Blogs from Sharm el-Sheikh, Red Sea, Egypt, Africa - page 4

Early on 21 October the ship rose early, took on board the pilot and extra crew, and took its place in the southbound convoy for the Suez canal. It took us the whole day to transit and with this and the northbound convoy we must have seen 40 big ships using the amazingly narrow strip of water. Strange to see completely barren flat desert on the Sinai side and relatively lush oasis on the Nile side. Through the canal the boats are separated by 5 minutes but at the Bitter Lakes the southbound let the northbound convoy pass and we got to see them all. Some massive container ships. We passed under the centre of the Peace Bridge with 1.5m to spare above our main mast. The Star Clipper led the convoy out of the southern ... read more

Live aboard, Sharm el Sheik 10 to 16 May 2009 Now welcome aboard the Snapdragon, my home for the next week. It is a 30 metre long vessel with 4 decks, 6 crew and can hold 20 guests. My week it had 5 including me. So lots of space. At the end I had done another 19 dives, 4 dives a day, bringing my total for the 17 days up to 32 dives. Doubling my amount of dives I had done in the previous 8 years. Man was I stuffed. The dives included; drift dives, cave dives, night dives, boat dives and wreck dives. The highlight of the diving was the SS Thistlegorm. The SS Thistlegorm was a supply ship of the British Navy, heading to Tobruk, to assist the 8th Army and the Australian army ... read more

The day has finally dawned, now we can relax, lie in the sun and basically just kick back. But first things first, do we eat breakfast in the hotel or do we go hungry. The thought of all those steps to the town centre won the day and we took our seats in the hotel "dining room". Our day was spent lounging around on the sun loungers on what the hotel laughingly calls a beach. I think the sand is the left overs from the building site next door and the flat area is about 3 feet above the water, with a wooden jetty and a metal tube step to get you into the sea. The sea and coral however more than makes up for all the downsides. Lots of fish, coral and sea anemones, and ... read more

Time to get ready Woke up this morning to snow, ice and 32° Sharm el Sheikh is Sunny and 75° ................... (not much diference) Thankfully we leave for Egypt on Monday 9th so now its time to start getting ready. Its going to be odd sorting out summer clothes in this weather. Passport & tickets clothes currency travel insurance post card list Book PADI course Very early Sunday morning Another cold day in Scotland,(didnt check the temp in Sharm but I know its warmer than here) but this trip is getting closer. Everything is packed and after a few phone calls to Travel Republic we eventually got our etickets, the previous ones they sent must be floating around in cyberspace somewhere, or worse someone else might be in my seat. Bought the PADI manual for some ... read more

I love it here Sharm is amazingly beautiful. The Red Sea is so clear you can see all the way to the bottom now matter how far out you are. Its crazy to come from Cairo where everyone is extremely religious and covered from head to toe , to Sharm el Sheikh, where there are topless Europeans scattering the beaches and short-shorts and mini skirts wandering the streets. Quading in the desert was amazing. There is a part of the desert where everything echos for miles and everyone was shouting out eachothers names. They all died laughing when Tito told them my name was Shib Shib (slippers in arabic) we then had a bbq in tents under the star filled sky in the middle of the desert, it was by far the best food i've ... read more