The bus headed off through the desert, although to be honest, most of us slept for the journey there. Even though the view is quite dramatic (we got it on the way back, don’t worry). On arriving in Dahab, we headed straight for the Canyon dive site and were the first to arrive! Usually the trips from Sharm run on a Friday or Saturday, so going up on a Monday meant that we had the site to ourselves. The local dive centres run a far more chilled out system so dives before 10am are few and far between.

Once kitted up and buddy checked, we headed out across the rocks to our descent point and swim out through the shallows, between a couple of pinnacles towards the focus of this dive, a large crack in the floor known as the Canyon. As we approached, some of the group had already headed in, so we could see an upward “rain” shower of bubbles already filtering out through the reef ahead of us (what a great photo that would make). As we dropped in, we were greeted by a turtle, cute, and surrounded by glassfish as we headed first towards one of the more open areas within the canyon. Over the years, sadly the number of divers exiting through a domed opening at the shallow end of the canyon has caused the reef to disintegrate, so we can no longer exit via this route. So we turned around and headed towards the other end of the canyon and up through the crack above us. The rest of the dive was spent taking in the hard corals and life around the surrounding area. We also got to see a couple of eagle rays, and loads of lion fish. We counted fourteen all nestled in amongst the corals on the dome (or fishbowl) exit of the canyon. Very cool.

The next dive was at the world renowned Blue Hole. It is actually famous as a technical dive, as there is a deep channel that runs from the inside of the hole to the outside. We were to do a recreational dive that finishes up inside the blue hole in the shallows (no deep tunnel swims for us). The entry is a bit tricky with a bit of a treck and a clamber into a hole in the reef which leads down to a tube called The Bells. In buddy teams, we dropped into the hole and descended.. head first is most fun… following the tube down. It is possible to exit at any point, with the front half being open, but more fun to stay inside and go through a small arch that forms at about 25M. We then followed the wall of reef back towards the Blue Hole. This bit was not dissimilar to Shark Observatory, with beautiful over hangs and caves adorned dripping with soft corals. Being a wall in deep water, we did get some cool tuna and jackfish action going on beside us too.

As we approached the Blue Hole, we gradually shallowed off where there was a glorious garden of hard corals.. very pretty and in direct sunshine, so all the colours were in their full glory. After a bimble around these corals, we turned and headed over the lip into the hole itself. Visibility was good, so we could almost see the coral surrounding us on all sides from the middle of the hole, with a dark chimney below us leading down into the depths, hmmmm very cool. Then we headed to the edge of the reef where we found some tiny proper neon turquoise fish, very cool.

Lunch was in Dahab town where we got the chance to chill out, do a bit of shopping, and relax before our trip back home.

A great day out all around.

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