This was my instructor Claudio. Or rather, this is Claudio who was my instructor. When I did things right I'd get the okay sign, if it went rather well I'd get the okay sign with both hands and when I got something perfect it was full on rock hands like in the pic. We had a ball. It's funny how well you can communicate things underwater even when you can't talk. (And yet at the same time some things are very confusing.... ;-)
Claudio again. He's inflated his drysuit to try to make it look like he has big muscley arms. Goodluck.
And here is me with some people who were on my boat and their instructor. We've exchanged emails but you never know how good people will be at keeping in contact. Jess is Irish and I think we were without a doubt the two craziest girls of whichever boat we were on, we made a right pair.
I can't pinpoint exactly what it was that made my holiday so great because it was a combination of the people and the place itself... Camel is a great place to stay and the staff are genuinely friendly and helpful and it was very cool to come back and have people remember me from 9 months ago. Now I'd like to put part of that down to the staff being cool but I will also have to take part of the credit myself as I make a point of smiling nicely and saying hello and thank you and all that. Especially traveling by yourself, I think it's important. Heading over, I had been a bit anxious about being Little Miss No-mates (3 weeks by myself in Greece seems 5 years ago, not 2 1/2) but I had an absolute ball. I was on boats regularly with some of the same people so we'd meet up for dinner or drinks in the evenings. There is definitely something to be said for traveling solo because it does force you to socialise whereas otherwise it's easy to just be lazy and hang out with the people to are on holiday with.
Despite being a busy place (even in winter, Sharm is a tourist meca), the atmoshpere still feels very laid-back. Maybe it's the sun, maybe it's being by the ocean. Regardless of what it was, it was a reality check for me. I love my job, I love the friends I've made in London, I love my flatmates but I'm not living the lifestyle I want to. I'm a seaside girl, I will have to be honest and even on my last day, when I couldn't dive, I got myself onto a boat for half a day so that I could at least be on the water. Some might crassly describe me as happy as a pig in shit when I'm on a boat but I prefer to be compared to a dog hanging its head out the window of a fast car. But my time here (London) is not yet done so I'll just have to last it out.
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