VVVVVRRRRRRRROOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMM

That's how April felt.....just passed by in a blur. Things to remember from this month: Simon went back to the UK, the weather got warmer, so did the water - but the water supply went into red. I finally got so tired I couldn't continue without a couple of days off. And I had a most memorable day involving one boat with engine problems and later an as-close-to-capsizing-as-possible-without-actually-capsizing experience. That one made me feel like Kate Winslet on the Titanic.......

Anyway: good news first...It's getting really HOT here in Paradise. Day temperatures in the mid-end thirties, night temperatures around 30. No problems staying warm. The sea is finally where it should be: 28-29 degrees except in those nasty thermocline monsters. Grrrrr.

Unfortunately, it's also a lot windier here now; meaning it's getting really choppy out there. Which btw leads me directly to that memorable Monday last week......coming back from the first dive on a speedboat, it was VERY choppy. We had some problems getting the divers back on the boat, but finally managed. We were at the most remote divesite here, normally approx. 12 minutes away. The boat was filling up with water from the waves - and suddenly, the engine just stopped....Not necessarily a huge problem, However: big waves, strong wind, strong current - oh, and the rocks of the coastline about 30 meters away, but coming closer and closer and closer.....A bit of drama there, but we managed to get the engine started sort of last moment and everyone was ok.

Later that same dive, I did another dive at a different dive site with a different group and on a different boat: bangka, one of the local flat boats with outriggers. And yes, after the dive a wave caught us a bit from the side, weight in the boat shifted and suddenly the boat was standing upright on the side. Three divers jumped in the water, while we were sitting on the edge and the captain was hanging on one of the outriggers. After about 3 hours (or maybe 30 seconds, just felt longer), the boat finally went back to normal boat position. Luckily enough, the only gear we lost was a spare tank.

Pfui, what a day!

The worst part of the month was saying bye-bye to Simon on the 11th. I miss him badly. I thought work would keep me distracted - but since I "only" work 13 hours a day, it still leaves me with enough time to be sad. I hope it's worth it......Occassionally I am thinking that it might make sense to get a job with a different company, where the working hours are more humane. We'll see........

Gotta go, my student is waiting

Take care everyone
Karin xxxxx

Relaaaaxxxxxx, you're on holiday!

That's our favourite saying these days - together with "good jo-ob". Why? We have been ridiculously busy the past weeks, which means that nobody has had a day off in two weeks. Looking at life back home, you'd expect most people to start getting grumpy and aggressive - but of course that's not life in paradise :D Instead we are having even more fun together and making silly jokes whenever possible. And now we have a somewhat quiet week, so we're quite proud of ourselves for having made everything work.

Life is still great here, but there are dark clouds in the horizon...Simon is going back to Europe this Wednesday and then it'll be 6-7 weeks apart :( Nothing we can do about it now, we just have to get through it somehow.


A quite bizar event this week: a couple of years ago I went diving off the coast of the Arab Emirates with a company called Divers Down. Imagine my surprise, when Divers Down suddenly turned up here with a group of divers. The World IS quite small - they've not been here before, but they really like it, so they might come back again. Two of the guests in that group are actually getting married while they are here. I'm not quite sure, whether that's romantic.....I'll tell you after the wedding ;)

I've already had my disease this month: toncilitis! It cost me 3 days in bed and lots of penicillin - I'm still not fully recovered. Never mind hey: I'm on holiday ;)))

Lotsa xxx

Karin