The Bunnie Blog
Living and Diving in Sharm el Sheikh
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Well, after a week of guiding on local boats I was finally let lose in Tiran today.. Wooo Hooo! How exciting… the last time I dived here was at the beginning of the month during the “Freak Week” of clouds and a few spats of rain (yes sometimes even we don’t get to dive these sites every week). Anyway, off we went, with Jilly and myself guiding the guests, with Mark and his son fun diving. It didn’t take us more than a few minutes into the journey to realise that the back of Jackson (the famous hammer head dive) was to be out of the question this morning, as a stiff northerly breeze blast its way into our faces. Thankfully the sun was out in force and kept the breeze from feeling cold. Woodhouse reef was our first stop. Yesterday both a white tipped reef shark and a whale shark had been spotted here so we were hopeful that it would be our turn today. But… no… even the resident titan trigger fish, who is always good for a bit of sport (he’s a real fin biter) was nowhere to be seen. Last time I met him, I thought a guest was tugging my fin, so I turned around expecting an “I’m doing a safety stop” signal, only to find a massive beast attached to the end of my fin hehe. It certainly spiced up my dive a bit… But… sadly not today. Yes, even being well n truly triggered would have taken my mind off the fact that not only was I frozen but that I had managed to spot pretty much nothing of note during the bulk of the dive! I had foolishly thought summer was on its way, so jumped in in a wetsuit… biiiig mistake! Despite the dive being very pretty, there was a lot of plankton, so the viz was a bit low, so even when we headed out a little into the blue, there wasn’t a huge amount to be seen. Needless to say, the dry suit came out of its bag for the next two dives! Jackson Reef was glorious as always, and as an added bonus, we pretty much had it to ourselves! A rare treat. We were moored almost on the garden itself (not always an ideal location as the currents can be a touch hairy here) which today happened to work beautifully. There was a very mild current and barely any on the shallow part of the garden itself, so we were able to spend the majority of our dive bimbling around the pretty corals looking for stone fish, scorpion fish and just enjoying the beauty of it all (it really is stunning) The final dive today was on Ras Nasrani. Now this was the one that had really got us all excited. Everyone has been seeing everything here! Whale sharks, reef sharks and mantas. And even if none of these turned up, it is still a very pretty dive. Well.. guess what… none of these turned up!! Sigh! OK yes, it was a very pretty dive, and we had some interesting currents, so that was quite fun, but no big stuff. One of my guests happened to spot a black tip reef shark, but he was back a bit from the group so wasn’t able to pass the message forward (I had briefed to point and scream like a girl.. but I guess he was just not in touch with his feminine side.. hehe). The irony was that another guide in the water had asked if I had seen the big shark patrolling up and down the drop off!!! No!! I hadn’t!! So.. out I swam.. again.. in search of something bigger than a tuna. Then I got a “sixty bar” sign from one of my guests.. so back to the reef we went so they could start their safety stop. Ah well. The diving was still very pretty, and once I was warm and dry, very enjoyable. I guess when there is too much on promise, expectations rise a little too high. The frustrating bit was when I got a message telling me that another of our guides had seen an 8m whale shark on Fiddle Garden (one of our local sites, often used for day one check out dives and training!). Looks like local is the place to be at the moment maybe. |
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So it has been a bit of an odd week so far. Monday I started with a mixed boat of divers on local sites, and seem to have alternated between guiding and doing boat discover scuba dives (one extreme to the other!) I seem to have a constant rotation of new guests each day, while I stay on the same boat, funny. But pretty cool. We have seen some good stuff this week (and all of it local) with eagle rays, manta rays big napoleon wrasse. Tonight I am off on a night dive, so am just waiting for the sun to go down.. it’s summer so it is certainly taking its time! Hey ho, it gives me more time for another cup of tea. Let’s see what turns up on the dive… |
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After their little dive off the beach two of my students decided they liked it enough to go out off the boat and do another couple of dives, so I had two days teaching one to one out on the boat. Actually it is not really teaching, as with experience dives they are just getting that, a little more experience. First day was a guy who is actually in the middle of doing his BSAC course back in the UK but wanted to get a couple of dives in here… so I was in for a very easy day!! Hehe.. his buoyancy was great, so it was like diving with a qualified diver… I just spent the day giving him a couple of extra tips and spotting fish! On our last dive I found a tiny frog fish sheltering in an empty crisp packet.. very cute. The next day, I had one of the other students, and we had a very very chilled day on the boat. We spent the whole day in the Gardens area, so had loads of time to relax between dives. Saw some cool stuff on the dive, but the best bit of all was actually afterwards… there was a small manta at the surface at Far Garden. It was oblivious to all the attention it was getting.. just happily mooching around gathering plankton and completely surrounded by snorklers from the nearby hotel. It could have easily dived to escape the crowd, but didn’t seem bothered at all! |
