This report received from Dave, Captain NoNosense Owen from Kuwait where he now hangs out.

They always say ‘How can you follow that?’ well in this country it’s fairly simple!!!!

Expect anything at any given time!!!!

We had a dive planned for a place called Dukhan (pronounce Dughan) on Friday & Saturday however it was ‘canned’ if you will pardon the pun as a result of bad weather!!!!

We had an option of either old club reef or the inland sea. Having dived old club and having seen enough of old rusting cars in crap visibility it seemed somehow an easy choice.

Now the expectations for the trip to the inland sea is that you are a self sufficient diver and that you own a 4X4 (note I stated own and not operate) the call was to meet at the Sealine beach resort which is the last piece of tar road after Mesaieed city?? (an Oxymoron?)

3 vehicles were checked in as arrived and present! And the obvious thing to do before proceeding on any sandy trip is ‘deflate’ the tyres, I suppose that I should have known that the ‘dickey’ tyre pressure gauge was an omen as to what to expect!!!!!!!!!!!

I am, as you read this, busy with a new rendition of ‘the 12 days of christmas’ only the chorus bit rings of ‘On the 12th day of Christmas my true love gave to me a F%”king dickey Chinese tyre pressure gauge’ however needless to say we traversed the blazing sands blissfully ignorant of the fact and into the fires of hell on our way to the inland sea.

Now hindsight engineering has proven more than once to be an exact science!!! Unfortunately the last place you would like any theory of this nature to be proven is in the middle of nowhere in temperatures exceeding 45 degrees.

The Nissan Patrol piloted by our fearless leader Peter Bolton led the way with elegance and poise for the majority of the journey. 1 KM from the inland sea he was overcome by some strange ‘Lawrence of Arabia’ type syndrome and decide to plummet down the sheer face of a 12 metre high sand dune (not that there are any other types of dunes about, although I have one other specimen after we went down the dune). This of course he realised in hindsight, was a major problem as I specifically informed him that I had driven in sand before and had however no knowledge of desert driving!!!!

We dropped the Landy down the 80 odd degree face of the dune………….I had no idea that your backside could gather in that much upholstery in a few short seconds!!!! My fearless co driver was at this time ‘filming’ the whole escapade with her eyes shut!!!!!

After watching the incriminating evidence the usually calm driver of said Landy could be heard to state that ‘I think I have just poofed in my broeks!!!!!!!’ of course this is where it all started, unaccustomed to desert driving protocol I did not accelerate enough out of the obstacle this in turn resulted in burying the Landy in seriously soft sand!!!!!

The fearless (and equally stupid) driver of the ‘soft cock tarmac tourist’ Jeep Cherokee launched his vehicle in front of the Landy to ‘tow ‘ me out!!!!!! Now although this seemed like a good idea at the time…………………….. Say no more!!!!!!!

The Jeep managed to snuggle itself down to the chassis in less than a few seconds. 2 cars now stuck!!!! Peter arrived back after leaving us to the vultures for at least what seemed like 45 seconds!!!! He tried to pull the Jeep out………….Nissan stuck!!! !

Sand 3- Vehicles 0.

We finally managed to get the Landy free (after getting a good tyre pressure gauge).

With trusty co driver at the helm and 4 tow ropes we managed to free the Nissan Safari by towing it out with the Landy. The Jeep was going to be left for the vultures however yours truly had the magnificent idea of jacking up the vehicle!!!!!! Now most of you hardy 4X4 types may laugh, but this was a final result/effort!!! I jacked up the left rear end and cleared the chassis, next was the front left end. After a 5 minute dig to insert/locate the jack I was finally let loose to attempt to raise the beast from the hostile sands!!!!! Now manufacturers do not make things like they used to………….the jack bent and collapsed after I had exerted some ‘Owen’ Muscle to it.

Dave 1 Jack 0, not that it helped.

A 40 Meter walk may seem short to you but do it in the temperatures we are talking and you will soon realise it’s a looooong way. Lots of water intake by now as we had been at it for roughly 1 hour 40 Minutes. Beer she no good in these situations!!!!!!!!

Please somebody write to the manufacturers of WINDHOEK and tell them I will be suing for false advertising!!!

Bottle jack in place a second assault took place to raise said Jeep, No luck!!!!!

All that was left was to ‘YANK’ the bloody thing out!!!!

Duly rigged (to ISO standards of course) the Nissan launched an effort to free the Jeep (it looked more like he was trying to pull it into 2 pieces)

After all the pushing, pulling, swearing and the rest we had eventually freed all the vehicles and headed for the dive site.

On arrival the wind was ripping but the area we had to dive was calm. Assembly of shade thingy!!!! I refused to remove my shade thingy from its safe haven in the back of the vehicle as I could see it would be pulled to pieces in a few minutes by the wind.

The Jeep driver (I told you he was stupid) offered his shade (an exact replica of the one I still have). Now putting up a 3 metre square aluminium shade thingy can be challenging at the best of times so try doing this in a 25 Knot wind!!!!!

Wind 1 – shade thingy 0

After kitting up Peter & I laid the first assault on the reef. The 1^st reef is about a 5 minute swim and has a surprising amount of life on it. The reef ‘died’ in about 1998 and apparently is growing again, I will attach pictures. Had 2 great dives but the visibility in both cases was maximum 5 metres. First dive depth 13 mtr 56 minutes and second dive on the further reef (10 minute swim) Max depth 14,3mtr 59 minutes. Lots of marine life but fairly ‘grey’ as only a few fish are colourful.

Unfortunately Char did not feel too good after all the earlier excitement so she baled her dive.

An eventful long day which saw us early to bed after washing all the kit (man I miss Africa for this kind of thing) but that’s all.

Cheers for now Dave