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Published: April 7th 2008
Hide and Seek
Red Sea, AqabaAfter driving out of the desert, we could scarcely believe that we would be beach side after less than an hour on the road.
Our destination was Aqaba, a town on the Red Sea, located somewhere between Israel, Egypt and Saudi Arabia.
This is where lots of Jordanian families and young people come to enjoy their holidays and weekends. It is also rapidly gaining popularity with Western visitors who come to check out the sights below water. Scuba diving and snorkelling is the big draw card with the Westerners here.
I was determined not to like Aqaba but it ended up being one of my favourite destinations.
On the weekends it is the strangest mix of cultures - Muslim ladies splashing about in the sea, fully covered in their hijab, men lying back in the sand smoking shisha, the money sect milling around the luxury boats down at the Royal Yacht Club, Westerners studying their Padi scuba manuals, McDonalds and malls only metres away from shanty towns and Islamic dress shops.
Most Westerners we saw had made an effort to dress appropriately (during this trip I really have come to see the Islamic way of dressing
Green coral
Red Sea, Aqaba as elegant - us Westerners look scruffy and almost shameless in comparison!) but I can just imagine what it is like when the sun seeking Europeans descend on the town in their masses!
We explored the town every evening and found it to be very friendly and relaxed. It has been set up as a special economic zone so it was strange to suddenly see heaps of shops selling alcohol in this country. What we both noticed (not just in Aqaba but also in the whole country) how safe it felt. I can’t think of many suburban parks in New Zealand where mothers and children can hang out playing and talking until midnight. We walked everywhere and not once did we feel the least bit threatened.
Aqaba is a town that is looking to tourism as its boom industry. It doesn’t have a long stretch of coastline but we were told of the plans to line the coast with resorts in the next ten years. You can’t stop economic progress but I hope they conserve the coral and marine life while they’re building.
We had come for the diving so therefore spent most of the time out
Passing by
Red Sea, Aqaba at Club Mujan or ‘the fortress’ as I came to think of it. Located out on the South Coast, the club is set back about 50 metres from the water. The bars in the fence ended up separating the two cultures which felt very weird! I spent the first morning in my strategically chosen sun tanning spot - completely hidden from the view, desperate to catch a bit of sun but eager to leave the other western girls to the mercy of the local boys and their camera phones!
After spending a few hours watching the culture clash from ‘The Fortress’ we got kitted up for our first dive. Chris had signed up for the Advanced Diver course, while I had (remembering how pathetic I was before doing the Discover Scuba course in Thailand!) signed up for the Open Water Diver in a sudden flash of braveness.
Since we were both doing separate courses, we didn’t see much of each other for the next 2 and half days. Most of the time we were either underwater, studying the manual or eating. We did our first dive together which was great.
Since the pool was still freezing I did
Angel Fish
Red Sea, Aqaba all my confined dives in the sea. This meant leaving the safety of club and walking down to the beach in our dive kit. While getting a safety talk from our instructor in the shallows, we were surrounded by hoards of teenagers, paddling in their Islamic clothing. Chris was a big hit with the girlies “What is your name? Where do you come from? How old are you?” He loved it I’m sure!
Chris did a wreck dive and had the chance to swim over an 80 metre cargo ship which he said was amazing. I feel quite jealous as he and his buddy came across a 2 metre Napoleon wrasse cruising about in 25 metres of water. I can even imagine what it must have been like to come face to face with a fish of that size. My instructor pointed out an octopus hiding under a rock which I would never have noticed. Chris got covered in jellyfish stings on the first afternoon while I escaped with only one sting above my lip. Thankfully the jellyfish didn’t stay in the area long and the water was stinger free by the next day.
He also joined the
Coral
Red Sea, Aqaba group who set out to do a night dive (argh - madness!) but unfortunately the visibility dropped to only a few metres, one person got separated from the group and the dive was aborted for safety after five minutes.
Chris and I joined up and completed two of our dives together. The soft corals were amazing and tropical fish stunning. For the last dive, the instructor took us to a site called the Eel Garden which is patch of sand where thousands of skinny eels poke up out of the ground like grasses. Unfortunately for us, another group had swam over the top of the site already, causing nearly all of the little eels to poke back inside their holes. Knowing how disappointed I would be, (he knew I was terrified of eels!) he hunted out a few morays for us and took us to a beautiful pinnacle that was absolutely covered in thousands of fish and soft coral. It’s a real shame the visibility was poor for this one. The colours were beautiful and the photos would have been spectacular in clear water.
Anyway we are pleased to say that we both ‘passed’ our courses. Thanks in
Watch your step
A stone fish. Nasty. my case to the fact that I had one-on-one instruction for the entire course! The Controlled Emergency Swimming Ascent (CESA - not to be confused with Shisha) was a challenge (the small body = small lungs argument didn’t win any sympathy) while the mention of ‘mask removal’ is still enough to bring me out in a cold sweat… My instructor was lovely though. Patient and calming, but in no way putting up with any pitiful nonsense from me!
Getting through the entire manual in 2 days was an absolute mission but I ended up finishing the test by candle light at the Royal Yacht Club. The huge group of 15 year old girls from a high school in Amman (they boogied the night way to 90’s Euro pop!) were an amusing backdrop and I finished the test at 11:30pm with only 2 questions wrong.
Chris took all the photos on this blog. The visibility was quite poor on this last dive so the photos don’t really do the diving any justice. It was also his first time using our underwater casing so I’m sure the photos can only get better in the future!
Enjoy
Oh yeah
Schools out!
Red Sea, Aqaba - what did the title of this blog mean?
After finishing up in Aqaba we set off back up North via the Desert Highway. This was a pretty horrible road with absolutely nothing to interest a visitor. It is however, the fast route North. Before getting to the Saudi Border that runs alongside, the road is full of thundering petrol tankers and huge trucks.
As we were cruising along we noticed some flames on the side of the road about 100 metres ahead. They were only a few metres high so we assumed it was a burn off or something controlled.
The trucks that we were cruising next to all suddenly pulled off the road next to us. Before we knew what was happening, we were right next to the flames and as we passed a wind was generated that seemed to suck air into the fire. The flames multiplied into angry fireballs higher than a house! %£@£^!!!!
By now we were alongside and our little car was only about 30 metres away from the inferno. We could see liquid all over the ground and had no idea how close to us it was spread. The
Fish hangout
Red Sea, Aqaba heat was unbelievable inside the car - Chris floored the accelerator and we speed away while saying words that Primary school teachers and nice people shouldn’t say!
We looked back and in less than a few minutes, the flames and black smoke where stretching up into the sky like a mushroom cloud. We were the last vehicle through and the road behind us was eerily deserted. Fire engines rushed towards the fire from the opposite direction and we sat in the car wondering what had just happened.
We can only assume that the fire was caused by a petrol tanker that had overturned while taking the corner of exit. The liquid must have been petrol but because of the flames we couldn’t see the tanker.
This was as close to danger we have been so after that we crossed back over to the King’s Highway and headed to Al Karak - the much more scenic route back north!
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