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Today we had discover scubas. I had four students and all four seemed to have a good time and enjoy it! Often we find one person might drop out, but today all were keen and raring to go. Once the skills were over and everyone had had a little practice with their swimming, it was time for us to go back down and head off for the fish. We had a nice little dive, and even got to see a blue spotted ray and a torpedo ray. For some bizarre reason I didn’t see a single puffer fish all dive!! Strange for the beach. But… the best news of all was that the temperature has risen yet another degree to 26ºC!!! Very nice indeed! Maybe I’ll even be able to jump back into a shortie soon! I think as long as I’m teaching, the dry suit can stay in its bag (in all honesty it was no longer that dry, as the wrist seals have seen better days!) |
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Well despite the fact that I was working on my birthday, I had a great day yesterday. I only had one student, who seems to have taken to diving like a fish, and we had the final two dives of the course to do… a very stress free day (yes we do still get stressful days here despite the sunshine). We even saw a turtle on Middle Garden on our last dive which was great. We sat and watched him munching on his lunch for a good five minutes or so… very cool. Ice cream was the order of the day once we were back on land, and once the staff meeting was over (typical… on my birthday of all days!) we all went for a little drink next door to celebrate. I even got the bumps!! I can’t remember the last time that happened!! (yes it was an abbreviated version!!) |
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I can’t believe that after clouds and breezes last week today was absolutely roasting hot!!! Woo Hoo. The pool was a nice n toasty 30ºC!! Nice.. good job too, as we had a marathon session. What a difference a week makes. It really felt like summer today.. Awesome. Tomorrow we are off the beach, for Open Water dives one and two… hmmm have just realised this is the third time I will be doing Open Water dives 1-4 in only two weeks! Hehe… |
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Well Sunday brought a break in the clouds, and once again, we were bathed in glorious Egyptian sunshine. So sorry for our friends who left last week having endured a week of wind and cloud. Monday brought with it a new course. A PADI e-learning course, which is a fairly recent addition to their repertoire… basically it is possible to learn at home, in your own time before you come out, avoiding the whole torture of spending the first few days of your holiday sat in a classroom watching videos!!! Everything is done on line, at home, from watching the videos to completing the quizzes and final exam. You would then turn up here in Sharm, armed with a print out depicting exactly what you have completed and how well you performed. When my students turned up on Monday, we had a quick refresher quiz, and then a day in the pool to work through the five confined water sessions (much better than being cooped up indoors for the day). Then, on the second and third day we were in the sea. Not bad at all. I was quite lucky as my students did kind of take to it like fish, so we are off to do some adventure dives tomorrow. We even got to see a manta ray yesterday, on the afternoon dive. It was a bit of an Ocean College take over as I saw both Clare H and Hatem with their guests during my dive and every Ocean College diver got to see the manta at some point during their dive. I actually saw Vallie spot it and point, so out we swam to get a good look. It was beautiful, as mantas always are. It wasn’t a giant one, maybe a couple of metres wing span, and it had a rather chunky remora firmly stuck to its belly. In fact it turned out to be a bit of a ray dive.. we had already seen a couple of torpedo rays, and then at the end there was a blue spotted ray sat on the sand. Not bad for dive number 4 eh?? |
