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Published: January 18th 2009
Coral Cod
The most amazing vibrant colours. Stunning!What can I say about Sharm El Sheik? It is an oasis of western-style comfort. The whole town is like a movie set transported to Egypt from Hollywood. The palm trees, flashy resorts, picture perfect poolsides, and manicured landscaping are replicated everywhere. Resorts rub shoulders with each other and vie for space with restaurants all along the boulevarde and boardwalk. The beaches, full of colourful sun lounges, are dotted with beach umbrellas, each slotted into a low table on which to rest your cocktail. Helpful staff in crisp uniforms attend to your needs. The resorts slide into the edge of town which has been made into one large pedestrian mall and the space holds all manner of shops appealing to the tourist: carpets and rugs, sculptures of alabaster (or sometimes plaster masquerading as alabaster), miniature pyramids, scarves, assorted t-shirts, jewellery and trinkets of gold (or sometimes of gold plate filled with sand to increase the sell weight) and of course dive shops. Sharm El Sheik is a toursit town born out of the burgeoning dive industry. And a stone’s throw away it is a desolate, barren landscape of craggy mountain ranges and desert.
If you are looking for an 'authentic'
egyptian experience and to immerse yourself in history and culture then Sharm perhaps is not for you. I mean, really you could be just about anywhere. It's that kind of nondescript beach holiday location you can find just about anywhere with just a twist of the egyptian. One thing true to egypt, the hawkers in front of the shops are merciless and every 5mts you are being approached to come in and visit a shop or buy a widget. For this reason I avoided going into town too much and chose to divide my time between the dive boat, the beach, the resort, and the restaurants. Venturing out to sample delicious food at a variety of restaurants along the foreshore was very worthwhile, there is a wonderful mix and it is all delicious, from the Taj Mahal for indian to the tepenyaki/ sushi place to the two storey place on the foreshore - whose name i forget - that serve fabulous middle eastern cuisine. Indeed most people are here to dive and that was the reason for our visit. To be honest, after the first few days I realised that if I'd come all the way to Egypt only for
the diving I would have been a little dissapointed.
It's not that I didn't enjoy it or that there was anything wrong with the diving per se, it just wasn't exactly outstanding either. The water was warm and clear, the coral was pretty enough but nothing really stood out. It didn't really hold a candle to the reefs and walls of Palau (see previous blog). The water was calm and there was very little current - in fact almost none - and herein may lie the problem. Usually the strong currents that run through the area is what brings in the big stuff; the large pelagic species and the sharks. The divemasters couldn't understand where the current had gone. And the dive masters were pretty anal retentive, snooping through my dive computer and questioning me over some dodgy dive profiles a year old.
"Yes I dived to 70mts, thats where the stern of the President Coolidge is. They do that over there."
"We have a strict 30mt rule"
"Sure. That's fine. Don't worry I won't wander off on you into the abyss"
I give a reassuring smile and get a nervous, somewhat suspicious one back. They watched
resort beach
The entire stretch of beach is just like this. me like a hawk for days. But as the week went on they finally seemed satisfied that my friends and I weren't reckless or a hazard to ourselves and others, cutting us some slack. I can understand it though. You can't be too careful when you get such a huge turnover of visitors and I'm sure within that quite a volume of cowboys and incompetence.
We went for a dive on the famous wreck here which required us to pay an extra fee and depart well before dawn. The wreck was interesting, I enjoyed swimming through the cargo hold looking at the encrusted motorcycles and jeeps and I found a great assortment of marine life: crocodile fish, pipe fish, frog fish, a giant moray. I think perhaps I have just been spoilt and come to have high expectations of my dives. Which is rarely a good thing in any scenario. I guess it just wasn't really the spectacular adventure diving I'd expected. Until the final day of diving that is. Our last day of diving came and something wonderful happened that made it all worthwhile.
We decended to the reef, then dropped over the side and swam out
Sharm El Sheik
from the dive boat into the blue at the 24mt mark. I always find diving blue water very disorientating. Without a frame of reference in view - a reef, a wreck, an anchorline or the ocean floor - it can be difficult to tell if you are ascending, sinking or neutral except for the change in pressure on your ears. I cradled my gauges so I could keep one eye on them to ensure I maintained a constant depth and the other scanning the blue. The rest of the group did the same, keeping close together, vigilant and at the same depth. After more that 20 minutes of nothing but uninterrupted blue and knowing we would soon be making our ascent I had all but resigned myself to a wasted dive. How could the ocean be so empty? Then I saw a flicker of something below. Something flashed a different shade of blue. Or had I imagined it? I squinted harder trying to find something to focus on. Another flicker, then another and now vague shadows began to materialise below us. They looked tiny. Could it possibly be the object of our search?
