Wreck Dive in Yanbu

This past weekend I went out with my dive instructor, her husband and five others from the consulate to Yanbu, a small town North of Jeddah.  After a 4am meet up we hit the road, 3 hours and 1 speeding ticket later (damn speed cameras), we met up with our contact who got us up to the marina.  The boat was much smaller than I anticipated, but we piled on board, stowed our gear and set off.  it was a nice 45 minute ride out to the site.  We did two dives on the wreck and then went to a different reef for our last dive.  The dives were great, the lunch sucked, but oh well.  Enough rambling, here are some of the pictures, the rest can be found here: YANBU DIVE PICS

 Couple of Lion Fish

A look inside reveals 1000s of small fish

Cheers!

Thanksgiving in Dubai

Okay so as you can see from the title we went to Dubai for Thanksgiving.  Started out with a nice flight on Emirates airlines. I have to say they economy class seats were good size and plenty of leg room.  Service was great and the flight was only 2.5 hours.  So no problems there.

We rented a car but unfortunately the only drivers license I had with me was my Saudi license.  Fortunately, Jolene had her US license so she put the car in her name.  That was great for her since she can't drive in Saudi it was a chance for her to get behind the wheel for a few days, and a nice break for me.  So we checked into our Marriott hotel and got upgraded to a 2 bedroom apartment.

We were told about a gold souk so of course, Jolene and Crystal wanted to go check it out.  The gold was between 18 and 24 karat and this place is strongly regulated by the government for quality.  Needless to say I'm done Christmas shopping for Jolene.

One of 3 enterances to the souk

Lots of large breast plate like designs

And a little silver shopping too..

All I have to say here is Merry Christmas!

A few 24k bracelets

oh! and some gold!!!

With a few diamonds

and other people shopping.

So needless to say there is shopping to be done in Dubai.  After the souk and walking around all morning we went to a little desert dune riding in a Hummer and then a Bedouin meal.  This part was just okay, but the dancers were really good.

 This was the entrance to the desert area.

 Crystal found an Aussie friend to hang with 

 No trip is complete without riding a camel 

And that wrapped up a long day.  From here it was like an hour and half ride back to the hotel for a nice night of sleep and sleeping in.  After we got up and moving our first order of business was to find a Starbucks, Jolene and Boo need their Starbucks... and from there it was time to get wet at Wild Wadi.

And the view was pretty good from the high slides

The water park was really fun and it was nice just to run around and play in the water.  They had some really good slide and one that the bottom dropped out from underneath you and free fall a good deal of the way... Good times!

So after the water park it was time to go to the movies since there are none in Saudi Arabia.  We went to the Mall of the Emirates and saw Catching fire.  That pretty much rounded out our Thanksgiving, no turkey no table to sit at, just a bit of time in another country where the girls could where what they want, I could have a beer at a restaurant in public and Jolene could drive.  Kind of funny what you're thankful for when you can't have something you used to take for granted.

Cheers!

Scuba in the Red Sea

Thats right, we've finally started our open water dives; we completed the first two this past weekend.  But Friday night Jolene was the control officer at a party so we knew it was going to be a late night and didn't want to get up early on Saturday, next weekend is out because the girls think they have to leave the country and visit Dubai so we will finish up in a couple of weeks.

On these dives we went down to about 40-45 feet, visability was okay, definiatley better out further from the coast.  I'm already lining up a dive about 3 hours north of Jeddah off the coast of Yanbu, Saudi Arabia, to visit an WW I Turkish troop transport wreck.  There are a half dozen of us from the consulate planning on diving the wreck.  So here are a few pictures from our dive.

Here is Crystal and the student dive master Christian.

And a selfie of me

Some coral, have to work out good settings on the camera for deeper water than snorkeling.

 




Christian again

And me

Crystal and her flowing red hair

Our Finish instructor Anu. She's been awesome!

And Jolene sporting the Shortie wet suit.











And yes we will be spending a few days in Dubai.  We are looking forward to getting away for a bit and it will be really nice for the girls since they can dress like Westerners there and can forget the abaya for a while. We'll post pics and tell you all about it when we get back.

Cheers!