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Published: August 5th 2010
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I'll start this entry off by warning that there is no way that my writing skills or these photos will do the Red Sea justice. If you have any interest in marine life, the Red Sea is absoultely unbeatable.
From Luxor, we flew into Cairo, and then caught a long overnight bus to Sharm el-Sheik. Along the bus ride, we passed through a tunnel that went under the Suez Canal, which was kind of neat. Unfortunately we never got to see the canal, but it was still cool being under it. We got into Sharm, which is at the very southern tip of the Sinai Peninsula, late in the afternoon and then took a bus into town. Sharm is a big tourist destination for wealthy travelers from around the word, so it was difficult to find a cheap place to stay. Most places were $100 a night or more, but eventually, we found an exceptionally crappy place that only charged $10 for the night, including breakfast. It definitely wasn't worth any more than that though. That night, we walked around the city and booked a scuba trip for the following day. It was pretty cheap, and we booked a trip
The other side of the cove
We dove at that reef that you can see right above Hesam's head. to Tiran Island, which is a small island right between Egypt and Saudi Arabia.
The following day, we were picked up early and shuttled to the docks where we were to be picked up. Diving is a very popular activity here so there were hordes people waiting to go out onto dozens of boats. This was a little disheartening at first, but my opinion quickly changed. Just looking down into the water at the docks we could see live coral and tons of bright tropical fish swimming around. We boarded the boat with about 20 other tourists, and made our way out to the island. It was a bright sunny day, we were on an awesome boat, and looking at a completely unreal setting. Along with the rest of Egypt, the Sinai Peninsula is desolate desert. It was crazy seeing the harsh and barren desert come face to face with the bluest tropical waters I've ever seen, absolutely teeming with marine life. There is not even a small stip of plants to break up the transition. Being on the boat gave us a cool perspective of the scenery.
After abut an hour boat ride, we got to the
island. We stopped the boat and then went for snorkelling for a bit before we went diving. The water temperature was well into the 80's, much saltier than the ocean at home, and definitey the bluest and the clearest water I have ever seen. Samoa, Costa Rica, Hawaii, and Southern Mexico each aren't even on the same level. The water visibility must have been 100 feet, and I can't even describe the color. The reef that we pulled up to was shallow, but then had a relatively steep decent down to about 25 feet where it turned to sand. Just snorkeling here was spectacular on it's own. I didn't know even a tenth of what I was looking at, but I know that we saw tons of parrot fish, lion fish, trigger fish, puffer fish, clown fish, giant clams, and tons more. Hesam and I had some fun free diving and seeing how deep we could get. After a bit, we went on our dive which was absolutely spectacular. I haven't been scuba diving many times before, but I can't imaging how it could get any better than this. Tons of live corals, all kinds of bright tropical fish, warm,
clear water, it was perfect. I didn't even wear a wetsuit, I just dove in my trunks and was warm the entire time.
Once everyone on the boat was done with their dives, we went to a new little cove on the island for a second dive. Once again, we did some more snorkelling here before our dive. Hesam, unfortunately, only booked one dive, but I was able to go for a second one. It was pretty much the same as the first dive, just a little deeper. We were probably around 30 feet deep on the second dive. One cool thing that was on the second dive and not the first, was a giant crocodile fish (look it up). It was just hanging out under this big coral head down there. We hung out here for a while and did a bunch of snorkeling also. We were getting good at our free diving and could dive down to the scuba divers and see the same things they were seeing and take photos with them. Afterwards, we stopped at one last stop and did some more of the same. No scuba this time, but some more snorkeling. Here there
was a cool underwater coral tunnel canyon thing that was about 20 feet deep and I had fun swiming down through the coral tunnel. The dock and the boat we were on may have been crowded, but once we were in the water, it was easy to get away from the people and it didn't spoil the experience one bit.
That night, we took a bus to Dahab, which is just a ways up the Gulf of Aqaba, right near Saudi Arabia. I wish we could have spent a full week in Dahab. It was just a quiet little hippie town, with lots of resturaunts along a boardwalk along the gulf and dozens of dive shops. Everyone seemed really relaxed here and almost nobody seemed like they wanted our money. We never really checked into our hotel, never gave a name or anything and they just gave us a key. They never even asked to be payed at the end of our stay and we used the room until 7PM the following day. When we arranged our scuba diving here, they guy never wanted our money either and we ended up just hanging out and using their showers and
snorekling equipment all day. The dive we went on was literally just 5 minute walk from our hotel, right in the middle of town. I was weary about this at first, but it ended up being absoultely spectacular. It was a huge reef that went on for ages and at all different depths. We were under for about 40 minutes and saw everything you could ever imagine. Afterwards, we went back to the dive shop and the guides pointed out the fish we had just seen in books, but I've already forgotten most of them. Once the dive was over, we had lunch at a resturaunt right on the beach where we could see Saudi Arabia in the distance across the gulf. After lunch, we snorkeled directly out in front of the resturaunt. Just right out front, we saw tons of fish, just as we had everywere else. We also saw an octopus swimming around in the middle of the day, in 5 feet of water, just 10 feet away from us. I remember one scene where I dove down to about 30 feet, looked under a coral head and saw two lion fish with a massive spiny puffer, probably
the size of my head, sitting right between the two lion fish. It couldn't have been a more relaxing, and spectacular day.
The whole two days were absoutley spectacular and I wish I could have spent a week or more just doing all of the dozens of dives in the area. However, we had to leave eventually. Afterwards, we made our way back to Cairo, and flew to Istanbul, Turkey. We're in the central part of Turkey now, at a city called Göreme in the Cappadocia region right now, but I'll talk abuot that later in the next blog entry.
Just to reiterate on last time: The Red Sea is spectacular and everyone should go there at least once!
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Eric
non-member comment
The Red Sea
I have heard for years that the Red Sea has the best diving in the world. Your pictures are great. There are very few places left with pristine live coral heads and 100 foot visibility . What , no pictictures of what a $10/ night room in Egypt is like. Have a great time in Turkey and stay safe. Ps. Nice beard