5/18 - 5/29
Overnight bus to Dahab, tickets sold to us by the surliest and most unpleasant man in Egypt.
Again we were the only foreigners getting off the bus at Dahab. Far from the only tourists in town though, I suppose most people came from Cairo or Israel. We got a lift into town from a tout, but the hotel he was touting was pretty grim so I decided to have a look around.
Hotel hunting was interesting. The place I finally settled on fronted onto the sea, had modern air-conditioning, a TV and fresh water - a rarity in Dahab. The owner said he'd been at the bus station with the other touts, but had decided not to even bother approaching us as we looked... what was it? Tired? Frazzled? Like cheapskates? I don't remember. He also said he'd subsequently seen me going from hotel to hotel and knew I was going to be a hard sell. He actually went on for ages in a similar vein, but we got a single room at a fraction of his usual rates so it worked out well for us in the end.
According to the Japanese guys we met there, Dahab is said to be a place where people 'sink' (沈没), meaning, come to visit and end up staying much longer than they expected, or never leaving at all! Indeed, we seriously considered a quick trip to Sharm El-Sheikh or Cairo just to extend our visa and our stay, but eventually decided to move on when Hozumi expressed an interest in visiting the Dead Sea.
Hozumi did a try dive after some persuading and I did a check dive since it had been about ten years since my last one. Very busy dive spot called 'the Lighthouse', but still in good condition. Beautiful coral wall.
Hozumi enjoyed the dive, but didn't feel like getting qualified. I decided to go on three boat dives near the famous Thistlegorm wreck.
A 3am start, dozed on the minibus to Sharm El-Sheikh. Met Shuji, three other young Japanese, Luisa and Ivan on the boat. Most of the other divers were fat Germans who kept to themselves. It was Shuji's first ever post-certificate dive so I got assigned as his buddy, being the only person who could efficiently translate for him. This turned out to be very lucky indeed as he had borrowed a dive camera from his instructor so I got my first ever underwater photos!
The first dive we circled around the wreck. It's a WWII wreck, big and deep. There were strong currents, very little silt, but visibility wasn't as good as it usually is. Highlights were the ammo plaque that had been cleaned off, showing the date: 1929, the huge propeller at the stern and the winching mechanism and tank car on the foredeck. Shuji expended too much energy trying to take photos and ended up sucking down all his air and breathing from the dive master's tank for most of the dive. He was acutely embarrassed and actually got quite a scolding from the dive master. Fortunately he handed off the camera to Ivan, so we had great pictures and no air problems for the last two dives.
The second dive through the interior was quite challenging, with narrow passageways, doorways and low ceilings. Tons of old bikes, trucks and jeeps. Fascinating to see objects that I know the real size of, as usually everything looks bigger and closer than it really is - those tiny old 1920s bikes looked huge!
Unfortunately, without fancy lighting equipment underwater photos all turn out blue and yellow, so you get lots and lots of blue photos. This is probably the only visual record of diving I will ever have though, so I'm going to post a whole heap of pictures.
The last dive was the best, at the famous Yolande/Shark reef at a shallower depth with better visibility. Ivan played with the record function so I'm going to try and embed a video or two here too.
Again we were the only foreigners getting off the bus at Dahab. Far from the only tourists in town though, I suppose most people came from Cairo or Israel. We got a lift into town from a tout, but the hotel he was touting was pretty grim so I decided to have a look around.
Hotel hunting was interesting. The place I finally settled on fronted onto the sea, had modern air-conditioning, a TV and fresh water - a rarity in Dahab. The owner said he'd been at the bus station with the other touts, but had decided not to even bother approaching us as we looked... what was it? Tired? Frazzled? Like cheapskates? I don't remember. He also said he'd subsequently seen me going from hotel to hotel and knew I was going to be a hard sell. He actually went on for ages in a similar vein, but we got a single room at a fraction of his usual rates so it worked out well for us in the end.
According to the Japanese guys we met there, Dahab is said to be a place where people 'sink' (沈没), meaning, come to visit and end up staying much longer than they expected, or never leaving at all! Indeed, we seriously considered a quick trip to Sharm El-Sheikh or Cairo just to extend our visa and our stay, but eventually decided to move on when Hozumi expressed an interest in visiting the Dead Sea.
Hozumi did a try dive after some persuading and I did a check dive since it had been about ten years since my last one. Very busy dive spot called 'the Lighthouse', but still in good condition. Beautiful coral wall.
Hozumi enjoyed the dive, but didn't feel like getting qualified. I decided to go on three boat dives near the famous Thistlegorm wreck.
A 3am start, dozed on the minibus to Sharm El-Sheikh. Met Shuji, three other young Japanese, Luisa and Ivan on the boat. Most of the other divers were fat Germans who kept to themselves. It was Shuji's first ever post-certificate dive so I got assigned as his buddy, being the only person who could efficiently translate for him. This turned out to be very lucky indeed as he had borrowed a dive camera from his instructor so I got my first ever underwater photos!
Japanese threesome.
Ivan, Luisa, Shuji and me, post-dive.
Fat Germans.
The second dive through the interior was quite challenging, with narrow passageways, doorways and low ceilings. Tons of old bikes, trucks and jeeps. Fascinating to see objects that I know the real size of, as usually everything looks bigger and closer than it really is - those tiny old 1920s bikes looked huge!
Unfortunately, without fancy lighting equipment underwater photos all turn out blue and yellow, so you get lots and lots of blue photos. This is probably the only visual record of diving I will ever have though, so I'm going to post a whole heap of pictures.
Gun.
The captain's bathtub.
We surfaced at someone else's boat, so they kindly gave us a lift back to ours.
A big ol' turtle.
A moray eel on the move - quite rare to see these guys go.
A lot of life.
The turtle.
In full colour, this looked like a cross between sledge-hammered Student Union toilets and the insides of the fridge from that Cowboy Bebop episode.
Luisa takes a dump.
Underwater ballet.
Going through a mini coral 'cave'. I'm in front, then Shuji, then Ivan filming.
I got in one more dive at Dahab, at the Blue Hole, but it wasn't very exciting. I think our Dive Master was hungover and/or bored. Hozumi probably saw a lot more just by snorkelling around the area. The sheer number of camels we saw on our way back surprised me. At its peak Dahab must be a very busy place.
We moved away from our original hotel (Jasmine) to the place Ivan and Luisa recommended (Yasmina), it was a bit cheaper, had worse air-conditioning, no TV and salt-water showers, but it was naturally cooler, had a pool, a fridge and no "Come, eat! Why don't you eat at our restaurant?" hassle. At 45 EGP a night we could have stayed a long time indeed...
Our last adventure in Dahab was some snorkelling at 'The Islands'. A long walk in the heat, past abandoned and lonely-looking beach-hut resorts and unfinished constructions. When we got there I found my mask-strap was so rotten it snapped as soon as I tried to put it on. Luckily a local businessman got another guy with a box of masks for rent to loan us one for free. The coral and fish on display were really stunning, perhaps the best I've ever seen. Towering islands of coral with mazey channels between them. Hozumi described the experience as 'flying over different world', which I like. One massive shoal of brown fish displaying occasional dazzling silver flashes is still quite vivid in my memory. Glittery tiny crystal fish and big colourful fish and... I really should remember some of the marine taxonomy I've learnt, but I never do. The swim back to shore was tricky, over a very shallow reef table covered in sea urchins and sea cucumbers.
When we got out, Hozumi's hair did this crazy static thing. Even viewing it at full resolution doesn't really do it justice, it was really cool.
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