The Bunnie Blog
Living and Diving in Sharm el Sheikh
It was a windy day in Sharm today… well… to start with it had seemed really quite flat. We left the jetty at around 7.45 (later than we should have on a 7am start, but it was out of our hands). The water was pretty flat, with only a very slight rolling swell as we jumped in on Shark and Yolande reef. A lovely dive was had, with a slight reverse current (should have known the minute I jumped in and couldn’t see a single fish where we usually get the walls of snappers and surgeon fish) and we ended up on the front of Yolande reef at the end of the dive. I realised that there was a bit of swell as we could feel the surge whilst on the dive, but I wasn’t quite prepared for what greeted us on the surface! We may as well have been on the back of Jackson on a windy day (ie… it was rough!). Thankfully we were on an overnight trip, so had a rib with us, so we each had a wonderfully elegant flop into the boat before being taken to the boat sheltering from waves around the corner.
It was at this point that Ahmed, our driver pointed out the stricken dive boat!!! Sat on top of Anenome city was a well known dive boat. Good grief! And it was not looking good, listing badly to one side (thankfully the reef side) stranded on top of the coral. Thankfully all the guests had been rescued and were now on other boats in the area, and ours being the only rib, this became part of the salvage team to at least rescue people’s valuables, kit, tanks etc.
While we waited we could see all the day boats arriving, being lurched from side to side in the now frothy swell. Ooo. No one looked like they were having a good time of it. We saw a couple more of our boats, one of which had already dropped their divers in, but the other realising there was a reverse current, went to drop on Turtle rock, all kitted up, then did a swift about turn and carried on heading South and around the corner. Obviously making a last minute call to ditch that dive and head somewhere a little more sheltered. The big problem being that with the reverse current, the divers would all be ending up in the worst spot to be picked up, with full on waves and everything.
Back to the stricken boat, it turned out that the engine had stalled. Ultimate skipper’s nightmare. Bad news at the best of times, but when you are dropping off divers close to the reef in conditions like that, there is a big chance you can get pushed up and onto the reef, and sadly this is what had happened here. Thank god no one was hurt. Although some pockets are going to be severely stung… not only to fork out for the damage to the boat, but there will be severe fines for landing on the coral in the National Park. Ooo.
So around the corner things were much better than on Shark and Yolande Reefs. Thankfully… as we were headed up to the Thistlegorm and were planning to stop overnight, so we really did not want hairy conditions.
The wreck lived up to expectations, with flying currents, hordes of fish, and challenging line tying conditions! Having said that, we had a great initial dive around the outside. Followed by an awesome night dive. We even got to see the turtle, last minute whilst on our safety stop, there he was… huge ambling around the wreck, lit by the fantastic torches of another group below us.
So I was back to the beach again this week to complete a referral course, an all girlie course, so that made a change.
It was then followed by adventure dives and a scuba review. So… the beach was my friend for all but one day hehe. Having said that, we did see some cool stuff. The eagle rays are still there, and turned up for a little show yesterday, and the squat shrimps are back on the anenome in the Red Sea College area. In fact there seems to be a third anenome (there are already two, one chunky bearing chunky clown fish, and another shoestring anenome bearing smaller clown fish). This third anenome is even smaller and is home to one lonely tiny clown fish! Only about 5mm long! Cute.
Yesterday the Movenpick reef was also in its full glory, with glass fish galore and a crocodile fish sat on the sand chilling out.
Watching the news at the moment, we are marvelling at the fact that we are even getting any divers at the moment. We have been stung a bit by the fall of XL airways. Not because we used them, but more because all our flights have now been taken up by guests who had trips booked that were dependent on XL flights! So now the guests who usually book a last minute bargain with us, are not finding these holidays available, or cheap, simply through lack of flights. Ooo, not so good. October is normally manic, instead we are a little on the quiet side. Gulp. Of course this is not helped by the fact that we still get the news, in fact we now get Sky News which is full of UK doom n gloom. And it really does look like doom and gloom at the moment. It is very easy to feel that you are immune to all that living out here in the sunshine, but in reality, if the UK stops going on holiday, we won’t have any work to do!!
