divebunnie

Coool! They are finally back! Well certainly one has returned. I think we may have spotted the first shark of the summer today.We were in the middle of a flying drift dive on Jackson reef (and I do mean flying… thankfully it was a flat day otherwise our dive would have been over in ten minutes!). Anyway returning to the point, as we flew past the garden by the light house (not the usual western garden that we usually dive from the mooring), shot past the porites ‘tits’ there he was a beautiful white tip reef shark at around 25m swimming into the current along with the hordes of antheas. He even did a little loop around for us, so we got a second look. What an awesome sight.The day’s diving had been pretty cool anyway, so this was just the icing on the cake. What an end to a great week’s diving for my group.  

So we saw Dave again… coool.In fact we saw him twice this week, first time was yesterday, when we saw him on the Yolande reef having a good old munch at the coral. He was still a bit bum buoyant but he was having a good forage and apart from his small and totally inactive rear flippers, seems to be doing pretty well.

Oooh no Tigger has gone missing. I know there hasn’t been much news about the kittens just lately, but when I moved onto the cliff Boo came with me and Tigger stayed behind to live with his new best mate Disco Dave and his nemesis Baby (Dave’s other cat). For some reason though, Tigger has decided to go run about, being a cat that will follow Dave everywhere, even into his car, it is totally unlike him to stray or ever stay out the night (unlike Boo who has a world and a mind of her own), read more about it here:
Dave’s Blog. Let’s hope he turns up soon. Even though his mum was a stray so both kittens have stray genes in them (they still get the urge to eat out of the bins despite never having had to forage in their life) they are not used to having to fend for themselves.

DiveBunnie Home

So this week was a week of reviews… three days of doing scuba reviews was all fun and games. And I ended up diving with some of the guys I had helped out so all in all a good week.
My wonder student from last week went on to dive all the major sites including the Thistlegorm. It was actually great for once to see a couple where one was an experienced diver and the novice actually ended up really enjoying it and being really good! Within the two weeks he has managed to rack up 21 dives!
On a slightly different level we are deeply engrossed in attempting to organise our wedding!!! George and I have decided to go legal and September the 1st is the date we have chosen. Already friends and family have booked trips over to join the celebration, but boy anyone who has ever tried to organise something in Egypt will understand the position we are in at the moment.
We have to do the legal stuff in Cairo, which apparently is akin to renewing your visa on the romantic levels. We tried to get a lawyer to do a lot of the bitty stuff for us, but even trying to pin him down has been a little difficult. Oh the joys of sorting out a wedding… let alone sorting a wedding in a place where getting hold of anything is a bit of a challenge!
So if anyone knows of a vicar or priest in the Sharm el Sheikh area… drop us a line hehe.

DiveBunnie Home

Well first of all, to add to my last post, my student continued to be great in the water, so much so that he went straight on to do his advanced course, and still has a 5 day dive pack to use next week!
But more importantly was our discovery yesterday… we saw Dave.
Ok most of you are wondering who on earth I am talking about, it is actually a turtle who has been recovering from a nasty propellor injury in the Ras Mohammed area. His plight was brought to light by a local dive guide James, who was brought on board together with the Sinai Protectorates Wildlife Unit in order to help heal a large gash in the turtle’s shell. You can read the whole story here: Go Red Sea. He has also reached fame by appearing in April’s Diver Magazine, no doubt the whole story will soon be on their website too.
Anyway, back to our story… sadly none of us had a camera as it looked as though Dave was deep in a snooze, but bizarrely balanced in a kind of yoga headstand. Either this is usual turtle sleeping mode (do let me know if you know this for sure) or maybe he had a buoyant rear end as a result of the fibreglass patch that has been put there while his shell heals.
The good news I guess is that whilst he was asleep, he was out in the open rather than tucked away in his little hole and hopefully this means he is on the road to recovery

DiveBunnie Home

Ok I guess by writing this post, I am going to scupper the Open Water course that I am teaching, but I must have one of my best students ever this week.
He is doing his express course, so that can always be a good one for stressing people out, but this one didn’t have any problems at all. His first swim around the pool after a couple of basic skills on confined dive one, off he went hands neatly folded, perfect flutter fin strokes and totally neutrally buoyant!!!!
We did our first open water dives today and he was equally good, even frog kicking by the end of the day as we pottered around the reef at Temple.
May things continue this way!!!

DiveBunnie Home

Well it has been another fun week in the sun. Actually fortnight if I am going to be precise.
The first week was spent team teaching an open water course with a fellow instructor here at our dive centre which turned out to be great fun. Even those who did not fancy doing some extra adventure dives after the course, still came along as snorklers on the boat just to be a part of the group still. And one of the students had a few extra days, so managed to complete his advanced course and do a few dives with our guides.
This week was spent guiding once again… and looking for big stuff!!! Well we saw a manta ray at the surface last week, and the Sharm grapevine has been sending word of a great hammerhead shark lurking around Shark and Yolande reefs!!! Here is where it starts… the summer rush.
Well we have just had a massive plankton bloom followed by an invasion of the jellies (tunicates, jelly fish, salp all that slimy stuff) and that is always sure to bring it on. I have also seen hordes of baby antheas and great shoals of small fusilier like silver fish that I don’t recognise… but as sure as anything look like the perfect menu for a big fish feeding frenzy. At the moment any frenzy has been limited to just the butterflies and tangs that seem to love the tunicate and of course the cleaner wrasse at Fiddle Garden, who is more keen on the jelly stuff than us!! So eyes peeled, and do let us know if you spot anything bigger than a grouper

DiveBunnie Home