It was the longest flight I'd ever had! How exciting was that? Never mind the guy in the window seat got to the toilet by walking over our armrests on his minging feet (shudder). I have to admit that the pleasurable travel experience ended there. On arrival at Hurghada airport, officials charged us about £15 for our visas, although we could clearly see on the little stamps that the price was actually LE3, which works out at about 90p. Our transfer was disappointing too. We discovered early on that anyone performing the slightest service expected a tip of the non-negotiable sum of one note. Never mind that we didn't have any LE1 notes, or that we offered LE5 for three of us; it had to be one note each. Bastards. When you couple that with the fact that no-one wants to give you any LE1 notes in change (or any change at all for that matter), you can see why it could turn into an expensive holiday if LE1 wasn't about 30p.

So enough whinging. Al, Bob, and I were staying in the Hurghada Hilton, a gorgeous hotel with sumptuous rooms, a lovely pool, and fantastic breakfast. I couldn't believe the sheer luxury of the place. Enough gushing. I was there to learn to dive. Al had convinced me I'd like it. I'd spent half an hour in a pool near Reading with all the gear on, and watched the PADI video and read the book. I was ready for the Real Thing, despite my horror of open water, which I don't think I'd ever mentioned to Al.

While Al and Bob went off every day on a boat to try a different dive site, I went off to a classroom and pool to practise the techniques that would make me a PADI® Open Water Diver™. My classmates were a mix: a couple of guys who'd come on their own (Richard and ... another guy), two brothers and their mate (Richard, Jon, and Dan), a couple (Siobhán and Sean), and a family with two girls (the Loftuses). One by one, the Loftuses dropped out, leaving Siobhán and Sean on their own in their group, but the rest of us were still going strong. After all of our pool sessions, we started off in the Red Sea, and it was great.

Some of the skills were a little tricky - like taking my mask off underwater and putting it back on, and clearing my mask.

I'm still slightly uneasy about being in the sea, especially on the surface because I can't see what's around my legs (I think we've all got Jaws to thank for that), but I now see it in a whole new light. There's nothing like diving, and it's so easy! After completing the Open Water course, I decided to do an Advanced Open Water course as well, since I was going to do more dives anyway, so my "special" dives included a deep dive (which did make me feel a bit funny); a photography dive, which I did with Richard - his pictures were all much better than mine (hmph); a night dive, which was fantastic and scary and cold; and another one, which I've forgotten about (oops).

But it wasn't all just underwater high jinx! In the evenings, we generally spent our time in the hotel bars and restaurants, but on a few occasions, we ventured out to "real Hurghada"; mainly to find an off licence, it's true, but on our last night together, a whole bunch of us decamped to a restaurant selling what purported to be Egyptian food (and who am I to dispute that?). The food was great, and we went on to a bar where we all got a bit squiffy (some more than others...).

On our last day, I finally succumbed to the local version of dodgy tum; as a result, I was reluctant to go far from the pleasant toilets of the Hilton, so Bob and Al went without me to KFC. Hmph. Later that day though, we got pizza delivered to the Hilton lounge for the three of us, Sean, and Siobhán, and I had a little to soothe my raging hunger.

On our return, I managed to keep in touch with Sean and Siobhán, and I catch up with them from time to time, and went to their wedding in Cork in 2002.