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Diving the Red Sea

When I told people I was visiting the Middle East, some of them were genuinely concerned about my safety. I personally judge how safe something is with the “driving your car to work test”. Is it statistically more likely to kill you than driving to work in the U.S.? Flying commercial: safe. Flying in a Cessna: not safe. Skydiving: safe. Cave diving: not safe. Hiking in backwoods New Zealand: safe; scoring heroin in South Central Los Angeles: not safe. Well, that last one’s a little ridiculous, but it’s hard to come up with something else. Life is pretty damn safe! You may not think so from watching the news but dying from terrorism or random “I hate Americans” violence is no more likely than getting struck by lightning twice. So I certainly didn’t expect that I would stumble near any internationally significant violence while I was traveling. I was mistaken. The day after my tour ended in Cairo, I flew to Sharm El Sheikh on the Sinai Peninsula. “Sharm” has always been known for scuba diving, and also for peace conferences. Now it is known for shark attacks.

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I got my scuba license seven years ago, but due to a combination of none of my friends doing it, the fact that each trip is a big production, and the fact that I was a bit freaked out by it, I hadn’t done it again since those initial few dives. In Bali, I took a refresher course and, at a clip of two dives a day, I dove 14 times over about three weeks. I got in four more times in Australia, too. I am now a full-fledged diver.

People I met on diving boats recommend other places to go diving, and Egypt was brought up as much as anywhere. They are funny people—scuba divers. Most of the people you meet base all their vacations around the activity. I don’t quite get that. A lot of them also spend a lot of time talking about what they did and did not like about a dive. I don’t get that at all.

Granted, my diving experience is limited to South Florida, Indonesia, and Egypt—three of the most well-known diving spots in the world—but once I’m underwater, I see nothing to complain about. Appreciation of the beauty of tropical fish and coral is universal. The colors, patterns, and movement are dazzling, gorgeous, and strange enough to be beyond description. It seems completely unrelated to anything else on our planet. Often, you hear “clink, clink, clink”, which is the sound of your dive master tapping their tank with a metal rod, and you turn because you know there is likely to be something very cool to look at. Those guys (and girls) have been doing it for years and they can spot sharks in the distance or camouflaged fishes blending into the ocean floor or the reef.


The best description may be the most obvious: it’s like being inside an aquarium. Of course, the aquarium you are in dwarfs the richest, most fish-obsessed man’s greatest fantasy of a fish tank. My favorite things I have seen are octopi and cuttlefish changing colors and textures right in front of my face. It’s dumbfounding. Photographs do no justice to the diving experience, to say the least. Compared to diving pictures, pictures of glaciers, cliffs, and waterfalls are immersive. Maybe it’s because I’m still a beginner, but when I get out of the water, I can’t think of anything I didn’t like. It’s hard to get much past “Wow.” I can’t even appreciate it when people complain that the water was too crowded with other divers. Seeing other divers floating above me and below me is fascinating. I love to see the perspective of another diving approaching a wreck or a coral structure. I love the depth—the simple, physical depth. It’s kind of like the way I enjoy being on a high vantage points and being able to see for miles ahead of me. I like looking at the underside of a boat way above me, whether it is still or even more if it is speeding by. I like seeing snorkelers and divers beginning their journey as they jump off the backs of boats. I swim upside down and watch bubbles float to the surface, and I’m sure people think I’m a total dork for it.

He who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed.
—Albert Einstein

One time in Bali, it was on a dive with just a dive master and myself (this whole trip has been an incredible combination of nice weather and small crowds) and we were looking at a sunken WWII Japanese fighter plane. Pretty awesome in its own right, especially because wrecks attract fish and coral, but then one I had one of the most awe-inspiring experiences of my life. I heard the clink-clink-clink and I turned around to see a submarine dropped down right next to us! I came to find out it was a tourist experience and it fit 30 people. Holy God, I did not expect to see that submarine. It’s mass and the way it glided in three dimensions was unlike anything I’ve ever seen. I guess it gave me some idea of how it will be if I ever see a whale. That’s a bucket lister I’ll still have after this trip is over.

