Diving Bells and Butterflies

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One of the things that excited Adam and I most in the lead up to our trip was the possibility to learn to dive. Diving has always been something that we've wanted to do but never, ever found the time for. But our trip offered the opportunity to complete a dive course in an area famed for the quality of the diving on offer and so despite feeling a bit nervous about learning to dive in a foreign land, it was an opportunity that seemed too good to miss. Three weeks before we left for our trip, I was having dinner with my friend Janine and we were talking about her diving experiences when all of a sudden, a dizzying panic set in. Suddenly I felt very apprehensive about diving at all, especially as anyone who knows me well would testify to my general dislike of most creatures-land, air or sea based. I am not an animal lover. Apart from people, I'm not all that fond of anything that moves of its own accord. Anything that isn't bipedal makes me nervous. Things that have no legs make me more than nervous. Anything with more than four legs is pretty much a cue for hysteria. Reflecting on this as I listened to Janine talk about how much she's enjoyed diving, it suddenly struck me as bizarre that I might find anything of any interest under the water given all I would find there would likely be fish, eels and God forbid, sharks! I also suddenly felt nervous about the whole experience of breathing underwater and how I would react to this, and learning to dive in a foreign land seemed very, very scary. But sitting there with Janine, despite all the thoughts running trough my mind, I suddenly felt a fierce determination to conquer the fear and embrace a totally new experience. By 2pm the next day, I'd booked Adam and I in to begin diving lessons in a pool in Britain and less than 24 hours later, we were breathing underwater for the very first time. As it turns out, this was one of the best decisions I've made in my life.

After our hours spent studying the theory and mastering basic techniques with the ever patient Grace and her husband, we arrived in Dahab where at last we would put everything we'd learned into practice. After a long night climbing Mount Sinai and watching the sunrise on this holy site, we rolled into Dahab about mid morning, in time for breakfast and a brief spiel by Mohammed, one of the diving instructors from Big Blue Dahab. As we munched away at our delicious breakfast feast and listened to Mohammed describe the diving on offer, I pondered the cosmopolitan little town we now found ourselves in for the next four days. To my mind, this town can only be described as the 'Bryon Bay' of Egypt. After a few weeks of being covered wrist to ankle (and still sometimes being subject to less than welcome comments by young men), we suddenly entered this little pocket where everyone was free to dress in traditional holiday attire, drink whatever they wished wherever they wished, smoke whatever they wished as they wished and shop to one's heart's content without harassment. It was a refreshing change, though whilst the days unfolded, I couldn't quite understand how the existence of such a place could be reconciled by the locals, especially as many were in Bedouin dress much akin to the more traditional parts of the country we'd seen so far. I longed to ask one of the Bedouin locals exactly what they thought of our exposed flesh, our seemingly 'outrageous' behaviour and the possible assumption of our comparatively 'loose' morals. But I suspected the locals we did befriend over the next few days were far too polite to answer such questions honestly, especially as they depended so heavily on our custom to sustain their community (the ever powerful tourist dollar).

Exposed flesh and drunk people aside, Dahab is famed for the wonderful diving on offer. Surprisingly, no sooner had we arrived at the Big Blue office to make arrangements to complete our diving course, than we were introduced to our instructor Emad and found ourselves suited up on the back of a truck and in the Red Sea diving for the first time!!! Our first dive was a shore entry from Lighthouse Beach. The experience of being underwater for the first time was truly amazing. It feels like an alternate universe down there under the sea-it's just so surreal. My fears about diving were completely forgotten within the first 10 minutes. The sound of your breathing through the regulator, the buoyancy of your body as you move through the water, the visual splendour...it is one of the most relaxing and rewarding sensations I've ever experienced. Emad, cool, calm and constantly cracking the same bad jokes (did you see the sonono fish? The hulabosa? Me neither!) was the perfect instructor, making us both feel very calm and confident that we were in good hands.

And so began our four wonderful days of diving. To complete our open water course, we needed to do three additional dives, which Emad convinced us to squeeze into our second day in Dahab. It meant a very long day, starting too early for us to manage to get breakfast at any of the local cafes, despite our best efforts. Day two we did attempt it, going to the cafe very first thing and hoping our time window of 55 minutes would be long enough for us to be able to eat something. But what we'd failed to remember was that we were on Egyptian time. After 45 minutes of sitting in wait, with our breakfast showing no sign of arriving anytime soon, we changed our order to request a take away. The next minute, we saw a waiter sprinting off down the esplanade in an effort to find take-away containers for our food-how's that for service? We later ate our breakfast in the back of the truck as we made our way to our dive site, the Moray Garden. We did all 3 of our final dives here, completing our PADI qualification. But after our day of mastering the basic qualification, we'd by no means had enough and decided to go on and complete our advanced qualification.

The first dive of our advanced course-the Blue Hole-was absolutely amazing. Accessed via a 24 metre 'bell chimney', so named because of the bell sound made as tanks hit the sides of this rocky cavern, it was a straight descent to -25 metres. Admittedly my stomach was full of butterflies as I began my descent down the chimney. As the chimney was so narrow, we could only move in single file and as I descended, all I could see were the sides of the rocky chimney and the bubbles of the diver who'd preceded me. It was a challenging descent but very rewarding-the feeling of being surrounded by bubbles in a sea of blue was amazing. Similarly, on our second dive-The Canyon-we manoeuvred ourselves into an underwater cavern where we explored for a few minutes. Ascending out of the cavern, we were met by the bubbles made from our breath whilst in the cavern, and so we ascended into a world of bubbles and could float along in the seemingly magic realm. It was stunning. Finally in the evening, armed with torches and joined by Kevin, we descended into the Lighthouse area again to begin a fantastical game of spotlight, seeking out nocturnal creatures down in the depths.

On day three, as we completed our advanced course with 2 dives in The Islands, we found ourselves once again travelling in single file as we moved through coral reefs to avoid any contact between ourselves and the underwater flora-we were that close!!! We swam our way into a circling school of barracuda and saw many of the most beautiful fish in the Red Sea. By the time we left the water after our final dive, I was totally addicted. The sensation of diving is just so sensational, surreal and magical all at once. Adam was similarly hooked and talking excitedly about all the other wonderful places in the world we could travel to and do some diving.

The sacrifice we made in pursuing our new leisure activity with such ferocity was missing out on the 'down time' the rest of our travel crew were enjoying. It felt like the most isolating days of our travels together with Ads and I only managing to meet up with our friends during the evenings at our favourite spot, the funny mummy. While the others were enjoying afternoon naps and long strolls through town and relaxed swims or snorkelling, we were flat out the entire time with typical 630am risings. It was worth every second though. In what down time we did enjoy, we managed to eat some great grub at the Funny Mummy as well as a wonderful group meal at The Kitchen. We also managed to shop up a storm, meeting a lovely local guy called Mohammed in the process, who later invited us to meet him for tea. It was wonderful to sit down with a local and chat about everyday life. I very much wish I'd asked to take his photo so I could be sure to ask after him the next time we visited Dahab. Hopefully we'll still find him there on our next visit to our Byron Bay of Egypt.

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