The Bunnie Blog
Living and Diving in Sharm el Sheikh
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So this week we have just had a full moon which like a new moon can result in some rather strong currents, as the tides rise higher and lower than normal. Confusingly this is referred to as a Spring tide, however this is not related to the season. Here we usually seem to get the strong currents a couple of days after the full or new moon… I’m not entirely sure why. So being on a bit of a teaching tip this week, we had some fun and games with our novice divers. This month the tides seemed particularly strong (maybe that is a seasonal thing, but I am not sure.. I know in the UK they had a particularly high tide this month too with the bore on the River Severn providing quite a spectacle as the highest tide rolled in on Tuesday morning). I have dived the Gardens every day this week, and every day the currents have been quite lively in the morning and then almost flying in the afternoon! Great fun.. although not so easy on the navigation dive we did on Wednesday. Hmm the square pattern came out a bit wonky… We ended our dive on the mooring line, holding on with one hand each for our safety stop, while the current flapped us out like flags in the breeze. It was great fun. Sadly by the time we came to our drift dive yesterday, we didn’t quite get the timing right, and the current only really picked up in the last ten minutes of the dive while we drifted along to near garden. Of course stronger currents bring out all the fish, so we are not complaining, even if it can make the dives a little challenging. It will only be a month or so before we start getting really excited about all the big things coming in. Although having said that, the water is still much warmer than it should be for this time of year, so maybe all that will happen a bit earlier this time around. Who knows?
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So the other day we were up nice n early for a delightful day on the Dunnie… not the loo… the Dunraven wreck, which lies a couple of hours out of Sharm el Sheikh. Up before dawn, I was on the bus early to collect a guest from the Nabq area, always the downside of staying in that part of town, you will always find yourself first on the list to be picked up in the morning. So we were given the treat of watching the sun rise over Tiran island, as we made our way back towards downtown Sharm el Sheikh and the rest of the guests. Once on the boat, we ferried out over glassy waters, hmmm looked like a lovely day ahead. You wouldn’t believe that there was a strong wind forecast for the afternoon, but previous experience had told me that no matter how random the forecast seems, if it says the wind’s gonna pick up, it usually does. So we headed straight for the wreck first, just to make sure we were well and truly sheltered this side of Ras Mohammed before 2pm. On arriving at the wreck, briefing done I jumped in the flat, flat sea to check the current, and as often happens when the sea is like this, the current was flying… and in the opposite direction to normal. Ah well, maybe we won’t get to search out the stone fish today. The visibility was great too, it can get a little murky here, so it was a treat to be able to see the hull of the ship lying directly below me nice and clearly. We dropped down and headed out over the keel of the wreck, using its bulk for a bit of shelter from the current, and as I looked ahead I saw a glorious sight. There was a whole horde of jackfish shoaling by the propellor. It looked more like something we would expect to get on Shark and Yolande Reefs. As we approached we realised that as well as the jacks, there was a bundle of bat fish hanging around there too…. lovely! There is a blade of the prop missing which allows us to swim through the gap for a great photo opportunity, which today was an even better shot surrounded by the throng of jacks. Very cool. I always refer to this wreck as a bit of a starter wreck, as it is very spacious, with no scary tight spots and plenty of light shafting in through large cracks and gaps in the hull. We enter the wreck and make our way through the inside, checking out the prop shaft, the grain of wood inside the keel, the pistons, taps and boilers etc before coming out into a large shoal of goat fish and sweepers sheltering in the shade. Everyone cool, we head off to take a mosey through the bow of the ship… to be honest, this part is so broken down and compressed it can barely be considered an overhead environment, but it is still quite fun to take a peek inside and check out the life there before shallowing off and drifting along the reef. As I said the current was quite lively and running in the opposite direction to normal, so instead of heading out over the gently undulating porites mounds and looking for the resident stone fish (there are a few), we ended up gliding the other way along a glorious, coral encrusted reef wall that we don’t often get to check out. Once we were back on the