The Most Retarded Week Ever...

31/7/10

1246 (local time)

Well I’ve had a pretty average week, but to be fair most of it is just plain and simple my own fault, shall I start it off with Monday...

Actually not really too sure why I started this story off with Monday because, Monday was just any normal day... APART FROM, corrupting my 500gb hard drive and losing all my data. Everything from photo’s to movies were lost, pretty upsetting, but the importing stuff was backed up so it wasn’t too horrendous. I think the best idea to start off with Tuesday because that’s where the real action happened. So Tuesday started off with my doing my intermediate lesson in the morning, everything was going swell, until out of no where, one of the guys from my group full power catapulted onto my back! I had no idea what happened, I was ready to give the person that did it a blasting, but when I realised it was a guy from my group, I had to play it all down “alright guys, that’s why we need to spread out” My shoulder was alright just a bit of bruising.

Anyway, after the day had finished, I went to kick start John Palmers motorbike and as I did I had a fatal blow out. The actual plug stayed attached to my thong but the rest just ripped off, I wasn’t impressed. But, due to my handy craft work, I have been able to repair them using other thongs that I found in the house! Happy Days!

Wednesday ticked over and apart from a sore shoulder I was alright, I was super happy as it was finally windy again (it hasn’t been windy for at least 4-5 days). So once again I took my group out in the morning, and did a video session, once that I was over I was demonstrating carve gybes until I catapulted at the exit at one, and aimed straight for the mast. On impact I remember seeing stars, but my left ear felt as if water was rushing in, so I instantly checked to see if I had blown it by attempting to equalize it, as I did I just blew air out of it. When I opened my eyes it felt as if I had been on the beers all day, I felt completely drunk, everything was spinning and I felt sick. I wanted to sail back to my group to let them know what happened, but I was unable to get onto my board, so I just gripped onto my board and waited for a boat to come and rescue me.

I was brought to sure, and sent straight to the Ear doctor that was just up the road to get checked out, my fears were correct and I had in fact had a small puncture in my ear drum at about 6 and 7 o’clock. So this means no water sports for the next two weeks... Great!

Thursday went on, and it was my day off, it was fine but trying to understand people was extremely difficult as I can’t hear out of my left hand side, this is manageable in a small group of people, but in a group I have no idea what anyone is saying.

Friday came along and I was taking all my meds and starting to feel decent, until I decided to jump off the watch tower bare feet for a movie scene! It didn’t really go to plan, because when I landed, I only then realised that the sand was as hard as concrete and I have now badly bruised my feet and it makes it bloody difficult to walk... I’m such an idiot!

Anyway, Saturday now, and im talking it very easy with ice packs on my feet! Lucky there is no wind for the boys!

Hopefully will be better by Sunday! So till then!

Take care and all the best to the guys that are competing in EL Tur and the PWA!

Cheers Steve

My Winter Season Cover Letter!

Right, before you read the following, i have been applying for Ski jobs, and this is one of the letters i sent to TUI about applying for a Ski Repping Job! Check it out, What Do Ya Think?

As I was browsing the new winter season ski offers, I have always been interested in becoming a ski rep, and seeing one being advertised on the TUI website brought my dreams to reality. After reading about what it entails to become a Ski Rep, I realised that this is the job for me. In the first paragraph it asks for someone with ‘bags’ of energy, if you rang any of my previous bosses they would tell you that I fit this category, I have been know as the young and more attractive Steve Irwin.

Because of my previous jobs in retail, I have become somewhat of a master, I have been so efficient in retail that I have been able to sell snow to the Eskimo’s or oil to the Saudi Arabians.

With my current job as a Club Vass windsurf instructor, I am always required to speak in front of large groups of people, in fact on party night we are required to say a few words and hand out a prize at the end of the week, and often after my ramblings I normally have the guests in tears (of pain, rather than laughter). Also, I might add that in Year 7 I won my grades public speaking competition in which to this day I’m still impressed about.

Travelling and living away from home is my middle name, no in fact its Richard, but I do believe the best way to learn skills and to meet new people, is to do it whilst overseas.

