Travels of a wandering Waterboy

Back in ES

mickthewaterboy — Wed, 26 Oct 2016 02:46:00 GMT

I am getting back into it here and things are progressing well despite the archaic way the English sell houses. A local council search can take up to 8 weeks as there are only two people working in the land registry department at Wiltshire council. It sounds like they still have to actually search through dusty archives in the bowels of the town hall to find a file that has been gathering dust for the past quarter of a century. I picture some wizened old guy with half moon glasses, a bent back and a walking stick shuffling along rows of dusty files stacked 10 feet high looking for the right one. When he reaches the place he cannot reach the right shelf as he is too bloody short and has to shuffle off back to the start to get someone to help him with the ladder. He then comes shuffling back with an equally decrepit old crone, after stopping for the obligatory cup of tea as they are council workers after all, and a wheeled ladder. He then has to try to climb said ladder one shaky step at a time before locating the right file. Then returning to terra firma he places the file in a carefully selected spot for later retrieval and with his old biddy he returns the ladder to storage. Another cup of tea later, break necessary as he has worn himself out with all the strenuous exercise, he returns to the file only to have forgotten where he left it. Back to checking the logs that he consulted in the first place he eventually finds the file and then return to his cubby hole that is the Land Registry Department on the top floor of the town hall, tucked away out of sight in the rafters. He then informs the solicitor who requested the file to come and collect. This takes another age as the young thing that clerks for the local lawyer is a bit ditzy, as she was only employed for her 38DD's, cannot find the town hall let alone the garret office of the Land Registry dept. Unfortunately this is not my file as mine was only requested two weeks ago and is still about 30 down in the pile. Ho hum modern local government at work.

Any way the guy selling, although concerned realises there is nothing I can do about it but just keep hassling my estate agent, to hassle the buyers, to hassle their solicitors, to hassle the Land Registry dept. which causes the whole process to grind to a halt, as when the phone rings in the garret in the rafters of the town hall it seems to reset the brain of the two old servants of the council and they have to begin their latest search all over again.

We have agreed to extend the sale agreement until the end of the year to cover this fiasco. We will also put into place an usufruct (look it up, I had to) so I can take over on the 1st Nov and pay him when the house eventually sells.

Apart from that all is going well and I am enjoying the sunshine and the diving in the lake.

Trip over - back in Blighty

mickthewaterboy — Wed, 28 Sep 2016 23:38:00 GMT

Well my escapades in the Caribbean are over for now. I am back in the UK sans luggage, that is still enjoying the sights and sounds of Antigua airport.

I eventually ended up working for El Salvador divers as an instructor for a few months so the idea of bumming around Central America did not really happen. Still I managed to go diving every Sat and Sun and completed a bunch of open water courses and a couple of advanced. All dives were done in Logo Ilopango on the edge of San Salvador.

Two views that make up Lago Ilopango

The trip back to Panama was a whole lot easier than the bus ride from hell that I took heading north. This time I went by pland and did it in 3 hours door to door. Overnight in a cheap hotel by the airport and then was off to Sint Maarten.

Stayed back in Vickey's Keys for a few days and just relaxed and visited the local bar. Had an interesting trip from airport to the hostel as Julien, a talented architect and hostel driver, took us on the scenic route. Great views of little bay and great bay from the hill between Philipsburg and the airport.

Little Bay

Little and Great Bays

Philipsburg

Night flight from Sint Maarten to Antigua on a tiny LIAT airways flight. Stopped at St Kitts for 15 minutes. At departures in SXM I found the best seating at any departure lounge that I have suffered in anywhere in the world.

Relaxing in a rocking chair in departures SXM.

There was more than one, a few more on the other side of the area as well!

Unfortunately somewhere between Sint Maarten and Gatwick my luggage managed to get lost. I blame Virgin as they sold me my ticket and it allowed me yet another rant at the bearded, smarmy, music pirate, hypocritical, jumper wearing, uncaring, cnut in charge of the so called Virgin group. Maybe it is only the passengers on his trains and planes that are NOT virgins as he keeps fucking them at every opportunity. -Rant over-

Back now in Cornwall waiting for the birth of my latest grandsprog, she is in the hospital as I write this so should be imminent. More later.