boat, I noticed that our glass, almost syrupy like sea had developed a couple of teeny tiny ripples… yep, here we go, the forecast was going to be proved right. Our second dive was on Shark and Yolande Reefs where we had another great drift dive, taking in the colours of one of the top ten dive sites in the world… according to Jaques Cousteau. For me, it is my favourite dive, although I guess I haven’t dived quite as many places as our Jaques. This is the site famous for its collection of bathroom accessories… toilets, washbasins, bath tubs, even shower curtains and delightful 80’s style linoleum.. hmmm very tasteful designs there hehe. We were greeted by one of the rather large napoleon wrasses there, who hung around for a while eyeballing us with his googlie eye (possibly hoping for a snack… as sadly I do think people have been feeding him). There is also a rather large cornet fish that has taken to hanging around us, using us for shelter in order to shoot out and nab himself a bit of lunch on some poor unsuspecting little fish. He will sit right by a diver’s tank, with them completely unaware until the moment when they happen to turn around, and meet him literally eye to eye. Great stuff! Time for lunch. At ten to two, as we sat by Jack Fish Alley, all of a sudden up goes the wind and we get a blast of it coming in from the West (thankfully from behind the cliffs sheltering us… to an extent). Clouds build and we even get a few spots of rain! In a desert? Yes, we get a bit each year. Although this year we did get a bit more than our fair share last month, but that is a whole story of its own. Today’s “deluge” resulted in a few spatters on the back deck, so nothing to write home about really. The wind however was another story, and just like the forecast we were blasted for a good hour or so before it dropped slightly. Our last dive of the day was Jack Fish Alley and a very nice dive it was too. We dropped in by the “cave” which is actually a big crack in the reef, but great to swim through and take in some cool lighting effects. When the sun is out, it beams down in shafts ahead of you within the gloom, little spotlights dancing on the white sand. Turning left, there is glorious turquoise as you exit into the blue. We went to take a peek at the cleaner shrimp a little deeper and found a few barracuda hanging out on the satellite reef before drifting along the main reef for the last part of our dive. The sun had thankfully come back out by the time we dropped in the water, so it turned out to be a very nice dive. The wind returned to blow on and into the evening… yes another winter storm for us that night. Thankfully no rain this time. Although I did look out at about 4.30am to see all the dive boats heading for shelter in the Sharm el Maya bay, before heading back to sleep. Sadly 15mins later the large cruise ship, the Costa Europa that has been on the news this week hit the quay at Travco Port taking the lives of three crew members. To this day, it remains in port, having been intentionally listed to one side to enable repairs on its damaged hull.
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So after a few days off, I am well and truly back in the water again. The first couple of days I was teaching a Scuba Diver course which is always a bit of a busy one. We generally have two days in which to complete the course (obviously more if needed), so there isn’t really a huge amount of time for chilling out on this one. We have roughly 3/4 of the Open Water Course to complete in only 1/2 the time. So we did the first stage rather like a Discover Scuba Dive. As we have a confined area on our beach already, this is perfect, for allowing people to get a look at a few fish on day one. And it usually works, after just a few of the skills completed, we surface, de-brief the confined dive, and brief the dive before heading off for a little dive around the reefs there. And much can be seen. We are often treated to a fly by by one of our resident eagle rays, as well as getting the chance to pop over to the shallow end of what we call the Movenpick Reef where 9 times out of 10, we will find a blue spotted ray chilling out on the sand. Very nice for a first Open Water dive. It also gives our students the chance to practice their swimming around right away, which is great. Day two, we had some more skills to complete in the shallows, quite nice for students to have a passing parrot fish to watch while their buddy is getting their fin pivots right. Finally, we get to complete our Open Water Dive two in the Werner Lau area, where we find a teeny tiny baby lionfish and get to take a peek at the eel garden there. The eels are quite shy, so we have to creep up on them on the sly in order to stop them from shrinking back into their holes in the sand hehe. On the safety stop, we get a bundle of bat fish hanging around by the Lido pier before ending our dive and heading back to the dive centre, two more Scuba Divers to add to the list.. woo hoo. And a nice couple of days’ diving to boot.
