Egypt: Sharm El Sheikh

20.12.2001 - 01.04.2001

Next stop Sharm El Sheikh where the weather is great and the diving is spectacular. This is my first trip to Sharm but Jorunn has been there before so this was very exciting for me. As Jorunn was already an advanced diver I took the opportunity to dive and learn while Jorunn went diving and met many new people on the boat. We had heard good things about Camel Dive which turn out very well and we were very satisfied, Jorunn on daily boat dives and I with my advanced course and diving with the group.

We stayed up on the cliffs about 8 km outside of Naama bay, where all the action is, so we took a taxi in each evening to meet up with friends. The Hotel was good, except the load music in the morning, and there was a shuttle to the beach area (Ras Um Sid), which was a very small strip of land packed with people. This was a great place to snorkel with lot's to see. Evening were spent with friends we met while diving, (Tim, Dagmar, Richard, Jackie, Alec) so we ate dinner together most evenings and also spent some time in the Camel Bar. As we were also in Sharm for New Year we first went to a large dinner with bus loads of people, with magic, dancing and other entertainment before the party at the Camel Bar where we met up with rest of the gang to drink and dance on the table until the early hours.

Now for the diving; while in Sharm we went diving in places like: Jackson reef, Woodhouse reef, Ras Mohammed, plus many of the local dive sites and to top it off the Thistlegorm. The Thistlegorm was our first major wreck dive and also one of the best wreck dives in the world. Our boat left at 04:00 so it was a early start but once we got in the water we were wide awake as the amazing site of the Thistlegorm came into sight. Beautiful yet sad to think of what had happened, after circling the ship we entered to find that things had not changed in all those years underwater, we soon found old cars, hundreds of rifles, thousands of Wellington boots, tanks, and a railway car, amazing is all we could say. On our descent we also saw in the distance another railway car that had fallen off and lay there in the deep. On that note we end our trip to Sharm.