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I've haven't even been in Dahab a week, and I can't believe how much I've done. I've spent all week assisting 2 instructors, Matt and Sabry, with Open Water and Advanced courses...for 9 Royal Marines! There are 16 of them out here, and me and Jenny, the other DiveMaster Trainee, have been attempting to keep 9 of them under control for 6 days! They're awesome lads who veer from uber-polite to completely disgusting via absolutely hysterical all in the space of 5 minutes. They were in two teams; Team Essence, who I was with for the Open Water, and Team Tight Pants (courtesy of several pairs of incredibly tight swimming shorts, some of which might have been Union Jacks - photos to follow!) who I was with for the Advanced. All my boys did amazingly - we dived the Blue Hole today, which is a pretty challenging site, and they were great...so so proud!! It's their last night tonight, so it's BBQ by the pool, beers in the bar, and then almost certainly naked pool will be called...so should be a good night!
I haven't taken any DM exams yet...Sabry tells me every day I'm going to take Exams 1, 2 + 3, but then something better always seems to come up...I'm so going to be stuck taking all my exams on the last day! On Monday Jenny and I are doing the swim tests...a 400m swim in 6-8 minutes, an 800m in 10 minutes, treading water for 15 minutes, and then towing a tired diver for 100m. I'll let you know how I get on, if I haven't drowned halfway through!!
Other than that it's been business as usual here...diving all day, wandering in to town in the evenings, playing pool and drinking beer with Mo and Tom, my friends from the centre, and several very amusing nights out with the Marines. I tagged along on a free meal they had at the Hilton the other day...the food was rubbish, the beers were 23LE each (usually they're 13.50!), but the entertainment was first rate. Drunk Russians dancing like maniacs in one of the hotel bars, and Marines 'weaseling' (flirting outrageously) with anything and everything in a skirt. One of them finally sealed the deal with a Russian woman who didn't speak any English, which explains why she wasn't put of by his chat up line of 'Hi, I'm Handsome Geoff.' He now seems to have moved to the Hilton, so he must have done something right!
Unfortunately I forgot to bring the cable for my camera, so no photos this time...The photo of my current location is spectacularly inaccurate as there are no pyramids in Dahab, but the only photos I have so far are of nights out with Marines, so I'll take some of the countryside for next time!
The courses are over now, so I'm not sure what I'm up to tomorrow...will write again soon xxx
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