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A couple of weeks ago, we headed off to dive the famous, or should I say infamous Thistlegorm wreck. Sank in 1941 during World War Two, this is a stunning wreck, and due to it’s location is suitable for advanced recreational divers, which suits us great. It is sits almost upright on a sandy bottom, is over 126M long, 17M wide, and is packed with stuff.. tanks, trucks, bombs, motorbikes, wellies, hospital beds, all sorts. It is also covered in corals and heaving with fish life, so even if you aren’t a fan of metal, there is something for everyone here. As you may know, it is an early start, being four hours’ trip each way from Sharm. So we were on the boat before dawn, making our checks, and getting settled in for the journey. The single biggest challenge of the day is the mooring up of the boat. The wreck sits in un-sheltered waters, at 30M and is prone to strong currents and rough surface conditions. I also knew that it was really my turn to tie the lines, as the last few trips have resulted in someone else doing the job. Hmmm… we had only just had a full moon, so that meant the currents will be running too… a double whammy. If there are two guides on this trip we tend to both kit up, just in case there is a problem with tying the lines. And today was one of those days where this was a good plan.. if only to save us a little time. And to prevent one of us having to guide the dive after three bounce dives. I jumped in to tie fairly near what we thought was the front line of another boat. A strong current meant that I could only just about stay close to the other mooring line as I swam down pulling our rope with me. Oh Noooo! Worst case scenario… I had followed a line that led not down to the wreck itself, but to an anchor line sat on… nothing but sand.. doh! We had checked the boat on the surface, and it must have had two anchors out at its bow, which is a little unusual. Anyway, according to my training, I let go of my line and headed back up to the surface, planning to get our skipper to drop me by the other boat’s stern allowing me to drift down to the perfect spot onto which I could tie. As it was, my fellow colleague was kitted up and ready to jump, so we dropped her in that spot, saving valuable minutes as she dropped and tied our bow line. I then jumped in off our stern, dragging our second line with me and finned like mad to maintain my position in the water and not drift backwards! Yes the current was that strong that when I lifted my head, my reg would free flow, yet when I dropped my head, my mask would flood. All fun n games. Anyway, a good few scratches later, we were all tied up and ready to dive the wreck. The first dive, we decided to take in the propellor and then head straight for entering the holds. This is not the usual route, however it would be nice an sheltered from the current, hopefully meaning that the tide would have ebbed slightly for the second dive, which we could then use to browse around the other cabins, rooms and the outside of the wreck. We saw all the usual. Tanks, trucks, wellies, motorbikes, bombs, guns…the lot. Of course we also saw, scorpion fish, crocodile fish, clown fish, huge shoals of fusiliers and a few tuna thrown in for good measure. A glorious dive was had all around. True to form, after our surface interval, the current had eased slightly.. woo hoo! It usually only eases off for around 30mins before it changes direction and starts to howl the opposite way! So we had time to mosey around a bit, take in the captain’s cabin where you get a great mirror effect between the row of portholes that get reflected by the air gathered under the ceiling, and head to the bow and rope room. I love heading into the rope room and popping out of the hatch, surprising any divers gathering on the bow where we can then head over the edge, turn back and get a sense of perspective of this enormous wreck. With the steel hull plunging down below us to the sand, and the hulk of the wreck looming up in-front of us, it is quite a humbling moment. Finally we have a little time to browse the decks a little further before our deco limits start kicking in and we have to head for the lines. By now the current has regained its strength and we fly like flags on the rope as we make our safety stop. Another successful (if slightly stressful) trip to the wreck. And as always, we felt pretty wrecked afterwards, so a much needed kip was had on our way back to the jetty… ZZZZzzzzz.
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I woke up yesterday feeling dreadful, hmmm the dreaded Pharao’s revenge… or so I thought. In fact, in reality I thought I had got myself well n truly dehydrated, which can make you just as sick as any food poisoning. Anyway, after a morning in the bathroom I have now been left with a stinking cold of all things?? So unable to equalise, I am high n dry for a couple of days  let’s hope it clears soon, so I can get back in the water… and back to work.
