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Published: December 22nd 2010
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We are back on the road! After a great and romantic trip in Africa with Mari in November, it's now time for Christmas school holidays. Tiffany is stuck in Vietnam, but Leslie has 3 weeks holidays...and we are...on the road again.
Our first stop, is...you can see the pictures, a diving one. There is not much to see in Aqaba, or put it simply, we haven't seen anything interesting in Aqaba. So you are going to ask me, why do you come...because there is a lot more to see below the water...Jordan may have only a little more than 30km of coast line, it's only access to the sea, aka the Red Sea, the Jordan authorities are doing a great job at trying to keep the coral as healthy as possible.
How to get here? First, there is the flight from Bangkok to Amman, and ours got delayed...because of the weather in London! Go figure out, Royal Jordanian are a bunch of useless people. Got stuck few hours in Amman before reaching finaly Aqaba. We are staying at the Intercontinental...would be a nice 4 stars hotel, no idea who gave them a higher rating. But the good news (for
us) is that there are close to no tourists in Aqaba....I mean you simply don't see any tourist, even just before Christmas...and we simply love the peace.
So our goal for Aqaba is simple...diving! We are diving with Seastar divers, very nice people, I do recommend them. In summer, they welcome up to 40 divers at the same time, here it's a little more like max 6 people per day....don't forget, there are 3 of us! So a nice private experience. How is the diving in the Gulf of Aqaba? Well, we did 4 dives in 2 days, Leslie 2, one each day. And I have a simple point to answer how good is a place to dive: Look at the 10 best diving pictures of a diver, and you'll find out how good the diving is...except if you have strictly no idea of how to use a camera.
The diving in Jordan is nice. You concentrate on the macro, as the big stuffs are simply not here. But the best must have been the colors of some of the corals, pretty cool for sure, but this will not rate in my top 5, not even in my
top 10. For a two days diving break, this is perfect. Conditions are easy to dive for Leslie, not much current here, and a lot to see within his 12 meters depth padi limit.
The place is a great geographic point...less than 30km from here you have Israel, Saudi Arabia and Egypt. And yes, I guess the shore line of Israel must be pretty crowded with their access to the sea which may be maximum 10km on the Red Sea, somebody told me it is actlually closer to only 5km coast line.
I would like to thank everybody for your very nice comments on our Gilis blog and Leslie Junior Open Water Padi. He is now a diver, or let say, he is trying to be, in the middle of his learning curve. The water here is at 24 degrees...air temperature may actually be colder most of the time in December, so you feel good deep in the water. Leslie is pretty small, so between trying to find 2, yes 2 wetsuits, one on top of another one to keep him warm, plus loaded with 4kg of weights, the little guy has some kind of a difficult time
to move himself freely underwater....but he is learning nicely!
Beside diving we didn't do much. Sun is up just before 8am, and sunset just before 5am. The bus pick up us at 9am and we were back at the hotel around 5.30pm. Oh, I forgot, here it is mainly shore dives...meaning no boat and you walk in the water from the beach. The fun part being you get fully geared in the center, and take a bus or a van to the different dive sites on the coast, kind of fun!
So in the evening, little walk to find some great places for dinner. No crowds either here, great service, lots of smiles and amazing food! Lemon and mint juice, oh yes....fish, oh yes...and even some occasionnal sharwarna, seems Leslie has found something better than a cheeseburger!
Our next stop is away from the water...into the sand! You will need to wait few days for this one.
If we do not publish any more entry before Christmas, allow us to wish you a Merry Christmas, with or without your family, with or without snow, but for sure with a lot of love from three of us!
Merry Christmas from Jordan!
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anonymous
non-member comment
so brave!
Leslie is such a brave kid... well done!!!, as always, very jealous of your diving!