I reached out, touched my dive buddy Jorne on the
Lion fish
simply exquisite! arm and pointed down. We squinted some more. Peering through the blue, skeptical yet hopeful, we wavered. It's just some fish...or is it... yes it is... no it isn't... wait... and suddenly in a heart beat they are right below us, clear as day. Hammerheads. A school of hammerheads. I see the silhouette of their scalloped heads. And now I see the dive guide out the corner of my eye, pointing and looking around at us all. I chase an enthusiastic Jorne, who is now rapidly decending towards them and catch him at about 35mt. We ascend back into the 20's and then I turn my attention back to the sharks. I'm excited yet time seems suddenly to slow down. They're closer now, not only just below us but also beside us. They seem shy, strangely indifferent yet vaguely curious. I'm mesmerised. I just feel so lucky to be having this experience.
Worried that they will vanish as quickly as they appeared, I will them to stay. I eyeball a 3mt beauty who is level with me about 15mt away. I ponder what a strange view of the ocean she must have, from those eyes perched at each end
Silent guns of war
pointing skyward to a non existent enemy of the hammer. It feels like she's looking at me with her one good eye. I'm not sure whether it's a question of us checking them out or them checking us out but get the feeling it is a bit of both. After several minutes the hammerheads seem satisfied that these intruders are nothing of consquence and drift off, down and away until their shadows melt into nothing and they are gone.
What a breathtaking experience! We saw 22 hammerheads - the most spotted all season. The day before they had only seen one solitary sentinal. Hammerheads have one member of the school who acts as a scout. He goes to check things out and alerts the others to items of interest such as danger or food. A herd of divers spread over a wide range of depth or moving erratically seem like a larger, threatening group and so the scout goes back and indicates to the others to steer clear. If a dive group see only one and then no more they have most likely spooked the scout. We didn't see the scout, he must have snuck up on us. But our efforts to stay close together at
the same depth and moving deliberately had paid off! Unfortunately, you'll have to take my word for it because I forgot to take my camera on the dive. The best kodak moment of the trip and my camera lay safely nestled in the freshwater tub onboard the dive boat.
On this last day of diving we also got the chance to enjoy the most beautiful reef we'd seen on the egypt trip. Gordon's Reef was quite stunning and we had a lovely, long, easy dive of almost an hour. I spied a large Titan Triggerfish and tapped Jorne's shoulder while making the signal of a pistol with my other hand, the universe hand sign for 'trigger'. The trigger was intent on digging out some food in the sand and so I snuck up on him with what I hoped approximated stealth. These guys are fiercely territorial and without warning will charge you at full steam. They've been known to take a man's finger off or a sizeable chunk from a leg -through a 5mm suit. I started remembering a dive in asia when I was videoing one and got a bit too close. He came powering at me so
quickly he had the death wobbles going and I had no time to react. He hit the camera with so much force it jolted the camera from my hands and I,luckily, back pedalled fast enough out of his zone before he regrouped for a round two. I didnt want a repeat of that performance but I did want a photo. I spent quite a bit of time slowly inching closer. His little spiky bit on top of his head started to rise, like a dog with his hackles up, a sign he wasn't happy with my presence. I got no closer, took the shot and retreated. It's not a hammerhead photo, but it'll do. We got some snorkeling in as well before the captain turn the bow for harbour.
So in the end the diving at Sharm El Sheik ended up being very, very memorable. That one amazing dive can make all the difference.
We'd spent our entire time mostly on the dive boat and under the water followed by eating and sleeping so when the week came to an end I felt compelled to relax on the beach. I had about 20minutes in blistering heat - 43c
The Mighty Titan
The titan trigger fish is one of the most feared fish in the sea. Feircely territorial, this robust fish packs attitude to go with his punch and a strong set of chompers. They've been known to take off a mans finger and a sizeable chunk from your leg. - before I surrendered, then went back to my room for a cold shower and to pack.
Travel tip: When staying at a resort ask them to remove everything from your mini bar immediately upon arrival. If you want drinks and snacks you can buy them at the store for cheaper or order room service as you go. Drinks went missing from our fridge that we did not drink and were then added to our tab. Our neighbour was a staff member traveling from Italy and he said it happens all the time. He said they would tell us at reception that the staff, being muslim, don't drink and with ramadan especially wouldn't do such a thing. He was right. That's exactly what they said and we had to pay for it. Apart from that everything ran smootly, the staff were great and as far as beach holidaying and diving went, my friends and I were happy.
Next stop is Luxor for temples, Valley of the Kings and Valley of the Queens, the fertile nile, generally a bit more culture, history and the stuff that egypt is made of. Sand.
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