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So today was a bit of a different day for me. I was guiding off the beach, one person, who is such a regular diver with us here that she has really become more of a friend than a guest.So, we got going early in the hope that we would beat the crowds and maybe see some of the shy stuff we get hanging around here. All set, up the briefing kind of went along the lines of “How deep do you want to go?” “I don’t mind, if there’s something to see, let’s look at it” “Do you want a specific plan, or shall we just bimble?” “Bimble.” “Do we have a max dive time?” “Erm… shall we make it 70mins? Or thereabouts?”… and off we went. It is quite rare to get to guide these reefs in such a chilled out way. Normally we use the beach for Dives 1 and 2 of Open Water, Scuba Reviews and Discover Scuba Diving, so generally training dives, limited to 12M (18 if we are lucky and get a Scuba Review), a max time of about 45mins, if we are lucky and usually a dive spent on our backs ensuring the divers are actually getting it right, not chilled out looking for the cool stuff. First dive, we decided to enter the water by the Werner Lau area where the sandy bottom slopes a little steeper, allowing us to go a little deeper without too much swimming. We headed down the slope until we found a little reef sitting at about 27M. En-route we got our first glimpse of one of the resident eagle rays! Yay! A good start to our dive, and day. We spent a bit of time pottering around the little reef there, finding clown fish, loads of lion fish, all sorts of life. One find I quite liked was a cluster of tiny squat shrimps gathered on a pizza anenome. A couple were so tiny they looked like ants (orange and white polka dotted ants hehe). We aimed to take in the eel garden too, but for some reason they had all hidden away that day, so we headed for the shallows and the bat fish gathering under the Lido platform. Dive time: 73 mins hehe. The second dive started in the Red Sea College area and headed out to what we still call the Movenpick Reef named after the Movenpick Jollie Ville hotel, even though the hotel has long been called the Maritim Jollie Ville, old habits die hard I guess. So, once again we headed off from the shallows following the sandy plateau out towards the little baby reefs we have at about 5m just within the confined area. We headed a little deeper, over the sea grass before turning left and heading towards the artificial reef that has been created by the guys at the Red Sea College. This is a collection of metal structures that are actually growing their own little knobs of hard corals. Attempts have been made to transplant corals from the Million Hope here, which initially looked like being successful, however many of these have now died. Some of the fire coral survived though, and you can see it has actually wrapped itself around the metal bars which is very cool. I would love to see these in about twenty years time when they might have actually become covered with corals. Even now there is plenty of raspberry coral dotted about, and loads of fish use the figures as shelter. You will often find puffer fish hiding within, watching the world go by. On we went, past the plains of sandy dunes to a big bowl area, in the middle of which sits the Movenpick reef. Past the reef, there is a sandbank over which I have never been able to head, simply because it would take too much time and air to go over there and be back to our starting point in time. So today we went up and over the bank. There we found a big sea grass meadow. I have heard that a green turtle tends to hang around here, however we weren’t in luck this time. Never mind. What we did see though, was another lovely big eagle ray, which hung around for quite a while, circling us and burrowing it’s nose into the sand as it foraged for food. Very cool indeed. We just chilled out and watched. In this same area, I also found a kind of anenome that I have never seen here. We normally just get the normal tentacle type, bubble, string and pizza anenome. However this one was kind of like a pizza anenome with longer tentacles. It was quite large with petal like folds along the edges, very nice. And of course it had its resident clown fish defending their turf to the end hehe. Looking at the time, I thought we ought to start heading back, taking in more of the coral reef, blue spotted rays, puffer fish, horned trunkfish along the way. The horned trunkfish proved most entertaining, as we watched it appearing quite chilled out until it started to blow into the sand. In order to stay still as it blew, its little fins had to fan like crazy, looking like it was in some kind of flapping frenzy. Hehe.. masks flooded as we found this very amusing, but… I guess you had to be there really… ahem. So dive time: 78 mins, possibly one of my longest dives to date. The only two dives longer than that were 90 mins, one on my rescue course and one on my instructor course.