I am very interested in this position, and hopefully you will be interested in meeting me after this letter. Looking forward to hearing back from you soon.

Thanks Steve.

Steve-O's 22nd Birthday!

18/7/2010

1350 (local time)

Wow, what a massive night... So its now 1.50pm and I reckon I have just finally recovered from my horrendous hangover... Why was this hangover worse than any others I hear you ask, well last night it was a party celebrating my birthday! That’s right, the gifted individual known to the world as Steve Flack has not only just aged another year but has also become more wiser not to mention more agile! I am now 22.

As some of you may already know, I have been not my usual self the past couple of weeks, I think due to being slightly home sick. But this past week has revived my spirits and if it wasn’t for my steaming hangover I would feel on top of the world right now! Anyway, the week started well, but I was only just counting down the days for Saturday.

It finally arrived, and I was pumped! The plan was set, going to a lovely Italian Restaurant called El Darados a lovely group of people were there, I think there was about 25 of us! Because if the big number of people the orders the kitchen got pumped and it took ages for the food to come out! Which means that we all had alot of time to drink booze with no food in our stomach, which only leads to one thing... Anyway, the food started coming out I had a marvellous meal, and then finished off an absolutely amazing tiramisu, that tasted like it came from the gates of heaven.

So at 9 o’clock a group of us headed back in the taxi back to the centre where the night began! It wasn’t long before I was getting beers poured down my throat and I was well on my way to not really remembering the night. John Palmer added a couple of nice features to the DVD for my birthday that I remember finding very amusing! I remember having to do my speech, and give away my prize to the most improved student in my group this week, and as normal rambled on for what probably was half an hour. After all the speeches were over, I was shown my next challenge! Downing 22 shots... Now, they weren’t all the same thing it was a random mixture that would have sent anyone home at 11pm with alcohol poisoning, but not for the birthday boy! He powered on through, he sent all of them, the shots were vodka, rum, beer, gin, sprite etc etc... There was a rumour that he did throw up ‘a little’ during his 22 shots, but this is only a rumour and was never confirmed.

The rest of the night was a bit of a blur, I don’t really remember all that much! But I’m in the midst of tracking down some photos which will show some clear hard evidence of what happened that night!

So until then! An older Steve Flack SIGNS OUT!

Lots of kisses and hugs!

Steve

 NOTE: Just quick one to add, i would just like to point out that Sam Ross (visit his website at  

http://www.sam-ross.co.uk) came down to celebrate my birthday even though he had to muscle his way out of celebrating his 2 year annieversary with his lovely girlfriend Chloe. Thanks Guys!

 

A Camel came down to the centre to wish me a happy birthday, i was scared!

During the speechs for the groups!

The row of 22 shots the boys made me drink... as you can see from my facial expression, i was suffering!

I was on the last 5, but i needed some motivation. The boys were there to help!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY! MY CAKE HAD ARRIVED! All i remember is it being quite nice!

 THATS IT FOR ME THIS TIME GUYS! 

KEEP TUNED FOR THE NEXT BLOG!!!

The Club Dahab Team!!!

23/6/10

1610 (local time)

Another time, another story... But this isn’t so much a story, just about the fantastic guys I work with. As for me, I’ve been having an awesome time, even though the wind hasn’t been great for a couple of weeks, I have still managed to learn to wakeboard and land my first jump, go Ringo-ing (hanging onto a tube whilst you are pulled behind a boat at top speed), learn to flaka and almost land a forward loop on a 7.3 sail and a 102 slalom board!!!

So yeah, I still reckon this isn’t a job... Anyway, enough about me this is more about the team. On the beach we have 4 English Staff (including myself) and 3 Egyptian Staff... Ill firstly start off with the poms.

The Poms we have working for us are John Palmer (centre manager), John Yeomans and Sally Lambert. The great thing is that, all these guys are from different parts of Britain. John Palmer grew up in the north of England in a place called Leeds, Sally is from London and John Yeomans is from the Isle of Skye in Scotland.

