The long arm of the intarweb stretches improbably to this beach-side restaurant at the Penguin Dive Center, in Dahab, Egypt, where I just completed my PADI Advanced Open Water Scuba Diver qualification.  The course included five dives:

• a navigation dive
• a deep dive (to 30 meters depth, right around where you start getting “narked” (which causes incapacitating symptoms similar to drinking) )
• a naturalist dive where we identified many different fish and types of coral
• a “drift” dive, going, in our case, unexpectedly against a current; and finally,
• yesterday’s night dive (which, yet again, revealed a whole new world under the surface).

My Sealife DC500 underwater camera went on its maiden voyage during the naturalist dive.  Some of the results are fantastic, but I hadn’t set the white balance underwater, so the photos required some heavy lifting in Capture NX.  I’ve since bought an underwater whiteboard which doubles as a white card, so hopefully the next set will require less makeover work.

I’d love to show you the photos, but the internet connection here, however improbable its existance, is also improbably slow.  So you’ll need to wait ’til I find another connection.

I won’t say a “better” connection because any connection on the beach is a lovable connection.

I am stunned by the amount of technology here.  Indeed, I expected to look totally out of place wielding a laptop (which I brought, inconspicuously, for working with photos).  Instead, I’m sitting here with 3 other people around me all sharing the wireless connection.

Can’t wait to post those photos, but since it might be a while, here’s the plan: do a few more dives in Egypt, then head to see Petra in Jordan (coincidentally, chosen on 7/7/7 as one of the new seven wonders of the world.)

By the way, if you’re reading this because you did a search for scuba diving, I can highly recommend the Penguin Dive Center here in Dahab for scuba diving and scuba courses.  Our dive master Ahmed was very professional, highly experienced (8000+ dives), and an excellent instructor who took the PADI Advanced Course very seriously.  I learned heaps and have had a great time – and would definitely return.