One thing that is strange about diving is that it is almost completely passive. You don’t have to be fit; in fact, you’re not supposed to exercise for 24 hours afterward so if anything, and they generally drop you off near a bar. It definitely isn’t good for your fitness. Another thing about it, for me at least, is that it was scary. Every ten meters of water equals one atmosphere’s worth of weight. So if you are ten meters down, air is compressed by one factor and your lungs need twice as much air to fully expand. At twenty meters (as deep as I am qualified to dive), your breath is three times as deep. It is a bizarre feeling taking in that much air, and, obviously, you are dealing with breath—the ultimate requirement for sustaining life. Being down there, deep enough to potentially die (you could more or less go through the week of diving certification in 90 minutes; the rest of the time they are hammering in your head how dangerous it can be.) and hearing my breath like Darth Vader’s but for three times as long, was rattling at first. Some people are fine from the first time and some people should never do it. It was only on this Egypt trip that I finally felt 100%!c(MISSING)omfortable. Another thing that is very strange is the way a mask cuts off your peripheral vision. You can’t believe how easy it is to lose track of someone who is a few meters away from you, and not always for just a second. Occasionally, even though you know they must be very close, you can turn seemingly every direction and still not see them. That limited perspective adds to the feeling of discovery, though. You can turn and right next to you there may be a beautiful tropical fish or a school of grouper. It could be just about anything. The limited but broadening perspective reminds me a bit of looking out an airplane window. I don’t think I’ll ever be the guy that bases vacations on diving, or any other single activity for that matter. So many athletic activities are dominated by the obsessives, and I’ve never been one of them (Gator football is only four months a year so it doesn’t count). But, like looking at airplane windows, I’m sure that diving will continue be something I enjoy. If I ever complain about it, it’s time to stop.

After we finished our second dive on my second day in Sharm, we were informed that diving was being suspended because of a shark attack. At the time, we didn’t realize that there were four attacks during the two days that we had been diving. It didn’t cross our minds that it would become international news and that it would probably affect the area’s tourism for several years. The place I stayed at is named “Shark’s Bay” for God’s sake! In fact, the dive master told us there was one attack “on a Russian who was feeding fish” (a no-no). Everyone on the boat was affronted. “They should kill him instead of the shark.” Yes, someone said that—a French woman. Me, I was kind of the envy of the group because I was on my way out of town, having already booked a room in Dahab, a town just a little more than an hour up the road. As it happened, they closed the waters near Sharm for three days and on the day it was reopened, there was another attack. That day a woman died. Scientists say that it is the first time that there is hard evidence of an individual shark making multiple attacks on people. The last I heard they were hiring specialist fishermen to find the bastard. Jaws come to life.

After waiting four hours for my blood to de-fizz, I took a taxi on the mountain road from Sharm to Dahab. These are the two most popular towns of the Sinai Peninsula. Like everywhere in this part of the world, Sinai has its share of history. It’s got recent history, having changed hands from Egypt to Israel and back in the past 40 years or so as well as biblical history, and everything in between. For the past 1,300 years or so, it has been predominantly Moslem, but the religious culture is quite different than on mainland, African Egypt. While many local men are pious and local women are mostly unseen, Sinai is, first and foremost, a beach get away—a land of Russians, Germans, and Italians in tiny, ridiculous bathing suits. Sharm is ritz; Dahab is hippie. Since you are reading this, you almost certainly know me personally*. It shouldn’t surprise you then that I dug both of these places. I preferred Dahab, though. Sharm is kind of ridiculous. I always tell people that you should go to Las Vegas once, because it is truly a wonder to behold. The implication is that it is not a place to go to repeatedly, but damn do people like throwing away their money in Vegas, don’t they? Vegas-style gaudy tourism is taking over the Middle East. Sharm has gaudiness, but it doesn’t have the sheer I-can’t-believe-this-ness of a Dubai or Qatar. Truth is that I didn’t get see too much of the town because I couldn’t get too far away from a toilet. The joys of travel. Luckily, they had them on the boat. Dahab, like Sharm, is touristy, but much more for backpackers than for Russian oligarchs. There are only a handful of nice hotels in town, and even those don’t have fresh water showers. Oh, the salt water shower—yet another joy of travel! The diving was much better in Dahab than in Sharm, at least where I went, and it was so relaxing in town. I did a little yoga; finally finished my MBA applications; walked around the town; smoked more shisha. Slow, relaxing times. As good of a place as any to deal with dysentary. My photo albums don’t tell a false story, but be thankful that it is a limited one. Believe me, it’s not all good.

Apologies to any divers who just read two pages of crap they already knew.

Much love,

Greg


*don’t be shy to recommend me to a friend!

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Comments

[Da]

Diving
When you were small I used to dive with Dave Rocha and another guy. Gulf of Mexico, sinkholes up US 19 and the Keys for Pennekamp, lobsters, scallops. crabs, conch and spearing grouper. Not enough money to leave Mom, the kids and Florida then. We might do three dives, drive back to Clearwater then go work from 4pm to midnight. Plus soccer coach, volleyball and refereeing. Energy levels a bit higher then. Good times. Enjoy, it seems to go fast. Da