...Meaning Ascension of the Prophet
Not quite sure what that all means? Neither did I, apart from a very welcomed public holiday. However since it means more than just a holiday to the Islamic people here, I thought I should find out what it actually means to them.
This event marks the night that Allah (God) took Mohammad on a journey from Mecca to Jerusalem
and then to heaven. Isra and Mi'raj, is usually observed on the 27th day of the month of Rajab, the seventh month in the Islamic calendar.
This year, it was observed on 29th June, followed by the public holiday on 30th June. Carol and I took advantage of starting the long weekend off with dinner at a restaurant called Apres, overlooking the ski slope in the Mall of the Emirates. Arriving just after work, it was quite entertaining watching the antics on the slope below, which was surprisingly busy considering the time of day/night...without realising it we had chatted ourselves well past midnight...a solida 6 hours of good food and good company, which set the tone for the rest of the long weekend.
After a semi-lazy lie in the next day, we had a late afternoon lunch/early dinner at Rob and Helga's place. Followed by a trip, with Gareth and Reinet, the day after that to Dragaon Mart, which to our dismay (clearly we have yet to learn our lesson with checking these things before we go) was closed until 2pm considering it was Friday. A little dissapointed we headed to The Outlet Mall instead, and had a quick breakfast before heading off to shop till we drop....well that was my plan anyway. A couple of hours later, Reinet and Gareth long gone and an even grumpier Mark, consindering I had only made 2 purchases in all this time, we headed home to do a little DIY before heading out to dinner at the Dubai Marina Mall.
The next morning was an early start for us, as we left for Fujairah just before 7am. The 2 hour trip, for the 2nd consecutive weekend in a row, meant 2 dives were in store for us that morning. We arrived to find our names down on the boat going to Dibba Rock, which would be our first dive of the day, and were quite excited as we had not dived at that site before. Since we are now fully fledged advanced divers, we were to dive by ourselves with no instructor or guide for the very first time. Well that would have been the case, had there not been one person too few on the diver (or too many, whichever way you look at it) and as you always need to dive in pairs or more, our buddy team would consist of 3 this time. The gentleman who was to join us, had not dived for sometime due to a serious illness which he had now over come, however you could see he was still very nervous...just our luck as Mark and I were quite looking forward to doing our own thing and were feeling quite confident. Once at the bottom, this gentleman decided to drag way behind Mark and I, which proved rather tricky in being able to spot him, since the visability wasn't very good. Not to mention once we had rounded a certain point of the rock, the current was quite strong and a few photographs in, we realised we could no longer see him. As the rules go, you should look around for your buddy for a minute before heading to the surface to look for them there. The current made it difficult to swim around in search of him, so after the minute was up and we had completed our safety stop as well, we headed to the surface. The boat was on the otherside of the rock, so they coudn't see us and we couldn't see this gentleman anywhere on the surface. Bearing in mind the current had been quite strong at 15 meters down, so it was even stronger on the surface, nevertheless I swam as much as I could around the rock,so the boat would catch site of us and thankfully during this time the gentleman popped to the surface too, thus bringing an end to what had been a frustrating dive. This gentleman said he had gone further into the blue (instead of sticking to the rock/reef) for some unknown reason, considering how strong the current was (not to mention as buddies you supposed to stick together or at least be insight of each other for obvious reasons).
The next morning was an early start for us, as we left for Fujairah just before 7am. The 2 hour trip, for the 2nd consecutive weekend in a row, meant 2 dives were in store for us that morning. We arrived to find our names down on the boat going to Dibba Rock, which would be our first dive of the day, and were quite excited as we had not dived at that site before. Since we are now fully fledged advanced divers, we were to dive by ourselves with no instructor or guide for the very first time. Well that would have been the case, had there not been one person too few on the diver (or too many, whichever way you look at it) and as you always need to dive in pairs or more, our buddy team would consist of 3 this time. The gentleman who was to join us, had not dived for sometime due to a serious illness which he had now over come, however you could see he was still very nervous...just our luck as Mark and I were quite looking forward to doing our own thing and were feeling quite confident. Once at the bottom, this gentleman decided to drag way behind Mark and I, which proved rather tricky in being able to spot him, since the visability wasn't very good. Not to mention once we had rounded a certain point of the rock, the current was quite strong and a few photographs in, we realised we could no longer see him. As the rules go, you should look around for your buddy for a minute before heading to the surface to look for them there. The current made it difficult to swim around in search of him, so after the minute was up and we had completed our safety stop as well, we headed to the surface. The boat was on the otherside of the rock, so they coudn't see us and we couldn't see this gentleman anywhere on the surface. Bearing in mind the current had been quite strong at 15 meters down, so it was even stronger on the surface, nevertheless I swam as much as I could around the rock,so the boat would catch site of us and thankfully during this time the gentleman popped to the surface too, thus bringing an end to what had been a frustrating dive. This gentleman said he had gone further into the blue (instead of sticking to the rock/reef) for some unknown reason, considering how strong the current was (not to mention as buddies you supposed to stick together or at least be insight of each other for obvious reasons).
Our second dive of the day also proved to be an 'interesting' one...we weredown on the list for the boat heading to Inchcape I...which is you recall from my last post was the deeper wreck we had dived the weekend before. This time we headed out with a different group of divers - a group of 5 friends and then Mark and I. We let the rowdy bunch off the boat before us and after much delay they eventually all headed down the rope in search of the wreck. We discovered my o-ring on my tank needed replacing (as had one of the others guys in the group of 5) so Mark and I landed up being quite a few minutes behind the others. As we were about to descend we saw their bubbles indicating they were headed back for the surface....so we looked underwater and true as bob, they were making their way back up the rope and one of the girls gave the out of air sign. Once at the surface, they explained none of them were out of air and rather that the rope they had descended on, which as per the dive brief (and our knowledge from the weekend before) was due to lead you right down on to the middle of the ship...however this time the rope was in fact burried into the sand....no wreck in sight...leaving the Captain to explain that either he had the co-ordinates wrong or someone had moved the buoy or as he said sometimes fisherman cut the ropes for some unkown reason.
That said we headed to a different dive site, 3 rocks, and not even 2 minutes after we were at the bottom, we spotted our first turtle, which at least made up for the little we had seen on the first dive that day. The rest of the dive went off almost hitch free, apart from Mark's compass not quite working exactly. We spotted 2 huge puffer fish, which are really quite cure, with the large sad looking eyes. Regardless of the fact that Mark's compass was playing games, and considering my BCD did not have a compass on it, Mark did very well in navigating us back to the area in which the boat should have been. I even managed to contribute to the navigation part of the dive by spotting the rope which would lead us back to the boat.
That said we headed to a different dive site, 3 rocks, and not even 2 minutes after we were at the bottom, we spotted our first turtle, which at least made up for the little we had seen on the first dive that day. The rest of the dive went off almost hitch free, apart from Mark's compass not quite working exactly. We spotted 2 huge puffer fish, which are really quite cure, with the large sad looking eyes. Regardless of the fact that Mark's compass was playing games, and considering my BCD did not have a compass on it, Mark did very well in navigating us back to the area in which the boat should have been. I even managed to contribute to the navigation part of the dive by spotting the rope which would lead us back to the boat.
Once back at the shore, of which both my exits had been successfull this time and since I had learnt my lesson the last time by burning my feet, I had left my slip slops as low down as possible on the sand, without them being taken away in the high tide (although typically the sand was not as hot this time) - we felt quite exhausted and in deperate need of a quick dip in the chilled hotel pool before heading back to Dubai, after yet another good weekend.
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