Dahab and Red Sea Divers

Scuba

Apres Scuba!

Its February and I have finally found some time to write about Dahab Egypt. Good Golly Miss Molly what a gem of a place. Rob and Lauren Elliot pointed us to this destination it meets the big 3 criteria in my book that is ...

• Cheap
• Easy to get to
• And lots to see and do!

I know with the news reports Egypt seems like a pretty frightful place, but having been there only weeks before the chaos in Cairo, Dahab was a quaint fun little spot. We flew into Sharm El Sheik at 8:30 pm from Doha and returned at midnight to collect our daughter who was coming in from Calgary that same evening. Breana had to fly through London which was just opening up after a lot of chaos as a result of snow storms. After all that nonsense she landed on time.

Sharm El Sheik is busy, nosy, dirty .... We stayed 1 night and left for Dahab, 1 hour down the road. On the way our driver decides to pick a fight with a soldier at a check point about 10 km out of town. The driver was voicing his disapproval at being forced to stop and wait. Well, we end up detained for 20 minutes. In that time we are joined in our detention by several dozen flies, brutal! Anyway, wise guy driver gets busted and we all have to go back to Sharm. Fortunately, wise guy driver has a brother who will take us to Dahab and lucky for us big brother knows when to talk and when not to...
The drive to Dahab is on a big 4 lane highway. The road is nice but the speed of the mini bus we were in was .... excessive? High center of gravity, sharp corners .... my knuckles are white. Egyptian drivers could give the Qataris a run for their money.

Dahab is on the Gulf of Aqaba, which is part of the Red Sea. It lies about 120 km north of Sharm El Sheik.

We finally arrive in Dahab and the main road is very dumpy. I am thinking uh oh, I screwed up. We pull into the gate of our hotel...not much of an improvement.
We get out and walk 20 meters to find ourselves on a beautiful boardwalk lined perfectly with palms and cool restaurants with big fluffy bedoin pillows and large hooka pipes. A light red sea zephyr slices through the blue heavens and very large goofy grin permeates my face and one word builds behind my lips ... Beer! Actually it was... Paradise! Beer was a close second.

Is Breana missing Calgary, I think not!
nice smile!

We stayed at the Penguin Village right on the boardwalk. It cost 36 euro a night for the 4 of us and it wasn't the Ritz, but it was clean, cozy and right in the middle of the action.

Cozy little entrance

Not bad for 9 euros each!
The beds were decorated with towels when we arrived, I had never seen this before, it was so cool!
As you can see the fellow who prepared the rooms was really quite an artist! He was also the fellow who cleaned the room... I think he simply got bored of cleaning and developed a new hobby.
A couple was coming that day on their honeymoon and this is what he created for them.
That's our room on the corner over Conor's left shoulder and below is the view from that balcony. Like I said this place was a little diamond in the rough.
Just chillin' upon our arrival.
Our first meal... Lots of fresh seafood!
mmmmm!

These little freeloaders are everywhere... the only drawback of a restaurant with no walls
After dinner Breana would serenade us with her uke. She's pretty good, that talented daughter of ours.

We decided that the main things we wanted to do while in Dahab was learn how to Scuba dive. None of us had any experience. The Red Sea is one of the best places in the world for diving, the visibility under water is excellent (20+m). The amount of fish is astounding...There was always something to look at. There a couple dozen dive shops in Dahab and we had one right below our room, very connvenient!
Our first morning we loaded up a little pickup and headed out for first underwater adventure.
Our dive instructor was very knowledgeable, very confident and safe... This is a good thing because the first time under water is kinda freaky, for us neophytes he helped us stay relaxed.
Hamdi Anon dive instructor extrordinaire!
The suits fit!
Checking the regulator and the air pressure!
Buddy check, making sure all the gauges work and nothings going to fall off under water.
The boys are ready for action
Our first dive we see a mother and baby dolphin, lucky or what!!

( this isn't one of our photos ... but its pretty much what we saw :)

The happy couple!
One drill they get you to do is take your mask off and put it back on under water. Then get the water out... harder than it looks, its difficult to relax.
Ah Grasshopper ... I see you are assuming the upright orca pose
Ah..... and criket has mastered the twisted octopus
Senor Bubble Head.

