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Published: August 23rd 2010
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A whole nine months has past since we were last travelling. After a long cold winter we were desperate to get away. We chose Egypt as we only had a week off work so couldn't go too far but wanted guaranteed sunshine and good snorkelling.
We were lucky enough to be upgraded to first class on the aeroplane but sadly soon after, things began to go wrong. As we waited for the bags to arrive on the carousel at Sharm airport I noticed mine coming around with the zip completely open. When I retrived it I discovered the zip was broken, I checked on my most precious object, my mask and snorkel, and breathed a sigh of relief that it was still in there. Other less important stuff was missing. We made our way outside to find someone to report it to, immediatly we were accosted by an Olympic Rep who broke the news to us that we were not going to our chosen hotel but a different one about 25 miles away! We were not happy as we'd chosen one we'd stayed in before and had loved it. They spun us a story about health and safety problems promising
us we were going to a better hotel. Our biggest objection was that the new hotel was not in Shark Bay, renouned for it's good coral. We eventually gave in and allowed them to herd us onto the bus, but not before we'd secured a report about the ruined bag.
The hotel we were taken to was pleasant enough but didn't have the atmosphere of Al Diwan, our chosen hotel. The beach was not as nice either, the coral was quite nice but just a very small stretch crowded with many snorkellers.
We decided to make the most of things and ended up paying to spend a lot of our time on a nearby beach owned by an Italian restaurant. A fellow holiday maker said he'd seen a manta ray early one morning and also as the tide was fairly high at that time it was good to float over the coral and observe the sea life close up. We got up extra extra early on our last day and got onto the beach by 8.30am but unfortunately the sea was so rough that day it was virtually impossible to get in without being smashed onto the rocks
and sharp coral. We never did sea the manta ray. I guess we'll have to wait until we can return to S.E.Asia.
We did, however see a few things we'd not seen before, a stone fish (known for it's deadly properties) it was sitting at eye level on the coral shelf just feet from us so we were able to get a good view, it was very ugly but also very well camaflourged, I couldn't help thinking that the swimmers in there without masks and snorkels were in danger of stepping on it as they seemed to think they were safer swiming over the coral,rather than in the deep sea, even though they were just inches from scraping themselves on it, Several times we observed them actually standing up on the coral!!!
Most of our evenings were spent at Naama Bay which was very lively as it had been 5 years earlier. We especially enjoyed the rooftop bar we came across where we could look down on the world passing by while sipping a cool beer.
All too soon the week was over and it was time to go home. Oh well time to plan our
next holiday, whenever that will be!!!
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