The Bunnie Blog
Living and Diving in Sharm el Sheikh
 |
Oooh it’s going to be a busy day for me tomorrow.. not! Hehe.. we have only six divers on our boat, one of whom is my student (doing a boat experience dive having completed a Discover Scuba Diving session with me from the beach the other day). And, apparently my student has only booked one dive! Hmmm he might change his mind when he sees what it is like diving from a boat (the viz and coral is much better), if not I’m going on a fun dive!! Woo hoo! Here comes summer… when we all just want to get wet! |
|
So whilst George and I whiled away our Sunday on the beach at Terrazzina, a whole bunch of friends of ours had got together to sort their visas out (which invovles a bit of a trek up to the next town along El Tor). As I had been there not long before I didn’t even bother to check my passport, however something made me look on Monday.. and would you believe it, I only had 2 days left!!! Ooops! So for me yesterday was to be another day off as I did the trek in a cab on my own… not half as much fun. Having said that, Ahmed (the cab driver we use) did show me quite a cool phenomenon on the way back… a “magnetic mountain”! I am not sure if this is just a very cool optical illusion, but there is a point on the road through Ras Mohammed, where if you stop with your car in neutral, you roll back up the hill!! There is a lot of iron in the hills here (hence their peachy pinkness) so who knows. I am sure someone will put me right at some stage hehe. I am on standby today, but it is already 8.15 and no phone call yet, so I’m guessing I might be on another day off. Hmm what to do now? |
|
Today was Terrazzina day… nice lunch on the beach with George and Disco Dave. We chilled out and chatted over a Terrazzina Special seafood platter… hmmm. Sadly the sun didn’t come out to play, what a bizzare grey day it was, with an equally bizzare gust of wind that sent the giant beanbags and parasols flying into the air, landing in the sea!! Whoops. |
|
So I have an actual weekend this week! Two days off in a row… what are we to do? Well this morning after watching the two kittens on our canopy (that seems to be their home) playing for a while, we got our act together and toddled up to Shark’s Bay, to the Umbi Dive Centre where they are to start stocking DiveBunnie Tee shirts! Woo Hoo… we are spreading out, little by little… from Old Sharm to Shark’s Bay now. So if you are in the area of the lovely chilled little beach that is Shark’s Bay. Do pop in and take a look at the tees… Then our next stop was most exciting! Metro for the weekly shop… hehe… “living the dream” as George would say. |
|
So… after thinking it was going to be another quiet week of bits n bobs. After Monday’s DSD’s, I ended up helping out on an open water course which was good (well, for me it was… but not for poor Eloise who got sick though).
By the end of the week we had five new divers, and a few cool sightings in the water. On dive number three, a nice big eagle ray decided to pass us by on Fiddle garden. Very cooool. We had briefed the students that should they see anything more than half a metre long, they were to scream as loud as they could into their reg, and point!! There is nothing quite like getting back on the boat to find one of your students saw a huge seven metre grey spotty sharky fish and didn’t think to let you know!! (it has happened!) Well I saw and I screamed.. but maybe my scream is not quite loud enough, as no one turned round until I finally found my tank banger, and was able to attract everyone’s attention. Phew! We had also had a free swimming moray eel the day before, and on the last dive of the course, a family of napoleon wrasse passed us by… biiiig daddy, medium mummy and a baby! Very cool indeed! And the best news in weeks…. the water is finally warming up!!! 24ºC on all but one of the dives! I was even in a wetsuit (albeit a bit blue when I got out, but still alive). |
|
I can’t believe it, we are in the middle of April and things are definitely warming up, but still the water is a chilly 23ºC Brrrr.
The diving is definitely showing signs of burgeoning life. Any little pinnacle of coral is festooned with tiny baby anthias, which will be great in a few weeks when they all grow up. Roll on the next full moon when it all should explode into life! |
|
So I woke up the other day to discover two shiny new bins on my street! One labelled for organic waste and one for inorganic, how spectacular! Normally our rubbish ends up lying in a rotting, heap hidden behind some apartments until someone comes around to collect it. 24 hours later the heap would already be growing once again. So this production of bins really was a bit of an event. So… now to start separating our rubbish and actually get with the recycling project.
