It Must Be Love Part 2

Don't think I haven't noticed the ridonkulous popularity of my 'It Must Be Love' post - I'm guessing a lot of instructors out there have experienced the googly eyes, you lucky devils you.  So, in sympathy I've decided to make a Part 2, or Second Date if you will. 

I googled Instructor and Student and this came up - love it!

 

Now a long long time ago, in a land far away, I fell in love.  Well, I thought it was love. This magical land was called Egypt (you may have heard of it, there's been some shit going down lately), and I was a fresh-faced young recruitment consultant on holiday with a friend - two weeks in the sun, no strings, easy like Sunday morning right?  WRONG!  Tell that to the me that ended up on the transfer coach back to Sharm airport literally dripping with snot and inconsolable. I'm not usually a big crier (Sharkboy would disagree massively) but I swear the other passengers put on their lifejackets just in case.

 

The friend I went on holiday with was keen to do her Open Water course, and persuaded me to join her.  To be honest at the time I couldn't have cared less, but she didn't want to do it on her own, and if I didn't then I would have been alone for most of the holiday, which I really didn't want, so I agreed and we signed up.  The first day was pretty dull - classroom work, swim tests, "WHAT THE HELL, YOU WANT ME TO TAKE MY MASK OFF????".  Yeah, that didn't go down well, in fact my instructor (thank you sweetheart!) ended up grabbing my leg to drag me back down as I bolted for the surface.  I'm not recommending that as a course of action for everybody, but it worked for me and there's every possibility that if he hadn't done that, I wouldn't be where I am today.  We headed back to the hotel in the early evening, got showered and dressed and went downstairs to the pool bar for a sundowner.  We were staying in a very small hotel that I had stayed in the year previously with two friends, so I knew the place and the staff fairly well...but hello, who was this??  Suddenly this bronzed Adonis with muscles everywhere and the smallest red Speedo you've ever seen leapt out of the pool and started doing push ups in front of us.  Unable to draw my eyes from him, my first thought was "What a twat".  My friend agreed, and we happily went back to our drinks. 

 

Later on that evening, during dinner, the Animation (Entertainment) Team announced a bingo night, and guess who was the compere, Banana Hammock himself!  He smiled charmingly and made every excuse to come to our table.  His English wasn't the best, but those beautiful white teeth and huge biceps made an impression regardless, and actually he came across as quite a decent guy in the end, if a bit of a playboy.  He invited me out into Sharm Old Town after his shift was done, so around midnight, I packed my friend off to bed and went off to meet him outside the hotel like a naughty school girl.  Immediately he grabbed my hand and started showing me off like I was the woman of his dreams - to be honest, it's very difficult not to be charmed by that sort of behavior.  We sat in the market and drank tea, and when I was inevitably bitten by a squadron of mosquitos, he ordered lemon juice and rubbed it on my bites.  By the end of the evening I was a goner.  By the end of the holiday I was in love with the man and the diving.

 

The relationship continued for a couple of years, to the point where I was heading back to Egypt every three months, and we even got engaged.  It was fiery, passionate - we had the most blazing rows in my terrible Arabic and his terrible English which always ended the same way, ahem.  Looking back on it now, it was an obsessive and destructive relationship, and in the end it was diving that tore us apart.  We were together when I headed to Utila to go pro, and his jealousy over my love of the sport thankfully ended us within two days of my arrival.  My mourning period was surprisingly short, but then it's difficult to be sad in such an atmosphere, and I soon moved on to greener pastures.  I've been back to Egypt since, and my arrival is always heralded with a message or phone call from him, and once or twice even a late night visit bearing flowers or teddy bears.  As of two years ago he still hadn't got the message, but communication lines have opened recently, and I believe he is doing very well as a dolphin trainer in Saudi Arabia these days, so good for him.  The muscles have become a little flabbier, and the laughter lines a little deeper, and if he posts one more quote from the Quran on Facebook I'm defriending him; but I'm glad that he's settled.

 

Relationships come and go you see, at least the wrong ones do, and it's other passions, such as diving, that keep us grounded.  We all need something, or someone, in our lives that is steady and reliable, and for the last 7 years for me that has been diving.  My love life might have been stuck in the mud or up in the air, but when I sink beneath the surface, I am free. 

 

 



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