Well folks, if you're getting bored of my thousands of posts then please feel free to look away now, because I am posting because I myself am very bored indeed.
I went to work this morning to find that my one diver (yes, we were going to run a whole boat for one person) has canceled because she is sick. Our other boat which is off to Ras Mohamed today has all of three people on board. There are no courses, even though we are allowed to conduct them now. In fact, we have more staff working than guests.
Okay it is Saturday, which is always slower because the weekends are the main turnaround for tourists but I asked our office last night how the situation is looking for next week and I was told "slightly worse than this week" - and next week should herald the arrival of the christmas rush. The other big centres here are in a similar state and the smaller centres must be pooping themselves at the moment.
One galling aspect of today is that one of my colleagues, fresh out of his IDC, was looking very much to conducting his first official course as an instructor - a refresher course for two Swedish divers. They came into the centre this morning and cancelled. Why? Because last night during a conversation over dinner, two other tourists fed them some shark stories and they are now too frightened to get into the water. Despite reassurances from the staff, they have decided to spend their holiday relaxing on the beach and paddling in the shallow water that is available to them.
This, it would seem, is not an isolated incident, and predictions of a drop in tourism seem to be proven accurate. Time will tell and I am certain we will recover, but not before a bucket load of staff have to pack up and leave. Two of my colleagues have already handed in their towels and will be taking off to pastures greener (or beaches whiter, if you prefer) and I am sure they will not be the last. Another has been forced out because he can't afford the lack of work.
Worst of all, yesterday I was diving at Ras Katy and Ras Umm El Sid - two of only three sites (the third being Temple) available to the inexperienced divers in the "local" dive sites because we must only make mooring dives. At Ras Katy, I saw two of the glass-bottomed submarines feeding the fish. Sadly we did not capture them on video because as soon as they saw us looking the staff ran and hid their faces. We saw snorkellers off the reef plate at both Katy and Umm Sid. The police did put in an appearance, did nothing, and disappeared.
Whilst I have congratulated the authorities in their handling of the recent tragedy (with, admittedly, some serious mistakes), this is exactly what I didn't want to see and was hoping I would be wrong. I would have thought it not in the interests of the boat crews to do this in the wake of such an outcry here, because surely the authorities would like to make an example of them and show the world media that they are clamping down on illegal activities and enforcing the current regulations.
They are not.
Guides at the Jetty are required now to sign a piece of paper, written in Arabic, which most of us can't read (sorry, I am too busy learning German) which states that we will abide by all the minimum dive rules and bring our guests back with the same number of limbs that they left with and we could technically be imprisoned for violating those rules. The problem is, the jetty police really have no idea who is capable of going where and furthermore, we have a blanket 4pm curfew at the moment. If we bring the boat back any later, our licenses and the licenses of the boat crew will be revoked and there is the threat of arrest.
No work, no money, and no idea what's going to happen next. Apologies if this sounds a bit maudlin but at the moment, this is life in Sharm El Sheikh. To all prospective visitors - please come back!!
Time for another Sakara,
Peace,
C.
I went to work this morning to find that my one diver (yes, we were going to run a whole boat for one person) has canceled because she is sick. Our other boat which is off to Ras Mohamed today has all of three people on board. There are no courses, even though we are allowed to conduct them now. In fact, we have more staff working than guests.
Okay it is Saturday, which is always slower because the weekends are the main turnaround for tourists but I asked our office last night how the situation is looking for next week and I was told "slightly worse than this week" - and next week should herald the arrival of the christmas rush. The other big centres here are in a similar state and the smaller centres must be pooping themselves at the moment.
One galling aspect of today is that one of my colleagues, fresh out of his IDC, was looking very much to conducting his first official course as an instructor - a refresher course for two Swedish divers. They came into the centre this morning and cancelled. Why? Because last night during a conversation over dinner, two other tourists fed them some shark stories and they are now too frightened to get into the water. Despite reassurances from the staff, they have decided to spend their holiday relaxing on the beach and paddling in the shallow water that is available to them.
This, it would seem, is not an isolated incident, and predictions of a drop in tourism seem to be proven accurate. Time will tell and I am certain we will recover, but not before a bucket load of staff have to pack up and leave. Two of my colleagues have already handed in their towels and will be taking off to pastures greener (or beaches whiter, if you prefer) and I am sure they will not be the last. Another has been forced out because he can't afford the lack of work.
Worst of all, yesterday I was diving at Ras Katy and Ras Umm El Sid - two of only three sites (the third being Temple) available to the inexperienced divers in the "local" dive sites because we must only make mooring dives. At Ras Katy, I saw two of the glass-bottomed submarines feeding the fish. Sadly we did not capture them on video because as soon as they saw us looking the staff ran and hid their faces. We saw snorkellers off the reef plate at both Katy and Umm Sid. The police did put in an appearance, did nothing, and disappeared.
Whilst I have congratulated the authorities in their handling of the recent tragedy (with, admittedly, some serious mistakes), this is exactly what I didn't want to see and was hoping I would be wrong. I would have thought it not in the interests of the boat crews to do this in the wake of such an outcry here, because surely the authorities would like to make an example of them and show the world media that they are clamping down on illegal activities and enforcing the current regulations.
They are not.
Guides at the Jetty are required now to sign a piece of paper, written in Arabic, which most of us can't read (sorry, I am too busy learning German) which states that we will abide by all the minimum dive rules and bring our guests back with the same number of limbs that they left with and we could technically be imprisoned for violating those rules. The problem is, the jetty police really have no idea who is capable of going where and furthermore, we have a blanket 4pm curfew at the moment. If we bring the boat back any later, our licenses and the licenses of the boat crew will be revoked and there is the threat of arrest.
No work, no money, and no idea what's going to happen next. Apologies if this sounds a bit maudlin but at the moment, this is life in Sharm El Sheikh. To all prospective visitors - please come back!!
Time for another Sakara,
Peace,
C.
.
