Guides not adhering to the rules of the dive sites in particular: Canyon, Dahab...

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Scuba Sheep

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Egypt
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I have been in Dahab for over 2 years and since I got here the fish bowl at The Canyon has been closed. There are signboards at the entrance to the dive site that also state this, in fact one of the signboards ONLY states this....BUT there are still guides that think they are the exception to the rule and think they can still guide their group out through the 'fish bowl' at the Canyon, please see attached photos.

Now before I start getting some abuse from other forum users I would like to say that I have emailed the dive centre this group is from, but they have not replied, so now for the safety of all others whenever I go to the Canyon and see groups coming out I will be posting their photos, hopefully showing the name of their dive centre, and I encourage others to do the same. The dive guide book that I have seen so many people using, is in need of updating. Whenever I dive in Sharm I get info from the guys that dive the sites frequently to find out the best and safest way to dive the sites, is it too hard for others to do the same?? When I spoke with the guide after the dive, he didn't even know what/where the 'fish bowl' was/is.....says it all really....
 

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The first time I was in the Canyon was in 1989 or so- several years before a dive club was built there.

Since then, I regularly visit the place about 1-3 times a year (sometimes more, sometimes less..)

When the works started for building the dive club, we (me and all buddies :wink: ) that the Canyon is definitely going to be destroyed.


I must admit that after all these years, I don't really see any apparent decrease in the state of the dive site, other than seasonal changes- some times the fish bowl is smaller, other years bigger but in general the dive site looks to me- just as it was 20 years ago.

It is of course my subjective opinion, and I feel the same for many sites like Ras Mohamed, Tiran straits, Blue hole etc etc. Actually the only dive site that I could see apparent damage because of human intervention was the "Tower" at Sharm- the hotel built on the shore, the closeness of the site to the shoreline and all the building debris took its toll on the poor divesite (which still looks great today- but not as before).

Of course, I don't like people touching and doing damage- unfortunately I have seen TOO MANY dive guides along all the Sinai coast harassing fish, touching moray eels, feeding Napoleons with eggs, inflating puffer fish, touching turtles etc etc- which in my point of view is by far worse than passing through the fishbowl- which survives for dozens of years..

By the way, I have also seen many groups that really avoid passing through the fishbowl (which is forbidden), so they enter from the roof and then go back to look at the fishbowl from inside: they create a lot of silt, touch the walls etc and since it is really more difficult to have the whole group stop at place and also turn back- I think it is a worse practice to do that :(
 
The first time I was in the Canyon was in 1989 or so- several years before a dive club was built there.

Since then, I regularly visit the place about 1-3 times a year (sometimes more, sometimes less..)

When the works started for building the dive club, we (me and all buddies :wink: ) that the Canyon is definitely going to be destroyed.


I must admit that after all these years, I don't really see any apparent decrease in the state of the dive site, other than seasonal changes- some times the fish bowl is smaller, other years bigger but in general the dive site looks to me- just as it was 20 years ago.

The first time I dived the Canyon was in 2004, there's definitely been some damage to the fishbowl since then. I remember diving there at the end of 2007 and seeing a lump of coral about the size of a football that had fallen down/been dislodged from the fishbowl to the bottom of the canyon. I'm glad I wasn't underneath it when it happened.
 
The first time I dived the Canyon was in 2004, there's definitely been some damage to the fishbowl since then. I remember diving there at the end of 2007 and seeing a lump of coral about the size of a football that had fallen down/been dislodged from the fishbowl to the bottom of the canyon. I'm glad I wasn't underneath it when it happened.

Yeah, coral chunks do get broken from time to time. Sometimes it is a careless diver, sometimes a careless turtle, sometimes it is a careless storm, and in rare cases it can be a ship/boat that crashes in the reef.

Or- in many cases- boats anchoring/tying on the reef (bad practice in many dive sites that still don't have dedicated buoys). From my experience, storms do not happen too often, but when they do- they break more coral chunks than several thousand divers, combined.

So, don't know who's responsible for the broken coral you saw, but the reef has been subject to built/destruction cycles for thousands of years... If you look at the whole picture, it really didn't degenerate that bad over the years...
 
:shakehead: How can they miss the signs ? Maybe a case of I don't care.

Some dodgy guides out their it seems.

The conversation with the DM who was happy to take 1st time intro divers into the Canyon was - err interesting
 
I once shouted at a guide from Inmo Divers to get off the reef table and use the marked entry points at the canyon.... his answer was "it's low tide though!" :-D

I have just seen pics of facebook "friends" who are instructors posing for photos on sea grass, which is actually a fragile eco-system in it's own right.

New instructors and DMs are churned out every few months and there is NO measure of how environmentally conscious any of these people are.

A peer of mine was once caught teaching skills on the sea grass, and when asked about it afterwards, responsed with, "I thought it was the sand we were supposed to stay off!" Unbelievable, but completely true.

As far as the fishbowl at the Canyon is concerned, I think the reasons for and against going through it are many. As a guide, I would never take my customers through it as I consider it an overhead environment. One which the majority of recreational divers are not trained for.

There used to be a school of cave sweepers that lived in the fishbowl years ago, now gone. Yes, there are sweepers at the bottom of the chimney but this is not the same fish from what I've been told by reef scientist.

Sharm guides are paid per person they take diving, and when they do the canyon n blue hole trip, it can be a long day for them. So it's in their interest to keep their briefing short and get the customers in n out as quick as possible. Environmental considerations probably take 2nd place over financial gain. Please, Another Dollar In.... :-D
 
Sharm guides are paid per person they take diving, and when they do the canyon n blue hole trip, it can be a long day for them. So it's in their interest to keep their briefing short and get the customers in n out as quick as possible. Environmental considerations probably take 2nd place over financial gain. Please, Another Dollar In.... :-D
Not sure about the payment system you describe here. As far as I know, the freelance guide in Sharm is paid a fixed amount per day (for 2 or 3 guided dives), and extra for each intro dive he conducts, in addition to commission on selling more intro dives. Now divemasters can't conduct intro dives, as per CDWS regulations; only instructors. The safari to Dahab from Sharm might be different though.

About what they do in Dahab, I don't think it's because of lack of time. It's probably because of lack of knowledge. The majority are not used to shore diving and its considerations (low tide vs high tide, how and when to cross channels and saddles, etc...).

I think there should be a BIG danger sign INSIDE the canyon on the way to the fishbowl. This way the guests will be scared to enter :D:D:D
 
I think there should be a BIG danger sign INSIDE the canyon on the way to the fishbowl. This way the guests will be scared to enter :D:D:D

There has been talk from 'Red Sea Research' an environmental conservation group about putting signage up inside the Canyon, but then why should they have to ruin a dive site, when there's adequate signage on land at the entry point if only guides bothered to use them!!!! Even so, you'd probably have the guides sabotaging or ignoring the signage and still come out through the fish bowl :-(
 
Even so, you'd probably have the guides sabotaging or ignoring the signage and still come out through the fish bowl :-(
The guides would, the guests won't.

A big sign (with skull, X bone and DANGER on it) is really scary. No sane guest will enter this area.
 
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