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So what a freak week of weather we have had. It is May and by rights, we should be ditching the dry suits and testing out the shorties. Certainly on the beach! Anyway, things were a million miles away from that yesterday in Tiran The first warning sign was when I got a call from Steve who was going to be with me on the boat and who happens to live across the water from Tiran Island “it’s the most lumpy and bumpy it’s been all week!” and all week, it has been very lumpy and bumpy up there. Not the best news. Anyway, we thought we would do our best to go up there, with the option of diverting en route to Montazah (local North) should things be too rough. Thankfully my student’s girlfriend opted not to come… (she gets seasick, so this would have been hell on earth for her) and we did actually make it up to Tiran, where the reefs did provide a little shelter once we had crossed the shipping lane (that was fun!). Our first stop was a drift on Woodhouse (a nice long reef that generally provides a stretch of shelter from the lumpy stuff), of course the second my head was underwater, all was calm and serene, and we had a lovely dive. The second dive was only me and my student… everyone else was too cold!! I tell you it was like February today, grey skies, cold wind! Brrr. Ah memories of the UK.. Our second dive was on Jackson Reef, one of my favourites, but the lack of sunshine does dim its glory somewhat. As we surfaced I heard this strange pitter patter sound… it was raining!!!! What? In May?? Anyway, last dive of the day was fun, we were meant to be doing the naturalist dive, looking for and identifying plant life, vertebrates and invertebrates… great for a bimble. We were on Ras Ghamilla, which is usually a fairly gentle dive.. well we flew on quite a lively drift current! Hehe.. we saw loads of life, but struggled to find the little things simply because we just flew past it all… OK maybe I’m exaggerating a little there.. but most of our invertebrate sightings were on the safety stop at the end of the dive! The good news is that after our grim, grey (UK stylee) week, the sun has finally returned, and blue skies abound today (sorry for those of you who are flying today and have had a week of cloudiness.. it really isn’t normally like that in May). |
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Well, after yesterday’s complete fogginess terrible surface conditions, today was a whole different experience! Phew!! I had just one student today, who needed to complete the first two of his four Open Water dives. In anticipation of the swells of yesterday (ok nothing like the UK, but we are used to swimming pool like conditions most days!) I had shed loads of weights on me just in case my guy struggled to stay down. But all was good, and down we went, and off we swam for dive number one. After an initial settling in, and finding his fins, he did really well. We went off for a nice little bimble about the beach reefs here. The only major sighting was a blue spotted ray sat on the Movenpick reef, but plenty of the usual parrot fish, puffers, butterfly fish and horned trunk fish (they are sooo cute) pottering around us. There is a fair amount of plankton hanging around so I was just certain we would see an eagle ray at the very least. But sadly nothing bigger than the blue spotted ray turned up on either of the two dives. For some reason the sun has gone in today!! In fact, we are sure that it might have actually rained the other night (very rare here, and very un-May-like!) So I must admit, I FROZE on the second dive! Brrrr. |
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The last couple of days have been spent guiding… first Tiran, and then Ras Mohammed yesterday. Two very nice days, lovely diving, clear viz, coral and lots of lovely fish. Nothing particularly huge this time (apart from a big tuna on Thomas reef) but very pretty reef, and some great currents to play with. Today I was teaching off the beach… discover scubas. Hmmm well, even as I was collecting the guests in the morning, the wind was pretty full on, which didn’t bode well. And… sure enough as we arrived at the dive centre on the beach, I could see the sea was fairly choppy and the flags flapping like mad in the breeze (breeze.. is a bit of an understatement there). Well, briefings, done, all kitted up, we took our little group of students to venture into the water. Not too cold now, 24º off the beach, so even I am in my wetsuit and fairly comfy. We all stood in a huddle, and took our first breaths on the surface, all was cool, so we knelt down… fog!!! I had two students with me and made them link arms for stability. I had to sit right up close to them, or we wouldn’t have been able to see each other!! Literally we had about half a metre visibility! Oooh! Anyway, they seemed unfazed so I carried on and started to go through the skills with them. No problems at all.. just a bit of bouncing around because of the swell… normally we would have had a little swimming around practice at this point, but there is no way we could have seen each other! So… when we went out for the fun dive, I decided to have them hold hands, and I held their linked hands as we swam a little deeper… eventually, at about five metres I was able to let go and actually start them swimming normally.. we could seee! Ok this can be normal in some places, but ony happens very rarely here.. and not really in May!! Anyway, we were nearly back to the normal Red Sea crystal clear visibility and could enjoy our dive. We saw lion fish, puffer fish, butterfy fish, a couple of little tobys, the sand eels here are great too, we have a couple of areas covered in them, and of course loads of parrot fish followed us around the dive. Right at the end, we found nemo!! Woo Hoo! Which made the dive… two happy faces as we gently made our way to the surface, avoiding the fog in the shallows. |
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