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So yesterday we get our first shark sighting of the year!!!
There we were pootling along admiring all the pretty (and very big, I must say) soft corals hanging off the wall of Woodhouse reef in Tiran when along came a baby girl turtle. Well maybe she was a bit of a teenager, she was only about a foot across. Then a few minutes later along comes a white tip reef shark!! I have often seen sharks at this part of this reef, and the current was really quite lovely, bringing in lots of other fish, so we had ideal sharky conditions. But even then, on the front of the reef, at this time of year, I never really expect to see anything bigger than a giant trevallie or a napoleon wrasse. I had just been thinking how nice it would be to see something special… cool! The shark we saw wasn’t huge, about a metre and a half but that is big enough for me. We really got quite a lovely few moments with it too as it sauntered past on its way about business. Lovely.

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Well I will refrain from being smug, but I was soooo right about the wind!!!

Well on with the rest of the week, with further guiding a bit of snorkel boat chaos yesterday and a session of discover scuba diving this morning. Well… I thought the wind had promised to settle down!!! It sooo hadn’t! How rude. From a distance the sea didn’t look brilliant, but nor did it look drastic. It was only once we were all kitted up and at the water’s edge when we saw what a mess it was. We had waves! OK for those of you in other parts of the world, we don’t really get proper waves on the beach here. With the sea being quite narrow and the prevailing wind usually coming from a direction that keeps everything quite flat, this is something we rarely have to deal with. Anyway my students were still keen to go ahead brave souls, however I did eventually have a couple drop out. It was just such hard work! Well, we did eventually get quite a nice dive out of it… and the viz was not too bad once we got below 5M… what a day! Not characteristic of the Red Sea at all.

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So… what better way to round off a week’s work than to chill out over a beer and Sunday lunch down the local?

Yes, in true Brit abroad stylee we are sat in the pub awaiting our Sunday roast. In fairness it has been some time since I have indulged in a Sunday lunch, but this morning I woke up and thought, hmmm I would like to have a bit of a British Sunday for a change. So here I am chilling out having a nice lazy afternoon, having had quite a productive morning.
I am guiding tomorrow, so that should be fun, although the forecast is for quite strong winds tomorrow afternoon and Tuesday morning.. ooo errr.

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Woo hooo we are back up and running!!!

How scary that only three deep sea cables connect the whole of the Middle East and India to the net, so whole countries were crippled for a few days a couple of weeks ago. Then we had to struggle with snail like net while they fully repaired said cables.

Anyway we are now fully on line by the looks of things so it is business as usual here at DiveBunnie. Well in reality it has kind of been business as usual for me anyway, I just haven’t been able to share it with anyone!

So… after two and a half years of living in Sharm, I finally got around to diving in nearby Dahab last week. How shameful is that??

We have started doing organised trips up to the town of gold as its name implies, and I must admit, I had a lovely day. It is quite hard work fitting in two dive sites, having to fully pack up boxes and jump in a 4×4 jeep between dives, but quite a novelty after the lazy hazy boat diving of Sharm.

The sites themselves were really quite cool, with quite different life than just an hour further south which I found quite surprising. But the temperature was a good degree or two cooler and I guess that means a slight difference in what you will find. We saw a lot more seaweed type of life and some really huge different groupers to what we get here. I really liked the topography too, with us diving the canyon… a very cool crack in the reef, into which you drop vertically before swimming along it’s length, exiting through a chimney.

The next dive we did was from the Bells to the Blue Hole. Not a dive for the weak limbed, as the clamber to and into your entry point, in full kit is fun and games… even for us guides, a graceful entry was quite challenging!!! Hehe. The dive itself was lovely. You descend down a tube (open down one side if you don’t fancy staying inside a small space) and then follow a spectacular wall en route to the Blue Hole itself. This wall is adorned with huge soft corals, and indented throughout with overhangs and little caves. It reminded me a little of Shark Observatory here in Ras Mohammed. Finally after about 25 minutes you reach an area that is covered in a colourful coral garden, reaching down to about 15M. This marks the dip through which you can pass into the Blue Hole itself. Not forgetting of course to pay a moment’s respect as you enter to the numbers of young people who have lost their lives here, lured into a deep tunnel stretching from the confines of the hole out into the blue.

So all in all a very cool couple of dives, which we followed with a stop off in Dahab town and lunch in a beach-side restaurant allowing us to off gas a little more before heading home to Sharm.

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