Anyway, not only do we have the British working for us, but we have 3 Egyptian fellas that are here to pull us out of any Egyptian mess we manage to get ourselves into. The Egyptian boys are Nasser who is the Beach Legend, he’s worked here since it all began. Then the next member is Ahmed, I may as well mention Salo as well, seeing as they are always together! I swear to god (allah) these fellas are the cheekiest bloody Egyptians ever. They are always up to something, a good example of this is; Ahmed bought some orange juice for the two of them to share throughout the day, well Salo got into the fridge and drank the whole thing, and instead of just throwing it out he filled it with Egyptian tap water that is as good as sea water... So when Ahmed came in after a massive windsurf and wanted to drink some nice cold orange juice instead he got the taste of warm salty water! Ahmed wasn’t impressed!

Righteo, now ill chat about the English/Scottish guys and girls, Ill start with the Centre Manager John Palmer, John grew up in Leeds which is North England but unfortunately doesn’t have all that much of a Northern accent, with or without a strong accent none of the guys really understand what comes out of my mouth anyway... pretty standard as its the same back at home.

John has done a fair share of seasons, so he knows the ins and outs of how to run a centre, I get along quite well with Palmer as we share our days off on Thursday’s together, normally its quite windy (saying that right now has just jinxed it for months) so we get up kinda late, and then hit the water to do a bit of filming and have a bit of fun, after that we are completely knackered we come in a have a bit of lunch, head home play a bit of Mario Cart and then watch a couple of movies and relax. Sometimes Thursday nights we head out to the pub with the boys for ‘Lad Night’ normally finishes quite late, and I end up being quite tired the next day! What’s quite good is that we motivate each other... Especially when it comes to drinking. Lets just say that I have spent all of last night drinking and I’m feeling horrible the next day, Palmer will be there, to motivate me to get on the drink again! Even though we motivate one another, but we also do look after each other, but when looking after each other becomes too hard, like last night 24/7 where it was 3am, and I was going home I let Palmer know this but he insisted that he wanted to keep partying... That was the last time I saw him until I got to work in the morning and realised that Palmer spent the night sleeping in the office! Good form from the Centre Manager I reckon! Anyway, we shall move on!

Sally, the only female on the team, but she gets treated like a bloke(not by Yeomans though) anyway! Absolute legend, you generally know she is because of her marvellous machine gun laughter! Sally or Salamander as she often gets called, has worked here since the start of the season, but unfortunately had to head home during the middle of the season for about a month as she became quite sick and had to head back home to London to sort herself out! But she back! Full power! Last Saturday, for example whilst we were doing a bit of a song and dance routine, she ended up falling off the back of her chair whilst mid performance, absolutely hilarious for us and Sal, but as you can imagine, the crowd were stunned!

Then there is the almighty John Yeomans... John hails from Scotland he is normally found throwing big logs around, fixing boats, motor bikes, playing the guitar and windsurfing... and when he’s not doing that he is cuddling up to Sally and most probably patting her like a horse.

Anyway, that’s pretty much it too be fair! I hope you had an enjoyable read! No joke, this blog took me about 1 month to write, so be bloody grateful!

Thanks again!

Steve xx

The Team, John Y, Sally, Palmer

Me rocking out as Angus Young, Note: The Vest made out of wetsuit material

Germany in the World Cup!

Pre Drinks at the house, playing Ring of Fire!

Germany in the world cup! Palmer and EFPT Ollie!

Salo up to something, and me in the background watching :)

Jo, Steve and Salo!

Sally, doing something...

John Yeomans... Passed out in a club!

John Yeomans doing something Managerial!

Palmer is just doing his saftey checks... Clearly in the photo he is making sure that the corners of the board are safe!

John Yeomans doing the double handed folder lift!

The Team spots a rescue!

Palmer double checks...

He races to the boat!

He jumps in the boat and races to the rescue!

Everything is sorted! and the beach is restored!

One of the Best Days Ever...

19/6/10

819 (local time)

I thought I would start this one early as I woke up before everyone else and have already had a shower, done a bit of washing and then strangely enough made myself a cup of tea. This entry is all about my day yesterday (18/6).

