Boat Snorkel Trip

Well we finally have our HHE shipment.  We've spent several days unpacking and it is really nice to have our stuff again.  Even though my computer was dead, I was able to recover the hard drive and get all my data back, woohoo!

Okay back to the water.  On Columbus day holiday we went with about 20 other people from work on a boat trip about 17 miles off the coast to a couple of different reefs.  Here are a few shots heading out on our day of fun in the sun.

 Heading out the inlet there are several yachts, this was one of the smaller ones.

 Looking back toward shore

This was one of the reefs we snorkeled around

The first on was called Chicken Wreck, this is because a boat sunk there carrying frozen chicken bound for Jeddah.  The boat is in about 45 feet of water, since I was just snorkeling couldn't get close up pictures, but here is a shot as far down as I could get.

The reefs were absolutely awesome the water was so clear you could easily see 50 feet underwater.  There were so many fish and I saw a giant moray eel.  It was just cruising along below me, it was too quick for me to get a decent picture.

We have scheduled to start our dive training and we are all looking forward to getting certified so we can go deeper and see more.  On this trip about half of the group was diving and they always came up saying how cool it was and one guy was telling us about an octopus that played tug of war with him.

But I digress, so I have to say my new underwater camera does pretty good.  Still working on fine tuning the settings but here are a few of my favorite shots, and you can see the whole album here. SNORKEL PICS

These guys almost glow they are so bright.

I've only seen these little green fish in coral like this

 Boo diving down for a closer look.

 One of several highway like areas where fish seemed to follow a specific path

 There were several tunnel areas like this were you could swim through.

 And the colorful fish were all over.

 These fish were 18" - 24" inches long and were in water about a foot or two deep on top of the reef.

More little green fish in the coral

One of the bigger ones hiding out.

Well that's our update.  We are in the middle of a week long Hajj holiday.  Next week it's back to work, but in the mean time we are going to have some of the Marines over for dinner tonight.  With such a small American community, we try to do as much with others as we can, it makes this place just that much better.

Cheers!

Snorkeling

Okay the beaches are a really nice place to get away and reduce the effects of the heat and humidity here. The beaches we go to are private beaches that charge about $30 per person to get in.  But you get do be a Westerner and dress as such.  So the girls can wear their swimsuits and not be gawked at or harassed for the way the are dressed.

Any way, this last weekend we went back to the Silver Sands beach here and got in some snorkeling and I got to try out my new waterproof camera.  There is some coral there, but it's not as good as it was at the La Plage but good time none the less. So here are a few shots from Silver Sands.

I think we are going to shoot for end of October for scuba lessons, after that I'm hopine we can get some good shots and maybe some video with the camera.

Cheers!

Beach and Balls

So today we made it out to the Silver Sands beach and it was just beautiful.  Two thumbs up for me.  Crystal said it was like paradise, a place where she could where her bikini.  Jolene and I think the beach is "Travel Magazine Ready"  Something like you will see in resort adds in travel magazine.  No for those of you that know the Silver Sands in NY, yeah this is much better.  Today is an American holiday, but not for the locals so it was a perfect time to go to the beach.  We pretty much had the place to ourselves, me Jolene, Boo and one of the Marines, which I think we are adopting.  Crystal will have another big brother.... I think we'll get one at each post to help keep an eye on her.

So here are the pictures that I took with my iPhone.  I'm sure Jolene will be uploading some to Facebook too.  We did swim out to the island and found a crab on the rocks.  It was perfectly intact but dead and all red.  Honestly it looks like it climbed out on the rock and cooked right there

So the other part of the title... Balls....I'm sure you're wondering where that is relevant.  Well a friend of a friend came back from Turkey and brought some gum back with them.  It is supposed to be extra sour, but I only thought it was fruity.  It was kinda like Double Bubble in that it was good for about 30 seconds then you are ready to spit it out.  So here is the gum...

I thought it was funny as hell.  So what else, we are settling into work, Jolene is trying to update things in her job, I'm cruising along and Crystal is off for yet one more week, but we will make a trip into the school sometime this week to get her new school uniforms.  Picture to be posted later.

We went to a dinner party with another consulate family and two families that live here, one from England and the other guy is from Chicago and his wife is from Iraq.  She made authentic Iraqi cuisine and it was awesome.  I don't even know the name of the dishes but they were great, and then she made this Turkish desert that was, well awesome too.  No idea what it was called, I know it have pine nuts in it and ice cream and sugar and something else that had a grainy texture.  No pictures of the dessert, but Jolene got pictures of the table before we ate so look for those on FB.

Cheers for now.

Time for another update from Jeddah

Well I just completed my first full week of work and settling in nicely.  Everyone at post is extremely friendly and have made us feel welcome.  Jolene starts work this Sunday and is really looking forward to it.  This week we went out with some others from work and had a sea food dinner Bedouin style... sitting on carpets and sharing several different plate.  Here's the spread...

We had sea bass, parrot fish, shrimp, and calamari.  Crystal and Jolene ate a little bit of everything.  They actually like it.   I handed Crystal one of the shrimp above and she said, "What do I do with it... It still has the head on it, Dad fix it for me...."  So I pealed her shrimp for her.  Needless to say everything tasted excellent. There was 15 of us for dinner and we had enough food for another 10 people.  But we made good use of the leftovers, bringing them to the Marines on duty and the security guards.

So this is the beach we went to today, it's called the La Plage. For those of you that know French, yes the beach is called "The Beach".  I know very original.  There is another beach that we will eventually make it to called "Silver Sands"  For you back in the USDA, I'll let you know how it compares to the Silver Sands in NY.

The water is quite warm, but a little cooler than the pool in our housing compound.  As you get out about 5 feet or so it gets quite comfortable.  The tent in the distance is where you can rent snorkel and dive equipment.  There is a reef that drops off where the divers head out, but the reef is awesome with a snorkel. One of the Marines that was with us today, had an underwater camera, so if his pictures turn out I'll get them uploaded here.  But until then, here's what it looked like...

Obviously we need to rush out and get our own fins and mask so we don't have to rent them, but we are really looking forward to learning how to dive and exploring further out.  I hear there are several ship wrecks that are great diving places.

Well that's it for now ...

مع السلامة
Sounds like ... Ma’a salama
Translations... Good Bye