Egypt: Sharm El Sheikh
We are off to the Red Sea again. This time we travelled with Sigi and Arild. After her experiences in the Perhenthians Sigi took her open water diver and is now ready to experience more life underwater. We decided to stay out at Shark's Bay which is not far from the airport, has less tourists and is great for snorkelling. We had a place right on the beach with OK rooms, and the only bad thing was the bar not far away only playing Enrique Iglesias and Celine Dione, it get's really irritating when played 12 hours a day, one time was more than enough. "I can be your hero, baby...". No thanks, Enrique.
The days were nice and warm and it was great to be right on the beach, we decided to dive with one of the local dive centers that used local dive guide, this turned out to be a disaster in the end. Most evenings were spent in Shark's Bay as there were several restaurant to choose from so we avoided the crowed and the hawkers trying to drag you into the shop to sell you some thing. We dived the following dive site: Gordon, Woodhouse, Ras Bob, Ras Nasrani, Shark's Bay and Ras Mohammad (Yolaunda reef).
This is where Christer filmed our most popular video on YouTube, a giant moray eel swimming, check this out:
We also did a night dive (the first for Sigi) which was great fun and there was lot's to see. Another great thing about the dive is that we were so close to our rooms and nice hot showers and some warm cloths. Things we saw diving: Several eagle rays, octopus, giant moray eel, pajama cardinal fish, crocodile fish, jack fish, banded shrimps, rainbow runner, crabs, squid, and Spanish dancer (a species of nudibranch). And we had a very close encounter with a huge napolean wrasse, it came so close to Jorunn she had problems getting a good picture. A great experience !
The dive guide was authoritarian and all things had to be by the numbers, all buddy groups had to stay one arm's length from each other, we dived from A to B at great speed with not enough time for pictures or even to look at things, and he mixed experienced diver with open water divers even when they had just two dives. Being a dive master myself I knew he was going too far, but the fact is there is only one boss on a dive, so I stopped and looked and took my pictures and tried to enjoy the diving. On the last day of diving the dive guide went ballistic, when we came up from the dive he started yelling at me in front of everyone and at the time I said very little and let him get it all out until it was my turn. I choose to go directly to the shop manger and let her collect all the facts, in the end the dive guide was put on shore and not allowed to guide any more and we heard later from people who work there that he doesn't guide any more.
One thing before I close, all hail Sigi the bug smasher who saved Arild from the wild creator as it rampaged through the room, may she not fear to have a smashing time whereever she is (this is an inside joke).
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