Hey,

Thought you may like to hear about a little 'glitch' that happened during my weekend diving....

About 20 divers were aboard an Arab dhow sailing to a dive site 3 hours away. We were all lounging about, enjoying the beautiful scenery, when a speedboat races up to us and starts talking to the crew in Arabic, followed by a bunch of nosey divers all looking at the side of the boat. We couldn't understand what he was saying and couldn't see an obvious problem, so off we sailed again. Two great dives, a handful of seasick travellers and halfway back to land later... Apparently the dhow started making a few ominous vibrations and noises followed by a distincy smell of burning (I say apparently, because I was fast asleep). I woke up to find a group of people huddled near the engine hatch with smoke seeping through. The hatch comes off in one swift move, followed by PLUMES of black oily smoke. Hmmmm - compressed air, O2, timber....

We looked around to see a member of crew hanging off the side with his mobile phone - no signal! "Why not just use the radio to call the coast guard?" Radio was 'broken' earlier in the day....

Decision made to abandon ship and quite a surreal conversation between the men about women, children and vomity seafarers first was interspersed by shouts for 'who knows how to play a violin'. We managed to catch the attention of another dhow farther away with torches just as a speedboat comes to our billowing smokey aid. Another passing speedboat enabled us to all offload and get to our harbour.

The whole episode was dissected over some ice cold beers and plesently topped off the next day by running out of petrol in the middle of the desert.

Anyone else have a more adventurous than usual weekend?

Nat