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So we had a glorious few dives in Tiran the other day.. no wind, so flat flat seas, and visibility for miles. The best I have seen for a while, it was awesome! We dived Thomas Reef and thanks to the lack of breeze, could just keep going around the back of the reef, and likewise we did the same on Jackson Reef, drifting from garden to garden and on around the back. The currents were really running too, so we could just hitch a ride and fly. I sooo thought we would see a shark at some point, but sadly no we were not graced with this bonus. We finished the day with a very gentle drift along Ras Ghamilla. The next two days were spent diving in Ras Mohammed. The first day we dived, Jack fish Alley… several barracuda and a couple of turtles, The Alternatives.. lots of blue spotted rays and a pyjama slug and Ras Za’atar… some biiig giant trevallies out in the blue, and Shark and Yolande in the afternoon. The second day was not so friendly. So… we did Jack Fish Alley again first, which again produced a lively reverse current and barracuda. The plan was to do Shark and Yolande second, however there was a nasty South Easterly breeze which is the only direction that offers zero protection to most of Sharm. We opted to go for Ras Za’atar instead, as it was a little sheltered at the end of the dive. For lunch we stayed in the Marsa Bareika bay hiding from the winds. In the afternoon we headed for Ras Ghozlani, however the swell had risen to a good couple of metres (OK nothing special for the UK but with our big, wooden boats, it is a nightmare for getting back on board). Regardless, I jumped in for the current check and saw… green!!! Nothing but green!!! I swam and swam looking for a bit of reef where I could get a visual reference, however it took ages until finally I could see dark, murky, sandy reef about 2m in front of me! Hmmm not so nice. Anyway, I dropped down looking for some clarity off the drop off maybe, swam out to one of the big pinnacles on the drop off and encountered a real dusk effect! In fact, there were no fish to see either… they probably thought night was about to fall so had all settled in for the night! Everything was green n murky (wow! quite a novelty but not fun for a group of 8 divers with only me as a guide)… still no clarity over the drop off, so I went back and up and ditched the dive. We tried a little further along, this time George jumped in to take a look, but.. no joy Well… as we headed back, we could see crashing waves up against the cliffs where we live, and it was at that moment that we got the call to bring the boat back in. No dive this afternoon. The swell was really picking up and the police wanted all the boats sheltered in Sharm el Maya by nightfall. We had an interesting half hour organising all our kit boxes to be transferred off the boat in a windy swell that seemed to throw the boat in all directions. Getting off the boat was another interesting moment too! So were we due another downpour? No… thankfully we only got a few droplets. The next day we were due to go to Dahab, which is notoriously windy. However while Sharm got battered a bit, we were blessed with flat seas. Note to self… if there is a SE wind and swell in Sharm… head to Dahab! And now I have a day off.. ahhh relaaax. I am sure it will all kick off again tomorrow… well the wind is due to, even if I don’t hehe.
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Well it has been over a week now since the storm, life has been back to normal since the day after it all happened, and we are still talking about it! Well we don’t get a huge amount of weather here, and pretty much everyone was affected in one way or another, so I guess it is a novel topic. Back in the water, the visibility is back to normal (phew!) as is the weather. Instead of the glorious heatwave we were having before the storm, the temperature has plunged down to its normal winter level… OK let’s face it, even that is still pretty warm, we are talking about 22ºC instead of 28ºC, before you start to think we too are experiencing the arctic here. Amazingly the water is still a lovely 24ºC (a good couple of degrees warmer than normal), even in Tiran which is normally a degree or so cooler than everywhere else. Well we were in Ras Mohammed yesterday and had a glorious day. It started pretty well too… as we dropped down, I saw something floating down out in the blue (a shoe or something?) no… it was a spanish dancer!!! Wow! We don’t normally see them in the daytime, and even at night they are pretty rare! This one was out in the blue and as I approached decided to dance for me… how beautiful. It did the perfect body ripple, wafting its “skirts” at us. Amazing. We hung around with it for a good few minutes so we could all get a glimpse before heading on our way. Next up was a turtle, what a dive! We had jumped in for a gentle drift and everything shows up… we also saw a huge shoal of jackfish, something we would expect on Shark and Yolande reefs more than Ras Ghozlani. Not a bad start to a lovely but slightly chilly day.
