Brandon's First Ever Blog Post. Ever.

Brandon, Alia, and Brandon's parents Ian and Lorna out on a boat for a day of snorkelling.

So here we are, the first ever blog post in the history of me, done just for you Johnny.

Well, we're still in Oman and for those of you who may be wondering, yes, it's still really really hot. You do get used to it though, just last night Alia and I were sitting around outside thinking about waht a nice tempertaure it was, not too hot at all. A quick look at the thermomemter revealed the temperature to be a mild 32 centigrade. We're freaks.

A few days ago we finished up the diving course we were taking here, GUE Fundamentals. The course focused on proper bouyancy, control in the water, team work (GUE teaches diving in groups of three rather than the traditional two), out of air drills and several other skills all of which you think you've got under control until you take the course and discover you don't. The original group taking the course was supposed to be Alia, my father and myself, but then some things got shifted around and my father couldn't take the course anymore due to work constraints so he decided that my mother would like to take the course. This came as a bit of a suprise to her but she was good natured about it and took the course without complaining. The end result was that Alia and I passed and my mother got a privisional pass, which is quite good considering she entered the course with only 36 dives. The course definately made me re-evaluate the way I have been diving and I highly reccomend it to any of you reading this who are divers.

The course, spanning four days and involving a fair bit of theory, some fun in the pool and six dives in 34C water left us quite tired, so the day after it was time to relax on the beach. Alia and I went down to the PDO recreation center (or centre) for a nice lunch, some beach time and a swim in the ocean, because we havn't had enough ocean yet. Not much to say about it really, it was still hot. In the afternoon we took a trip to the Mutrah Souq to experience local shopping. For those who don't know, a souq is a sort of out door market and can be lots of fun. There are quite a few aggresive salesmen about and I had a good laugh when my mother ended up buying four scarves that she originally had no intention of buying. The experience was unfortunately cut short as we had to return home so my mom could drive my brother to music lessons.

Yesterday was another day of relaxation. My father took us out on the company boat and we went snorkling at a few locations. The first two sites were on Fahal island, which is a large rock in the middle of the ocean. The water was warm and crystal clear and there were plenty of colourful fish to see. I was a bit worried snorkling around there as I have seen large chunks of rock fall off the island into the water and I'm pretty sure that in a competition with a high velocity boulder, I would lose. The second site was Jesse point, which was nice and shallow and had an abundance of colourful fish as well. This site also has the advantage of being high velocity boulder free, which pleased me greatly. While the snorkling was fun there was a downside, my back became a nice bright red and my brother started making fun of me saying that I got maynonaise on my lobster which means that despite having a lobster colour back, my bum is still a brilliant white. Alia remains sunburn free.

Today there is more lazyness to be had in the morning, later this afternoon we're off for another spin in the boat and then off to another souq in order to ensure that alia gets as much culture as possible. We have plans for diving tomorrow and hopes to find a few sharks, rays and cuttle fish.

-Brandon