The first day off in Algeirs I found the local diving club down at the spa in Sidi Fredj, a couple of miles from the hotel. Needless to say I took the plunge and went diving in the med.
Terrible decision to make.
The rental of the equipment, shortie wetsuit, BCD, bottles, weightbelt came to around 8 pounds sterling. The people there while not speaking much English and my french about as bad made me feel very welcome, brotherhood of divers I'm sure.
From the surface the med looks delightful, under the water it looks like the toilet it really is. Visibility was around 2 meters and there was lots of things floation around down there. Diving off the rocks was a new experience for me and the buffeting from the surf and the tidal currents was disconcerting at first but got used to it after a little while.
Whilst initially getting my bearings and balance underwater and getting used to the current I inadvertently put my hand on a small brown spikey creature. Picked up what I thought was a thorn of some kind. Thought nothing of it at the time.
The next day while eating lunch one of my colleagues noticed a red mark in my arm which looked like a pressure mark from leaning on the table. A couple of hours later this mark had not gone and was in fact creeping up my arm and could clearly be seen to eminate from the 'thorn' I picked up diving the previous day.
Heigh-ho off to the quack, very pretty lady incidentlt, where I had an anti-toxin in the arse and a course of antibiotics for the infection. tried to go diving a couple more times but the weather and waves were not right and visibility would be zero so did not get to repeat the experience or get back there and kill one of the little things that poisoned me.
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