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So the other night I went to bed nice n early hoping to catch a few extra zzzz’s… but little did I know what was in store! It had been a weird day, kind of cloudy in the morning, and we had mentioned that rain had been predicted for the night. I had also noted that Monday looked pretty grim on the wind front too (never a good combination with diving). I had even brought the washing in (something we never have to do here), just in case the forecast came true, and had made sure my dive suits were well and truly attached to their hangers on the boat (again just in case). So back to my bed… I was soon woken by some thunderous grumblings in the distance, so ventured out onto our cliff to watch the impending doom approaching from the desert. In the distance I could see sheets of lightning over the mountains, followed by ominous rolls of thunder. It wasn’t long before these became huge flashes of light joined simultaneously by their earsplitting crashes of thunder. Of course by this stage I was tucked back up in my bed, looking out of our window that just happened to face into the oncoming storm. The lightning flashes were just continuous, like a strobe! None of this waiting around between strikes that I remember as a child, counting the seconds between flash then crash. It was all at once, and continual!! And then came the rain, proper torrential, thunderous, high-pressure-hose-like rain like I have never seen in Sharm before! Wow, I was impressed! So… I sat and watched. The storm sat right ontop of us for some time, before fading away, off to the East and across the rest of Sharm el Sheikh. Ahh, peace, we can sleep… hehe.. no such luck! We had three big storms land on us in the space of only a few hours, our house, being designed for the desert, soon started to show its cracks, and rain was just getting blown in through the gaps in the windows! Well who needs to seal them when it only rains properly once every five years or so? The cat spent the whole night hidden in a cupboard, eyes wide, thinking her little world was coming to an end, while I wandered the house, moving electrical items off the floors and plopping towels and rugs into the expanding puddle surrounding our bed. My neighbour didn’t fare quite so well… I popped round to find water flowing gently into her lounge, while upstairs, the air-conditioning unit had become a hose pipe, with water gushing out of it!! Shit! So by torchlight (thankfully the electric by this stage was out.. and not before time, I could hear it fizzing as the house got wetter and wetter) I went on the hunt for a bucket, rugs and towels, to at least try and stop the onslaught a touch. Thankfully it worked… to an extent. The next day, we woke to a newly washed and wet Sharm. Our pool could not be made out from the huge brown puddle spread across the patio… we went for a walk on the cliff to assess the scene in the Sea only to find weird patches of quick-sand like stuff, where the water had made the sand almost unstable! Ras Katy looked more like a muddy puddle too… you could see where the orange sand had just washed down into the sea, which looked positively opaque throughout the whole area! Wow! Needless to say there was no diving… well half the roads were flooded, so we couldn’t collect any guests, lightning was still flashing when I got up, there was no power, no phone lines, no moblie phones, no internet, no water supply. And even if we had dealt with the logistics and made it out on a boat, the viz looked shot to bits.. So it was a day off, which to be honest, most of us needed in order to dry out our homes… I think I have found three people who actually didn’t get flooded! Hehe.. With no phones, we took a wander around to see if friends were ok and to see if they needed help, but everyone seemed to be fine if a little soggy. Not much more than a bit of water. A few people had found their lap tops drowned, and the dive centre’s classroom was under a few inches of water. Some of the roads were flooded up to the car windows… not a good idea to drive today I feel. We were without power for about 20 odd hours, and I was just about to start cooking by candle light when lo! The lights turned on… Yay! It was only this morning that we got our mobile phones and therefore internet back however.. and our telly is still out Well, I guess that gives us all something to talk about for the next few days hehe.
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It is true! Once in a while we do get some freaky conditions over here, though thankfully it is rare, and normally only lasts a day or two. So this week, despite low winds, and some lovely sunshine, we have had some really dodgy swelly stuff coming in. And it is coming in from all directions, no sites seem to be sheltered or spared from this weird swell. We had waves crashing onto the beaches in the Gardens yesterday! Of course this has churned up all our lovely fine sand, resulting in a right old milky mess in the water. Yesterday we had visibility dropping to about a foot in places! Wow! Quite a novelty. Thankfully we only had small groups in the water, it would have been no fun with a group of 8 divers for sure. I was snorkel guide, thankfully, so was able to just bimble on the surface with my guests, although to be honest, it wasn’t the best example of Red Sea snorkelling. Hey ho, I guess that makes us appreciate that crystal clarity that we normally so take for granted
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