used to this heat!!! Think the temp went up a few since I left (thank God for air-con) but Im glad to be back. Will finish updating on time at home soon and post pics from the wedding...