One thing you learn when you go scuba diving is not to have your hands out and swim with your arms folded. This is good advice especially with the lion fish and scorpion fish we saw. One brush of their spines can really put a damper on your vacation...
So our instructor Hamdi tells us ahead of time that if he sees us using our hands at all he will bite our hand ..ha, ha, ha right? Like I think its like a figure of speech, a hollow threat....
Well, I am looking at some thing and I start sculling to get more upright to get a better look. I feel a tap on my shoulder and there's Hamdi he grabs my hand and the F@$#@ SOB bites it! Well I would have told him off but my mouth is full of regulator ... So I had to settle for a look of shocked indignation...Don't mess with me!
Dahab has many dive sites, the Inmo reef site was right outside our hotel and we did a night dive along that reef.

The Blue Hole at Dahab is a world famous dive site, for all the wrong reasons. It's also known as "The Diver's Cemetary"....and we found this out after our dive... It's a beautiful dive, the reef is a vertical wall loaded with life. Very cool. The dangerous part is an arch to the sea at 56 m depth, which thankfully was not on our itinerary

So at the end of the day we are driving back in this little pick up truck. We have to pull a u turn which you always have to do in the middle east. Anyway out of the corner of my eye I see this little girl running towards the truck. We start heading down the road and there she is on the bumper... Crazy! I take my camera, stick my arm out of the window take a picture and the little rascal is giving me a big grin and the thumbs up??!!
The driver is Egyptian, speaks no English and doesn't stop. The girl casually hops off a kilometer down the road like its no big deal..... A day or two later we see the same girl at a lounge area near a dive site. She's selling bracelets, which is a common trade for girls her age. I recognize her and call her over and show her the above picture. She starts to laugh .... she thinks this is the coolest thing and takes my camera to show all her 2 buddies. Then she starts snappin' photos like its going out of style .... thank goodness for digital cameras!

In Egypt its sell, sell ,sell!!

That thumb of hers is getting quite the work out.

I don't remember her name but she was a little sweetie and I still have a couple of her bracelets.

I couldn't help myself, I had to build it ... I call it " Inukshuk on camelback" ... The camel is below and very detailed. It somehow got cut off when I took the photo ... terribly disappointing...
We saw a turtle just like this one on our second day of diving, eating grass just like a cow, we got to within a meter of it and it totally ignored us. Awkward moment, he/she didn't see as a threat at all.

We were able to take an advanced course on top of th basic open water PADI course and this allowed us to go deep!
Our dive leader had the underwater camera, he knew all the good angles for shots, I particularly liked the shots from below with us as silhouettes against the sea and sky above.

The area had all kinds of cool underwater canyons, as you release the oxygen from your lung you drop through the canyon, it feels like you're flying.

And then some tight squeezes

Here's the four of us at 30 m or about 100 feet. Hamdi gave us some tests to see if we were experiencing nitrogen narcosis. I flunked. You feel lightheaded can't think straight .... Sounds like a regular Friday night to me!

We found Nemo and a a friend ...

These bluestreak wrasses will swim right into your mouth and clean your teeth, probably the strangest sensation you might ever come accross.

SushimiMy favorite fish though is the lion fish they are so colorful and very subdued, you can get right up to them and they won't swim away.

Dahab has a number of interesting businesses which are somewhat unique.

I really enjoyed this fellows funky art, we bought several pieces of his work, liked the elongated bodies and the bright vibrant colors.

Like the marketing job on this one restaurant.
New Year's Eve 2010 ...
Breana out partying at Mojito's a local nightclub and pretty fine mexican restaurant...
Actually we were quite pleased with the variety and the quality of the food.

Our last afternoon we went for a walk down the boardwalk ....
An interesting mix of sights
Dahab has a beautiful protected bay and that's where most people start learning how to dive.
There is a cactus growing inside the boat...What do you think about that!The boardwalk/seawall was wonderful
The Red Sea, Gulf of Acaba and Saudi only 12 km away.
Trying to stay warm between dives!!There is something odd about seeing camels next to that much water!
More bracelet sellers ... not sure if they outnumbered the cats or vice versa!!


This Little Egyptian fellow in the middle bugged us all week to come and eat in his restaurant Meyameya, he was always cheerful and friendly as we passed him saying "maybe tomorrow night". So for our last meal in Dahab we ate there.... it was yummy.
SEE!This guy insisted we take his picture, no idea who he is?!
Smiles all around!