Diving in Dahab

This blog site is a bit unreliable at times. I've tried to update this a couple of times recently but without any luck.

Dahab has been great. The weather has been perfect - still up around 30. We've completed our PADI Open Water diving certificates. Six dives at a couple of different sites. The last was the best. We were surrounded by a school of fusilier fish. They split into two groups to go around us and then reformed on the other side. Amazing! We followed them for a little while too.

The coral reefs are very pretty too with lots of various sea life. Before we started our dive course we went for a snorkel at "The Lighthouse" which is at the north end of Dahab bay. There is a broadwalk along the shore with lots of restaurants and shops. All very trendy. A lot of the dive schools are based here. We were amazed that the reef was so close to all of this. And it seemed to teem with life - although we're told it's nothing like it used to be...too many tourists unfortunately :(

Not nice to think that we might be part of the problem but we've been very careful to avoid touching any of the coral...not like some divers and snorkellers apparently.

We've also climbed Mt. Sinai. That was quite hard work. We were picked up from the hotel just before 11pm and drove for 2+ hours to the start of the climb. We arrived at the summit at about 5am to watch the sunrise. Very pretty but it was freezing cold up there. Then we climbed down again (which took about an hour and a half). We went inside St. Catherines Monastery and saw the Burning Bush or, at least, it's descendant.

Today we're going to go snorkelling at the Blue Hole. You can dive there but we thought we'd take it a bit easier today.

Tomorrow we have a bit of an adventure. We go "camel diving". We'll get a ride to the Blue Hole where we hop on the camels for an hour and a half trek to a remoter diving spot called Ras Abu Gallum. This isn't accessible by road. From there we will do a couple of dives and have a Bedouin style lunch. Then back on the camels to return to the Blue Hole and then the hotel. Should be good.

The following day it's the long bus ride back to Cairo to catch the 3;45 am flight to Istanbul and then London. That will be a long, long day. Never mind...it's definitely worth it.

Bye for now...