So… on that note, I think I might go out and do something constructive with my day!
Oh yes, by the way, anyone in Sharm on the 12th December, come to T2 for the Christmas Craft fair. DiveBunnie Tees will be on sale!!
Well autumn is definitely here… this is the time you will actually find the dive guides sitting in the sun… doing the meercat thing, warming up in the sunshine. It is funny, in May we are raving about how warm the water is when it has only warmed up to 24-5ºC whereas now we are moaning about how cold it is when it is still a very good 26º! I guess it is all relative.
I am still in a shortie, well two shorties, rash vest and a hood, but I have resorted to the full suit a couple of times. But even that didn’t feel particularly warm this week! I really have become a wuss. Every year it feels as though the water warms up later and cools off earlier. I am sure it is a figment of my imagination.
So Monday morning had me up and at it, off to the doctor to get the all clear to go back to work, and it worked. So Tuesday I was guiding local with a new boat of divers, a bit of a surprise for Tuesday (most of our guests start their week on Monday) but who was I to complain.
We headed off to Ras Katy, a good site for day one divers. We had a great dive, and came out for lunch. A couple of our divers were a little on the inexperienced side, so we offered to take them local again for a second day, just to get them on track with their buoyancy before taking them out to the more challenging reefs.
Today was my first use of my brand new computer… recommended by all my fellow dive guides I had gone out and bought the most used computer here. It is “invincible and never breaks” was one comment I had heard. Well, I obviously got a dud one! As I was about to have lunch, the glass front popped off!! Taking with it the O ring and leaving behind a few drops of water on the inside of the computer itself! Looking a little closer, it appeared that a metal rim holding the whole thing together was nowhere to be found. I know it had been there originially as I remember thinking that it resembled the bezel on a dive watch. Anyway, that is another story, but once again I am left borrowing a computer from a fellow colleague, but worse, after my not so successful encounter in the store, I might not even get a replacement! That’ll be a third of my month’s wages down the drain (in fact half a month’s wages if this month is to go by).
Well I have been out of the water now for five days, the first of which I felt fine, just a little clunky in the ears. The rest of the time I have had worst case scenario for any instructor and that is a cold aghh. Nightmare, and now that I no longer feel ill, there is still not a lot I can do to get myself back in the water any quicker.
At least the decongestants are beginning to work, but they are ones I can’t take whilst diving, so bang goes the idea of dosing myself up and just going for it, as you can with most jobs. So I guess the best plan is to sit it out and wait till the fog clears from my ears and once again I can go back under water. In the meantime I shall drink more tea, watch more telly and generally vegetate.
OK so to you a successful roast dinner is nothing, but for someone who has only cooked about 4 in her lifetime, this is a huge thing. Hehe… I made a roast dinner the other day (remember fresh herbs etc are not so easy to get here in Sharm) and though I say it myself it was really nice hmmm. The chicken very tasty and most importantly, for the first time ever, the potatoes crispy!!! Woo hoo.. success. I might make another one in another year or so!
Well I think a good week was had by all. We had quite an experienced bunch of divers, many of whom had been diving with us before (a couple of whom I had even taught to dive). So we were able to head out to Tiran after our first day’s shake down dives.
So we had a couple of days in Tiran, saw hammer heads!! Wooo hooo… even I got to see one this time! We also had a great dive on Shark and Yolande. The current was reversed so we jumped in where we usually exit the water, and looped the loop around both Yolande Reef and then Shark Reef, with plenty of time to hang around over the wreck. We saw three turtles, one of which was a baby… very nice.
Dunraven was a good one too, and I spotted two new stone fish. The old ones all seem to have moved, so I was being ultra vigilant looking for random mossy bits that might hint of a fish, and was rewarded with two big ones! A very mossy one snuggled alongside a ridge of coral, and a pink one hiding in a hole. Unfortunately the first was so well disguised that not everyone got to see it.
The weather was pretty windy this week, so a fair bit of the schedule was ruled by the weather. We spent all of yesterday around the Western side of the peninsula sheltering from big nasty swells around the usual side we dive.
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