Tigerman
Contributor
I went down to Egypt for the last week of this august and was able to get a couple of days of diving in despite travelling with a non diver. This is a brief report of what my experience where.
I was hoping to get a single local dive done on wednesday, but due to some unforseen hickups this was not possible and I had to do two dives instead of one.
There are enforced quite strict rules and regulations with regards to marine activity in Sharm El Sheikh and it shows. The rules include no touching anything and a mandatory check dive before you are taken to "more advanced sites".
The dive at White Knight was quite crowded and got kind of silted up not long into the dive - not only by the 10 people on our boat.
The reefs where very nice and there was a nice ammount of sealife there, despite the crowd that was there, both consisting of snorklers closer to the shore and divers in the water.
The second dive was at Ras Bob which also was an awsome dive with a lot of what I consider "medium sized" fish of a variety of colors and shapes. This site was also somewhat less crowded which I like.
My camera also liked being taken for a proper test
.
The 2nd dive we went out to Ras Muhammad which was exactly where I hoped to be able to dive the 2nd day.
On our way out we came across a pod of 20-25 Rissos dolphins showing off and taunting us for our crappy underwater skills. Dolphins are truely amazing animals and only coming across those would almost be worth the trip by itself. But just almost
.
The first dive we did was Jack Fish Alley. Here, just like the local dives the reefs where in very nice condition and the sealife where plentiful. We also met a quite big barracuda that my dive buddy had a chance to have a pretty close look at.
We where watching two of the other divers surfacing as we heard a bout and was concerned they might have been heading towards it, but when we confirmed them to be safe, we turned back to where we where heading and at this point my buddy looked straight into the eyes of the barracuda. The look on her face was just priceless. Too bad I couldnt get a decent picture of it before the fish decided to find something better suited for a snack.
2nd dive of the day was Shark & Yolanda, which is one of the big attractions of Ras Muhammad. The downside with that is that it was quite a few people there, but fortunately we wherent crowded during the dive and had a nice dive in currents that kept changing directions. The currents where not very strong, but given how they where changing it would definetly not be a "begginer drift dive". For parts of the dive we where also swimming against the current, something that would be a challenge for someone with a high(er) air consumption considering the effect it has on air consumption.
The third dive we did this day was Ras Um El Sid. That is, when we got going
.
About five minutes into the dive at 30 feet. I hear a huge bang and prepare myself to get a falling object hitting me in the head. However, looking around I can see no divers or boats just above me and then I see our guide sharing air with one of the other divers and surfacing. Turns out he blew his HP hose which needed to be replaced.
The corrals here where very nice with lots of fish in all sizes shapes and colors. Probably the overall most entertaining of the 5 dives I got to do, nicely ended with a napoleon wrasse stalking the coral from above during our safety stop.
This was the most square profile we had during the week and at times the current where quite noticable.
The only sucky part was that if the dive had been 3 minutes longer wed get to meet the turtle that had to be playing infront of the boat as I went up the ladder.
Overall ill rate the dives on this trip higher than my sea dives in Mexico last year. The cenotes is goign to be hard to top though. My impression is also that although both cozumel and Sharm is quite crowded, the dives in sharm was much better, both with regards to corrals and sealife.
I have uploaded some pictures to the board at http://www.scubaboard.com/gallery/showgallery.php?cat=3506 but I have not chosen the pictures by picture quality, but much also by how they describe the diving I had in Sharm. Some of them are good, some of them is just descriptive. All of them are downsized - a lot.
I was hoping to get a single local dive done on wednesday, but due to some unforseen hickups this was not possible and I had to do two dives instead of one.
There are enforced quite strict rules and regulations with regards to marine activity in Sharm El Sheikh and it shows. The rules include no touching anything and a mandatory check dive before you are taken to "more advanced sites".
The dive at White Knight was quite crowded and got kind of silted up not long into the dive - not only by the 10 people on our boat.
The reefs where very nice and there was a nice ammount of sealife there, despite the crowd that was there, both consisting of snorklers closer to the shore and divers in the water.
The second dive was at Ras Bob which also was an awsome dive with a lot of what I consider "medium sized" fish of a variety of colors and shapes. This site was also somewhat less crowded which I like.
My camera also liked being taken for a proper test
.The 2nd dive we went out to Ras Muhammad which was exactly where I hoped to be able to dive the 2nd day.
On our way out we came across a pod of 20-25 Rissos dolphins showing off and taunting us for our crappy underwater skills. Dolphins are truely amazing animals and only coming across those would almost be worth the trip by itself. But just almost
.The first dive we did was Jack Fish Alley. Here, just like the local dives the reefs where in very nice condition and the sealife where plentiful. We also met a quite big barracuda that my dive buddy had a chance to have a pretty close look at.
We where watching two of the other divers surfacing as we heard a bout and was concerned they might have been heading towards it, but when we confirmed them to be safe, we turned back to where we where heading and at this point my buddy looked straight into the eyes of the barracuda. The look on her face was just priceless. Too bad I couldnt get a decent picture of it before the fish decided to find something better suited for a snack.
2nd dive of the day was Shark & Yolanda, which is one of the big attractions of Ras Muhammad. The downside with that is that it was quite a few people there, but fortunately we wherent crowded during the dive and had a nice dive in currents that kept changing directions. The currents where not very strong, but given how they where changing it would definetly not be a "begginer drift dive". For parts of the dive we where also swimming against the current, something that would be a challenge for someone with a high(er) air consumption considering the effect it has on air consumption.
The third dive we did this day was Ras Um El Sid. That is, when we got going
.About five minutes into the dive at 30 feet. I hear a huge bang and prepare myself to get a falling object hitting me in the head. However, looking around I can see no divers or boats just above me and then I see our guide sharing air with one of the other divers and surfacing. Turns out he blew his HP hose which needed to be replaced.
The corrals here where very nice with lots of fish in all sizes shapes and colors. Probably the overall most entertaining of the 5 dives I got to do, nicely ended with a napoleon wrasse stalking the coral from above during our safety stop.
This was the most square profile we had during the week and at times the current where quite noticable.
The only sucky part was that if the dive had been 3 minutes longer wed get to meet the turtle that had to be playing infront of the boat as I went up the ladder.
Overall ill rate the dives on this trip higher than my sea dives in Mexico last year. The cenotes is goign to be hard to top though. My impression is also that although both cozumel and Sharm is quite crowded, the dives in sharm was much better, both with regards to corrals and sealife.
I have uploaded some pictures to the board at http://www.scubaboard.com/gallery/showgallery.php?cat=3506 but I have not chosen the pictures by picture quality, but much also by how they describe the diving I had in Sharm. Some of them are good, some of them is just descriptive. All of them are downsized - a lot.
