This morning I was off to Ras Mohammed for the second day on the trot. And… for the second day on the trot, there was little or no breeze! Yay!

Off we sailed on glassy seas, out to our first dive Ras Za’atar. This was to be a drift (as are all dives in the National Park) and can either be done in the morning as a sunny dive, or is still quite cool in the afternoon as a spooky moody dive with shards of sunlight piercing the gloom. I opted for sunny morning dive today. We had a very pretty dive, although will admit, that whilst this is a dive on which bigger stuff can turn up, today wasn’t to be one of those days. We took in the fantastic table coral pinnacle at about 20m. It always looks like a waiter’s arm holding a massive tray to me… a big fan coral sits on the side, in which I found a resident long-nosed hawk fish… always notoriously difficult to spot. And then on we went on our dive.

The end of the dive is quite lovely too, as there is a little shelter around the corner, at about safety stop level, filled with glassfish, swirling around their resident grouper. Very cool.

The afternoon’s dive was to be Shark and Yolande, and as we had gone around the corner to shelter, I decided to check the current on Turtle Rock (Baby Yolande to some). Not to sound smug, but the skipper and the other guide all pointed out that the current should be running normal as divers were exiting by the baby reef, but I thought I would drop in anyway… just to check, and yes it was running in reverse. I do like to dive with the current, rather than fighting it the whole way.

Anyway, in we jumped, right on the wreckage of the Yolande itself, and first thing we saw was a big moray. Good start to the dive I feel. The current was very mild, so we were able to take our time meandering up the length of the wreckage, taking in the bathtubs, toilets, linoleum rolls, squished car, everything really. As we wended our way towards the shallow coral garden behind the Yolande reef… there we found a blue spotted ray, another moray eel, and then were followed by a free-swimming moray eel! All very nice stuff, but not the thing I was specifically looking for.

I carried on, waiting to see the little alcove and it’s very cute resident, drifting gently with the flow. Then I saw her, bimbling along, flippers too big for her shell… our little baby green turtle! Ahhhh she’s sooo cute. Her eyes, always look kind of half mast, and she just looks so shiny and new and clean. Today she seemed a little more chilled out, and we just hovered and watched her ambling along her merry way for a little while before flying off and around towards Anenome City. Hmmm very nice dive.

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So first dive out was Woodhouse, which was very lovely, drift with a reversed current, so we were able to drop on the canyon and see a glowing red anenome at 27M that we very rarely get to see when diving it in the usual direction.

The second dive was Jackson Reef. This is a glorious dive, however can get very busy if you are unlucky with your timing. You can jump in and realise that there are loads of other divers, and not all the guides are that respectful of other divers in the water. Today we were lucky and pretty much had the reef to ourselves.

Our boat was moored on the garden itself (not always ideal as the current can get a bit hairy at this point), so we kind of had to do a bit of a zig zag dive winding our way up from the depths. We couldn’t go too far in either direction due to a reasonably lively current today, but to be honest, we were moored above such glorious corals, that it really did not matter.

Not long into our dive, I got a signal from George (my hubby and fellow guide today) letting me know that there was an eagle ray kicking around. Great stuff! So I kept my eyes out to the blue on the hunt! Sure enough… five minutes later we were greeted with a lovely big eagle ray gliding around the shoals of snappers and fusiliers. We got an initial glimpse before it was off on its merry way. Ah, nice.

Another five minutes passed and I saw a frantic pointing from one of my guests! Yay… it was back, and this time we got the full monty, a circle, it flew over my head, so close I could see its gills opening and closing, then kind of came head on at me before looping off again in search of plankton. Wow! Wonderful!

We didn’t need to see anything else really after that, but guess what, a turtle decided to turn up about half way through the dive, so again we got the chance to chill out and watch her have her lunch. All very cool.

Of course all this was on top of the usual splashes of colour and crowds of other fish that we get here. There are some little alcoves, that just look like perfect snap shots of ideal cartoon reef. Lovely dive.

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Ok I admit I did not do the dive naked. Well, I was working, so am sure my guests would not really have appreciated a bare naked, skinny, bird shivering up ahead of them.

Anyway, excuses out of the way, on to the dive. It was a drift, and we had decided to drop in on Shark Reef to start our dive. In we dropped, and the current was glorious. As an afternoon dive, Shark Reef at the start, is pretty shady and moody which is quite cool, almost spooky with its large gatherings of snappers and jacks below, all facing into the current as it hits the reef and splits. We try to judge the entry so that we descend on this split amongst the shoals of fish, and then hitch a ride on the flow flying past the front of the reef, and today was perfect.

Down we dropped into the shade, steep reef wall plunging down on our right, expanse of navy blue on our left… awesome. Flying around the corner we tucked in, hoping to shelter from the bulk of a counter current and true to form we got this shelter. Here we had reached the sandy saddle that links Shark Reef with Yolande Reef and now out of the shade, the sun hit us, lighting up the corals in full technicolor®. Hugging the wall, we gently worked our way around, almost towards the back of the reef from where we could work our way, underneath the current, towards the main reef plate, where we could hitch another ride with the flow.. wooo hooo! We flew!

It was here that I remembered that we have been seeing a baby green turtle around this area lately, so off I headed to her little alcove, guests following in my path. We passed blue spotted rays, a biiig moray, a shoal of Jacks and yes, there was our little turtle in her home. Sadly I think she has been harassed by divers lately, as she immediately darted for cover, under her cosy table coral hiding her face from us. So we kept our distance, and left her in peace. Still it was lovely to see her again.

Next we flew on to the remains of the Yolande Wreck… or should I say the contents of the wreck. This is the famous “toilet” wreck where you will find bath tubs, toilets and wash basins strewn across another sandy saddle. These are now covered in coral, so make a glorious reef in their own right (well the containers are.. you can see little nubs of fire coral growing on the toilet rims, so not a good idea to sit down!).

Another moray, another blue spotted ray, past the bathtubs and back on ourselves a bit to take in a little of the garden of the Yolande Reef. You could spend a whole dive on this area alone. Heaving with soft corals, hard corals and just heaps of fish, we made our way, weaving in and out of the pinnacles looking for scorpion fish, stone fish, nudibranchs and just taking in the beauty. In amongst it all I saw a teeny tiny pyjama slug… cute.

I do love this dive, because every time we dive it, we are at the mercy of the currents to a certain extent, and as a guide it is always a great challenge to ensure that you get to see as much reef as possible without inflicting horrendous counter currents and stress on your divers. Never a dull moment, and so many different routes to take.

Today, I chose to swim out from the reef a touch and again catch that current to whisk us back to the wreckage where we looped around a mini reef often known as Baby Yolande, Turtle Rock or merely just Satellite Reef and ended our dive gliding along the main reef heading up towards the gulf of Suez.

Not bad for a landmark dive… eh? My favourite dive site, hubby guiding on the same boat, and a bunch of lovely guests who also happen to be really good, chilled out divers. Appy Dayze as George would say.

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