Peter’s Hospital Diary

And with that title, I can see how long it has been since I last wrote up the blog :(. It has been a very busy three months with lots happening, so here goes!

First the dissertation. I submitted the revised draft at the end of February. The initial indications are that I have covered the shortcomings in the original version, but I am still waiting to hear that I will be graduating this year with my MSc. It has been a long haul; not helped by the other D in my life.

So, the divorce. Now done and dusted with the final hearing also in February. However that is now over and I am now single. I’m not going to write more about that now – still too raw. However I have felt for a while that I needed a holiday after all the trauma and hurt of the last three years but more of that later! 🙂

On the plus side, I am settled in my new house, hard to beli4eve that I have been here for sixteen months!

Health-wise, all seems to be OK, apart from the slowly deteriorating eyesight. However in February I made the decision to have my cataracts treated, and the first operation to replace the lens in my right eye was carried out three days ago! I am amazed at how vibrant colours are in the treated eye! My eyesight has improved considerably (in that eye) although it seems to change slightly day by day, so I think it will take a little while to settle down to the final state. I have a check-up in ten days, but if all is well, I hope the left eye will be done soon. I will need reading glasses as the replacement lenses are fixed focal length, but distance vision should be fine – for the first time since I was seven!

The operation was straightforward and only took about 20 minutes to do. I was booked into the ‘Hotel’ at St Thomas’s as I was told I couldn’t go home immediately unless I was accompanied. In the event, that wasn’t true and I was home by early evening.

So – onto holidays!

As you might guess from the photograph, it involved diving! I restarted my diving hobby about three years, but a combination of things, including bad weather, meant that I haven’t done very much, and after a long gap, my skills had faded. I also realise that some of my confidence had gone as w3ell. There have also been changes in the diving rules in the Navy, which affect me as a former serviceman. However, two months ago we were discussing this in the club and it was proposed that we went as private individuals on a live-aboard boat diving in the Red Sea! So this is what we did, and seven of us booked a week on the MV Blue Horizon operated by Blue O Two .
AIt was an excellent week! We arrived in Hurghada on Friday and were met at the airport and taken straight to the boat. We spent the first night on board in the marina, sailing first thing on Saturday morning for the first dive to check equipment, buoyancy and so on. After that we did two more dives. A I was diving on oxygen enriched air (Nitrox) for the first time, as it is believed to be less tiring. On every day after that we were diving four times a day, getting up early (5:30 on one day) to do the first dive before breakfast, ending up with a night dive before dinner. The last diving day was the following Thursday when we did two dives. The afternoon was spent washing and dry kit while we transited back to the marina. We spent the last night on board, leaving the boat the following morning, spending the day at the Marriot Hotel before the transfer back to the airport for the flight home! There are more photos in the Gallery.

It was an excellent week! I paid extra fort the Nitrox, and a larger cylinder to get longer dive times, but everything else, food, soft drinks, trea and coffee, was all included. Best of all, with such an intense set of dives (about 8 hours under water) I was able to refine my diving skills and get my confidence back! Onwards and upwards (or should that be downwards in a diving context? 🙂 )