Next venture will be back to San Salvador to continue working for www.elsalvadordivers.com so if you want to learn to dive with me in the crater of an active volcano you know where to come.

I found a job of sorts.

mickthewaterboy — Fri, 29 Jul 2016 05:31:00 GMT

I know it has been a while since my last post but I have been busy with stuff and injured.

I have been suffering with a strained thigh or hip or something, it hurts to walk first thing. Pain eases once I have been ambulatory for a while but I was laid up for about a week with severe restrictions to my walking. Therefore I stayed close to the hostel and did not go much further that the local bar and restaurants.

Hostal with World Trade Centre in the background.

Once the dive shop owner returned from his holiday to Miami and a cruise in the Caribbean he found that he was swamped with dive courses so he offered me a job to assist him with diver training. He gets an instructor to share the load and I get some much needed experience. Last week I assisted with 5 Open Water students in the pool, helping them master the skills and observing how Ben manages the class. I followed this with a bit of theory in the classroom, RDP tables, and then took them out for thier first two open water dives.

Students get a pre dive briefing.

I took one of these student divers for her first open water dives, She was very good and will make an excellent diver, despite her novice instructor :-) The next day I took her cousin on his first two dives and followed this on the Sunday by taking her and her two cousins, one pictured above on their third and fourth dives. They are now fully certified PADI Open Water divers, my first in Central America.

Rodrigo, Florence and Fernando prepare their gear before their final 2 open water course dives.

It was good diving where they all performed the necessary skills very well and completed the course successfully.

This week I have another student starting with the classroom sessions and I will be handling this in English as my Spanish is still very poor. I have been doing the Duolingo on line course and I feel it is going well until I speak to the locals and cannot understand a thing they say as my translation skills are too slow for their speech. Only been 3 weeks so it will improve. Need to get out and mix a bit moor rather than sit in the bar watching the football :-)

San Salvador

mickthewaterboy — Thu, 7 Jul 2016 11:14:00 GMT

Today I took a walk around the area where I am staying. It has been a warm sunny day, a bit too warm for walking but nowhere near as hot as it was in Freetown and even though it is winter here there was little humidity and no rain.

I saw the statue of El Salvador del Mondo (the saviour of the world)

Statue of El Salvador del Mundo with the volcano in the background.

Stopped off at a bar to watch the Wales v Portugal semi final on a big screen

Where I had a bucket of these

Diving in the crater lake Ilopango

mickthewaterboy — Tue, 5 Jul 2016 05:21:00 GMT

Just to the south-east of San Salvador is the massive crater lake of Ilopango. It is around 8km across and 10km wide with a depth of around 235m. It is formed by the collection of rainwater and is the crater created when the volcano Ilopango erupted back in around 536AD. Scientists have recently attributed this eruption with the drop in global temperatures of around 2C which resulted in the poor harvests of the time which had severely detremental effects on the roman and mayan empires as well as a major Chinese dynasty. This volcano is still active and has many upwellings deep underwater. On one dive at a site called the 'Caldera del Diablo' (Devils Cauldron) there are many hot vents on a volcanic upwelling. Around these vents, where you can warm your hands, grow fresh water sponges.

View across Lago Ilopango to 3 distant volcanoes.

During this time of year there is a lot of algae growing in the surface waters which makes the lake very green, but once you get below around 15m the visibility greatly improves as you dip below the thermocline. Surface temperature is around 28C which encourages the algae to grow but this stops when the temp drops by 3-4C below the thermocline. In the summer months when it is cold in the north of the continent and the wind blows from that direction the lake temperature drops a few degrees and the algae growth stops and the visibility goes to around 15m from around 1m at present, if it has been raining at night.