I did try this some time ago, however was told that it would still all end up in the same pile whatever I did. At last things are changing, plastic bags have officially been banned in shops, and apparently from this month on, if you are caught littering the street, you will be fined 300LE (about £35, which is quite a lot over here). So all that is cool. Sadly one of our two recycling bins has disappeared! So I’m not quite sure what we are meant to do with the inorganic waste that we collect, seeing as the only bin remaining is one for organic waste… hmmm I think we might end up not being able to recycle at all. Well, I guess time will tell. At least it is a start having a bin at all. |
|
The last couple of days I have been guiding. Cool.
First we did Ras Katy, ideal for day one, as it has a nice, shallow, sandy plateau and usually calm surface conditions. It is a full moon this week, so the currents were a little stronger than usual, but this brought out all the fishes, so I was the last to complain. We saw some cool stuff too… I spotted a couple of small scorpion fish almost huddled together right at the beginning of the dive, and within minutes of that, a nice big napoleon wrasse sidled past us. Generally a nice dive for bits n bobs, we saw a big blue spotted ray near the end of the dive too. Still only 23ºC… when is that heating going back on again? The second dive that day was Fiddle Garden, again a nice dive, although the cleaner wrasse seemed more interested in other fish for a change, rather than cleaning the divers. We saw a white scorpion fish early on in the dive, and the big scorpion on the glass fish pinnacle is still there… and still just as awkward to point out (it is tucked in right under the overhang). Bit of a day for the scorpions today isn’t it?? Again a nice current, so all the fish were out in force. Yesterday was Tiran… and we had a couple of great dives. Thomas was first up, and the current was in reverse which was great, as it meant that we didn’t have to turn the dive around towards the end, we just kept going.. hmmm I like that! Lots of pretty stuff, and lots of big stuff away from the reef with tuna and giant trevallies chasing a shoal of sardines. Nice! Next was Jackson, again a nice dive. The current was minimal, so we could mosey around the garden for a bit… however it was just starting to pick up as we ended our dive. Later in the morning we spotted a group that had been pushed around the corner!! Ooops! Thankfully, the swell had dropped by then, and their boat was able to head around and pick them up… potential nightmare averted. I got 22ºC on my computer on these dives, brrr.. it’s got to warm up soon. And I am sure when it does, it will suddenly feel warm! |
|
Ok So I tried the wetsuit! Biiiig mistake!!! Hehe.. it is still a definite 23ºC even off the beach and once we had done the skills and gone back under for the dive, I could think of nothing else but the fact that I was freezing cold!! I know… I have said it before, I am a lilly livered, wuss.
So.. back to the drysuit it was for me… we had a hazy couple of days too, so it wasn’t quite so warm. And just when we thought summer was only around the corner. It has been quite a varied week for me, with an advanced course at the beginning, a few discover scubas, and a discover scuba experience dive with a guy who 15 years ago was actually a BSAC dive leader, but hadn’t dived since. So that was not exactly a difficult one! We went out to the shallow Movenpick reef, saw three blue spotted rays and loads of little stuff. Didn’t see the hammerhead nudibranchs on that one. |
|
Today I was guiding off the beach for a change. No seriously, this was a change! Usually dives off the beach are training dives, either Open Water courses, Discover Scuba or Scuba Reviews. So it is very rare to get the opportunity to just go for a bimble and look for stuff. Usually the students are taking most of my attention. So, today, I was thinking “hmm easy day, one dive with two guests”. Then I found out that I actually had to take them in one at a time… they have a little toddler who needed looking after. Actually he was a very happy little toddler, with a cute little grin that he had mastered down to a tee.. hehe. So two dives it was… bit like groundhog day really, but in a nice way. I spotted everything on the first dive and was able to go back and find it easily on the second. We saw some cute stuff too.. a couple of blue spotted rays (an eagle ray flew past us on the first dive, but chose to hide on the second), star fish, and the usual puffer fish and horned trunk fish. There were three of the little Red Sea Chelidonura too, (a kind of sea slug… we call them hammer heads because of their shape) on the first dive, these were huddled together in a bundle, resembling a black blob, polka dotted with blue… by the second, they had all woken up and were shuffling around the sand. All in all a great couple of dives, and we were done by lunchtime! The water was still 23ºC, and I am still in a drysuit, but once I get my new hood, I think the beach dives will now be in my wetsuit again! Woo hoo! |
Networked Blogs