It started off like any other getting down to the centre by 9ish. My lesson started at 9.30 although no one rocked up until 10. I had a really good lesson, I was getting all of my group into the footstraps and harness and a majority of them were planning and water starting.

The lesson finished by 12, and we all headed back to the beach. I was up next for a free sail, but I only had my 4.7 rigged and it definitely wasn’t 4.7 weather. So I rigged my 5.3 and headed out with Andrew.

When I finally made it out the conditions weren’t that bad, nicely powered up on my 5.3. The move I had been trying to crack for the last 3 weeks on and off was called a flaka. Which is a move where you do a Upwind 360 whilst going top speed, for any windsurfer out there, it is quite a difficult move to crack and it is kind of the entry into proper modern freestyle.

There is something special about landing a trick in Dahab because, even though for all the guys I work with a flaka isn’t such a big deal, they make you feel really good about yourself with high 5’s all round.

John Palmer (centre manager) even bought me a beer to congratulate me. In fact all the boys (and girls) were extremely helpful about landing a flaka, they were always there to offer me advice and to push me harder. So not only did I land a flaka soon afterwards I found out that I also got my National Insurance number so I will be able to get paid “woo hoo”!!!

So not only did I land my first flaka and get my national insurance number BUT! The Hawks won... again against Essendon...

Probably the best day ever, now I’m finishing this off now watching the Socceroos against Ghana, the Aussies were doing so well in the first 15 minutes, but then were robbed when Harry Kewel was sent off (honestly no surprise for the Aussies) for one of the most pathetic handballs ever. Not impressed which again proves my theory of why I believe soccer as a whole is one of the most unappealing sports on the face of the planet...

Never mind, tonight is the Saturday Night Party at Club Dahab, so after a couple of beers the Soccer will be forgotten and ill be too busy partying!

So until then! GO THE AUSSIES!

Steve

My First Wakeboarding Experience! COME GET SOME!

12/6/10

1428 (local time)

Hey guys, just another quick update. I thought i’d get in early with all this World Cup going on, its driving my head in! So over it and I’m only 2 days in! Anyway, earlier this week myself and the Birmingham Uni crew who are out this week, thought it would be a good idea to give wakeboarding a go!

Well I managed to get myself filmed whilst doing so and I made a very sketchy movie... so here it is! Enjoy!

I might add as well, that after 3 days of wind, I wasn’t able to sail because I was in so much agony! NOT GOOD!

But will definitely give it another go, when no wind is predicted.

Take care!

Steve xx

Messy Masbat Night!

20/5/2010

2137 (local time)

Alright, this is just an update on how everything is going this week! It was a Tuesday night, which means its Masbat Night, where we get all the guests together and head on into town. John Palmer and myself were the instructors on it this week. So we headed off into town. Ordered some food, rum and beer and we were set for the night! There was this girl that was in the beginner group who was ill be honest a bit cute... But the problem was, was that she was here with her father. So if was going to get ‘chatty’ with the girl I was going to have to ‘pull’ the father first.

So, like I said it was Masbat night! And everything was going well with the father, lots of chat going back and forth. Obviously more and more rum was downed and I think my chat got worse and worse. After eating the food, we kicked on into down and engaged in some pretty intense alcoholic fish bowls drinks. It came to about 1am in the morning, where it was definitely a good time to go home. So myself, the girl and her father jumped in the ute-taxi and we all headed back home.

As soon as I jumped into the taxi, I immediately felt ill... “aww mate, I feel pretty ill” I groaned to the guys. The father replied “just be sick...”  So I lent outside of the taxi, and waited for the storm, and there it came fish & calamari dinner, lots of alcoholic beverages etc... The funny thing was that, the father was also leaning out of the taxi taking photos of me, and because he was at the back he coped a mouthful of my dinner... Lovely! He thought it was hilarious! Lucky, because I thought that I had just blown my chances with this girl...

Anyway, that’s pretty much it for my story! Stay tuned for the next one!

By the way, that Sunday day, it was howling 40knots and I took out some speed gear and went 33.6 knots! FULL POWER! And a PB! It was a good week!

Till next time!

Steve