Photos: El salvador

mickthewaterboy — Sun, 26 Jun 2016 04:58:00 GMT

Photos: Nicaragua

mickthewaterboy — Sun, 26 Jun 2016 04:58:00 GMT

Photos: Panama

mickthewaterboy — Sun, 26 Jun 2016 04:57:00 GMT

Panama photos

The Tica Bus experience

mickthewaterboy — Sat, 25 Jun 2016 01:28:00 GMT

on a bus in Naragua. Travelling between Panama City and San Salvador. Next time I will fly. Supposed to be an 'Executive Bus' but they feed you on the move. All I have been offered so far is crisps, biscuits, a big mac and some bloody awful rice and beans with some sort of egg. Only drinks offered have been fizzy sugary pop and coffee. Have to ask repeatedly for some plain water. Even airline food isn't this bad.

Good job I brought my ham sarnies and a couple of bottles of red :-)

Later.......

Border control by bus is a very different experience. Makes the airport experience seem a breeze, unless of course you go to the US!

Because you sre on a bus and crossing a border and not just arriving at your destination one is required tto go through both exit and entry procedures.

PAN - CR This entailed off loading luggage for exit checks (a dog sniff, and a visual check with bags unopened), reloading luggage on bus, getting exit visa stamp, walking 250m through the rain to next country, getting entry stamp, meeting up with bus, unloading luggage, Nother visual check of outside of bag and then reloading luggage.

CR - NIC I enjoyed this one as it allowed me to get out of the fridge. Bloody A/C seemed set on freeze, luckily I had a jacket with me that I hadn't worn since leaving the UK. Everybody on the bus had coats and hats as well as wrapping themselves in the miniscule blankets that Tica Bus supplied, about 3ft square. Before we arrived the bus conductor handed out immigration and customs forms and collected $21 supposedly for immigration fees, no receipt so of course I asked for one when the inability of conversing in the English language came to his rescue. He just shrugged and walked away.

Not sure exactly what happened where during this and the rest of the border crossings due to excessive cold on the bus causing brain functions shutting down, tiredness, coundn't give shittedness and 2 litres of red wine. Things that stick out were giving passports to conductor to get entry visa stamps in Nicaragua supposedly to save time. We still had to stand around after getting luggage checked, or just looked at, in another customs hall. After this we had to hang around for the bus to catch up with us to reload the bags and then for the immigration official to hand out the passports. Hondourae, no baggage checks. El salvador no entry visa stamp and luggage check about a mile away from border where they checked the bags of just 3 people. All very odd. Oh and I only received one receipt from any of the immigration points for $10! Whatever happened to the other $11 I wonder. Just like being back in Africa I suppose. :-(

Anyway arrived safe and sound in San salvador, very tired and stiff from 36 hours of being cramped in a short person's seat.

Not sure what was in the last meal they gave us as it was some local dish and it was dark on the bus. Didn't taste too bad but today I have what they call in Africa a 'runny stomach', anywhere else 'the shits'. Good job there are three Euro matches on so I have a reason not to go anywhere :-)

Sitting waiting for the CRO vs POR game listening to the theme from Monty Python on the radio which was preceded by the one from The Pink Panther.

The Canal

The only thing I saw worth taking a photo of on the whole trip.

Taking a plane next time !!!!

Panamanian CATCH22

mickthewaterboy — Mon, 20 Jun 2016 22:08:00 GMT

Today I came across a classic Catch22 situation here in Panama City.

I needed to go to the main bus terminal in the city, Albrook to buy my international ticket to San Salvador on the Tica Bus.

To get there I needed to get a bus. The busses here have a turnstile at the entrance and exit and require you to swipe a MetroCard to operate and gain entrance. Similar to the Oyster card system in London. Unfortunately unlike London, where you can pick up an oyster card just about anywhere for cash and charg it with credit. Here it transpired that you can only buy the MetroCard at Albrook bus terminal.

To get a MetroCard you hace to go to Albrook,

To get to Albrook you have to get a bus,

To get on the bus to Albrook you have to use the MetroCard which you can only buy at Albrook.

You see the Catch22!

I managed to get someone to swipe me onto the bus by giving them 25 cents cash. Not too easy with my limited Spanish and also towering over all the short people here and accosting them in my rough London accented basic Spanish.

