Diving In

4 days, 9 dives, 1 awesome trip!

We arrived home around midnight last night from our 4-day boat safari on the Red Sea.  We left Thursday with about 20 of our colleagues at 1pm and arrived at Safaga to get on our boat (Spyrodream) by 8pm.

We had a buffet dinner and a night of socializing on the unmoving boat.  It was tame enough to keep us in good shape for the following morning of scuba diving, but fun enough to keep us up until a small group of French divers joined us on the boat at 2am.

By 9am the next morning, we were on the deck as the boat started its journey.  We ate a breakfast of crepes and eggs, and soon had a briefing with our dive master Ahmed.  The boat was anchored and we were ready for the first dive of the trip.  Tom went with the advanced group, since he's already certified, while I went with the beginner group to do my open water training.  My dive consisted mostly of kneeling in the sand at the bottom of the sea and practicing skills such as pulling off the air regulator while underwater and putting it back on.  My least favourite skill was clearing the mask after the instructor deliberately filled it with salt water.  While my eyes burned and my knees got scraped, I could take comfort knowing that Tom was nearby exploring the beautiful marine life of the Red Sea, likely without any water in his goggles.  His group came in early enough for him to take pictures of me moments after surfacing after the dive.

We ate lunch and headed out for an afternoon dive.  This dive involved less skills and more exploring.  If I knew my fish at all, I could give names of all the unique and impressive fish I spotted.  Unfortunately all I can say is that there were many colourful fish, both big and small.  Oh, I saw some Nemos (I do know that they are called Clown Fish... although I don't know their technical name).

Friday's third dive was my favourite.  It was a fun dive, so the beginner and advanced groups got to mix and Tom and I dove together.  My tank hadn't been refilled until I asked, so we were running behind the group, and wound up in a small group of stragglers.  It was so nice to have lots of space underwater, and a much better view all around.  A fairly large (maybe the size of a frisbee) angel fish sort of joined our group and swam with us for several minutes underwater.  Very cool!

Tom got to go out for a night dive on Friday, although I couldn't be jealous as a party had transpired on the boat.  The Egyptian staff starting playing drums and singing and dancing.  The teacher you'd least expect it from got up and belly danced to a few songs.  Although I've taken a couple of classes myself, I didn't break out my belly dancing until a little later that night, when the pros were all done.  We slept out on the deck of the boat with some of the other teachers.  The night breeze and starry sky were beautiful enough to help me forgive the blazing 6am sunrise.

The following two days included much of the same... dive, eat, nap, repeat.  We saw eels, octopus, lion fish, scorpion fish, stingrays, and way too many small fish to name.  We also saw an old ship wreck.  I got to do a night dive on Saturday as part of my advanced course.  I didn't see a huge number of fish, but diving by flashlight was far more serene and less scary than I would have imagined.  Saturday night was pretty quiet since most people (us included) were quite tired.  We did get the camera out for some evening photography, and Tom even let someone else use his baby... I mean camera... to take this picture of us.

Two Sunday dives followed by 8 hours on a bus got us back to our apartment in Cairo, only to prepare for the next adventure.  We're heading to Jordan tomorrow and will be traveling there until next Thursday night (Sep. 16).  We'll update when we get back, hopefully with some great pictures.