"Ye" is quite a nice word to hear in actual day to day speech. And I'm hearing it because I'm currently sitting in Kilkee, on the west coast of Ireland. My two buddies from NZ (T
im and Rik) are here doing our advanced diving course.
Right now, Kilkee is dead quiet, and it's a brilliant time to be here. We flew in, grabbed a rental car (which turned out to be a blessing), and drove from Shannon to Kilkee. Since then, we have been diving in 7-8 degree C water at depths of around 27 metres (at which point it is pretty hard to see the surface anymore), drank several brews of local ale, had a euro given to us by a complete stranger at the local store when we came up short for something, told our lame jokes to our instructor Peter, eaten more eggs and sausages than I normally eat in a year, and sat around playing video games on our phones (in each others' company, of course).
Peter, our instructor, is brilliant. Diving here is a whole different story than the relative "newb" waters of Egypt - visibility is much worse, the water is about 15 degrees colder, and there's certainly no traipsing into the water from the beach like we did in Dahab. Somehow Peter manages to be serious but give us the confidence to carry on. Two nights ago, I would say we had our first "real serious" dive, which was part of our peak buoyancy course. It involved diving down through a little canyon at quite a lot of depth and navigating through some tight rock formations - pretty damn fun but man, down at that depth you really start wondering what you're doing down there. It's probably much colder than the surface, too.
Peter is an energetic guy somewhere in his early 30s, and manages to mix light heartedness with a healthy dose of seriousness. Which is pretty good when you have us 3 jokers taking the piss out of each other in the class room. I think that the mentality out here in this small town is really refreshing - everyone is extremely friendly and happy to help (ref. to the 1 euro from a stranger at the store), pretty amazing when you compare it to either Stockholm or London.
The coast manages to remind me a lot of the coast in Iceland, sheer cliffs, volcanic rock with sharp, jagged patterns, and plenty of avian flora. For me it felt a bit nostalgic walking around at a lighthouse point that we drove to yesterday, I really could have been in Iceland.
On the first day, Rik had mentioned that he would like a frisbee to play with on the beach (probably, Tim and I would throw it and Rik would run after it like the dog in a mans body he really is..). So next day when we turn up we see this:
I'm just gonna let the rest of the post speak with picures, so here we go:
Rik eating "Tea Cakes" which are kind of like marshmallow puffs, but taste a bit funny.
No idea what these clowns were doing, but it looked kind of cool!
Relaxing in a pub in the middle of nowhere (Loophead), Lighthouse Bar.
Farmhouse ruins everywhere make for some scenic tourism.
Who brought this hobbit along anyway??
Out at loophead lighthouse.
Damn tall hobbits running amok.. When told "hey, you'
re not allowed in there bro", the response was "I'm not IN there, I'm just standing on the fence!".
re not allowed in there bro", the response was "I'm not IN there, I'm just standing on the fence!".
The two hawkes bay challenged playing lemmings.
This part in particular reminded me of Iceland.
The lemmings again..
Some flowery stuff..
Anyway, better go do some more study now, the weather isn't so great today so we are relegated to class work. If we are lucky we'll get another couple of dives in before we leave, and then I'm off to Istanbul :S.