Watched the bloody awful England vs Slovakia in a bar in town.

Saba

mickthewaterboy — Sat, 11 Jun 2016 01:53:00 GMT

On 7th June I travelled to the island of Saba about an hour and a half by boat from Sint Maarten. Travelled aboard the Dawn II, otherwise known as the Heineken boat for obvious reasons.

Dawn II, or the Heineken boat.

On a pretty rough crossing with waves breaking over the boat and running off the rear of the roof I put my backpack behind me to protect it from the water. Unfortunately I must have bounced against it rather hard as when I went to use it later I found that the screen had broken. That's two broken screens not, the one on my tablet that I managed to break at Gatwick and now the one on my brand new laptop. Just waiting for the third :-(

Had a couple of days diving with Saba Divers. First dive was off Diamond Rock, then a few more sites along the southern side of the island. Saw turtles, a shark, an eagle ray, a school of Tarpons amongst many other fish and plenty of coral although plenty of that was damaged due to the hurricane that passed through a few years ago. Takes a long time to recover but sea grass is growing back which is attracting the turtles and other larger marine life.

Diamond Rock, colour courtesy of the avian life.

Reef Shark

Turtle

Saba is an odd place. I is basically a large dead volcano, inactive for 5,000 years so not dead but just resting, in the middle of the sea. Steep cliffs all round. The only flat piece of land has the smallest airport in the world which is at the mercy of the weather. Many flights delayed or cancelled due to wind in the wrong direction, so I was told. Prior to the harbour at Fort bay being built all goods had to be brought to the landing jetty below the customs house and carried up the cliff by way of steps cut into the rocks.

Old Customs House and steps.

The other very odd thing is that ALL the buildings are white with red roofs. It is not a law or rule or any such thing BUT if you have a roof of a different colour you would be shunned by the population of the island, or so I was told by Eddie at the Swinging Door pub (very good ribs on Tuesday and Friday)

All the red roofs.

Photos: Caribbean

mickthewaterboy — Wed, 8 Jun 2016 02:55:00 GMT

In the Dutch Antillies

Getting started

mickthewaterboy — Tue, 7 Jun 2016 22:43:00 GMT

This trip started a little while ago when I packed up and left behind my scuba diving business in Sierra Leone. I had become a dive instructor during the Ebola pandemic of 2014/2015 travelling, eventually (another story), to Ecuador for my PADI dive master and then on to Sanur in Bali to become a PADI instructor. I set up my dive school Salone Scuba (www.salonescuba.com) in June 2015 and geared up for the return of the tourists post Ebola. It did not happen, had 5 fun divers and two students (PADI open water) in the whole of the dry season.

In May 2016 I decided to call it quits and closed the dive school for the rainy season and maybe forever. I was offered a job on the island of Saint Martin in the Caribbean. Sounded like the perfect job in an ideal location. It was a great pity that the dive centre did not interview properly as when I arrived I found out that it was a dive factory churning dives out as if on a conveyor belt. Some say that this is what the industry is, but I want a more relaxing experience when I go diving rather than shunted onto the boat, off for two dives then back to base and adios as the centre gets ready for the afternoon trip. At Salone Scuba my philosophy was to give the divers an experience which included a relaxed atmosphers with time for everyone to be comfortable and usually ended up with a BBQ on the beach in the afternoon supplied by the local vilagers from where we took the boat. Lasted 3 and a half days (7 shifts) before we parted company.

This led to me kicking my heels in Sint Maarten, the Dutch side of the island whilst planning my next adventure. My flight back to the UK is not until 23rd Sept and is expensive to change and to be honest I have nothing there to go to and it is now raining in Freetown so really don't want to go back there.

I have looked around the internet for other jobs but all dive opportunities seem to be in similar dive factories as the one I was just at so looked into other things, i.e buying my own business. I have found a couple for sale in South/Central America so will head that way on a minimal budget to see what they entail.

Today I am heading to Saba, another island in the Dutch Antillies to look at a dive centre there. It is possibly a bit out of my price range but won't hurt to go look and see how things are run in another dive centre. All knowledge is a good thing.