Like Going on a Walk-My first Dive Ever

After a very peaceful night, I woke up early in the morning and went to get some breakfast. As Karin and André already ate and where somewhere in the water, I ate alone but somehow I found that to be quite peaceful. Some black tea and toast with Egyptian Feta was a good start to the day, and I prepared some more to take with me. As there is only half board at the Coral Garden, I had to see where to get my food from for lunch later. I mean, I could get something at the bar, but that wouldn't be included.
After breakfast, I wanted to make a beeline back to Mila, but I ran into Karin and André who took me with them to the dive base. There, I met Tom, the manager of the ORCA Dive Club here and he asked me about wanting to try to dive. As I'm always very bad with equalizing my ears to the pressure, I'm kinda afraid of diving. However, as it wouldn't cost me anything, I at least wanted to give it a try. So, he sat me down to sign a bunch of papers that I didn't read through and left me alone with Ahmed afterwards. He gave me my diving suit which took me like forever to put on and showed me everything I needed to know for a test dive. He must have sensed my nervousness, as he told me "Don't think too much". Okay, I was really bad at not thinking but I'd try.
After loading the tank onto my shoulders, I stomped my way into the water, feeling like weighing at least a ton. The water was super cold and I was happy that I pressed myself into the dive suit which was supposed to keep me warm. Fins, dive mask and breathing device placed in all the right spots, I first had to breath standing in the water. That was so hard, because it felt so unnormal to breath through this regulator. I had to tell myself around hundreds of times to keep my cool and just breath like I love myself (a mantra from my yoga teacher). A minute later, I laid down on the surface and breathed some more whilst Ahmed floated me around a bit. Next step was diving down. He made it slowly, slowly, so that me and my ears could adjust. Whenever the pain was too much, I made the sign "I've got a problem with my ears", he stopped and went back up a bit. Bit by bit, we dove deeper and I could see the underwater world as a diver for the first time. It was pretty cool, but way louder than I've ever thought it'd be, as to the breathing regulator. As I was very much controlling my breathing the whole time, checking in with my ears and holding my hands in a prayer to not touch anything, it was somehow very stressful, although I literally had to do nothing. Ahmed held me at my tank the whole time and swam with me, I didn't even use the fins once as I was too afraid to maybe destroy the precious corals. Later, André told me that he saw us diving like that, thinking that it would just look as if Ahmed would walk a dog on a leash. Funny comparison, though.
I enjoyed looking at the fish and corals, we even saw a scorpion fish and some nemos in their anemone very near by, however... It got boring quite fast to be honest. As nobody could explain to me what kind of corals or fish I could see, and I was way too overwhelmed to be able to soak it all up on my own, it was too over-sensory, so that my system just shut down. Therefore, I was kinda happy when we got up to the surface again. Ahmed asked me, how many metres I thought we went under water. For my ears, it had felt like at least 10 metres, but I was quite sure he wouldn't go as deep as this with a first timer. So I answered 5m. It has been actually 3-6m. Well...
Half an hour later, I was out the dive suit, I had washed it and my hair dryed after having a hot shower. It was time, to go have a look at Mila.
She was still around and seemed actually quite happy to see me. I changed her water and sat next to her. She started playing with my hand (I think she was toothing) and I cuddled with her as if she weren't a dog from the streets. She was so approachable, so sweet, so endearing. The receptionist told me, he gave her food but she needed some more, so I should get some from Jessie (another diving instructor who had a dog). So, I went to her and told her about the puppy at the front door. She and her colleagues immediately started questioning about who that puppy could be and how long she's already been there, where her mother is, etc. Apparently, they put out some food for the street dogs but as there are many, they usually tried to not get too attached. The dogs had to learn to search for food themselves and that they should stay away from humans. Most Egyptians don't treat dogs very nicely... So it's best they don't get too attached. Well, that was too late already. In my head, I was already planning to get her to Germany somehow. I asked Tom about the procedures of that and he answered that I should leave her alone. "She's free and healthy. If you want to help dogs, get yourself one from German shelters, there are enough." Well, yeah I know that... But I wanted to give her a happy life. She was Aluna.2 and I already felt my heart warming whenever I thought of her. The Orcas talked about finding her mother the next day when she would still be there. Apparently, Mila has been there for 4 days already without any sign of her mother. And she was still very young, she needed a family. I thought about accepting to not spend time with her anymore... But then I just thought "Screw it." She was such a sweet dog, she could learn to differentiate between good and bad people later. I would treat her like I treat Aluna and give her all my love and care as long as I can. So that she might remember that later. And I asked myself, what was worse: To never experience love and affection at all or to lose it eventually when I had to go?

For lunch, I ate my sandwich from breakfast and ordered myself an amazingly delicious honey melone and lime smoothie. And afterwards, I went back into the sea, just snorkeling. This time, I took my DJI camera with me to take some great pics. The pictures (following soon) are therefore just from the snorkeling trip that I made, not from the diving trip, but anyways.

The rest of the afternoon, I spent mostly with Mila, just sitting next to her, reading and enjoying the cuddles.
Then, I went to get some dinner and sure enough, André and Karin were there to join me. The food was again way too much, so that I even left half my pizza (can't recommend as they don't have normal cheese in Egypt) for tomorrow's lunch.
Afterwards, we went back down to play some more Billard. This time, André stole the show twice. And then Jamaika (the bartender) came and asked Karin about her name writing skills. Apparently, he had taught her to write her name in Arabic the other day and he wanted to quiz her now. That was fun, so I asked him whether he could show me my name in Arabic. He showed me and to my relief it was easy enough to remember quite fast. He went off to make us some great orange-strawberries smoothies on the house for the effort Karin has put into learning to write her Arabic name. When he came back, I've nearly mastered to write mine. He rated hers to be a 3/10, mine to be a 10/10. I always want to be best in class. We cheered to that and whilst drinking the delicious smoothies, he told us about his wedding that would be in a couple of weeks. We learned all about his fiance "Schatzi" and family and giggled when he told us that he has to "Call my Schatzi". Happy with the good talks we had, we parted ways at half past 10 and I fell in bed immediately.Okumaya devam et