Red Sea Diving 1996
In May and June I was in Israel, and took a short trip to Sharm-el-Sheikh,
Egypt. The original plan was to travel from Eilat on a liveaboard, but
a last minute car accident resulted in the cancellation of the boat trip,
so after several days of snorkeling in Eilat and a day diving trip to
Coral Island, my wife and I went to Sharm by car.
This is some of the things I learned that may be useful to anyone who will
be traveling in that area.
EILAT, ISRAEL
I was in Eilat for the first time in the summer of 1965. It was a small
town with two hotels: one in town and a second recently opened one on
the beach at the north end of the Gulf of Aquaba named the Queen of
Sheba. We stayed there.
Now there is a row of large hotels along that shore, and two lagoons
have been added to shelter small boats and expand the shoreline. The
newest and biggest hotels (Dan, Royal Beach, and Holiday Inn) are about
20 stories tall. The Queen of Sheba has been destroyed and is being
replaced. A walkway and large hotels now extend from the city to the
Jordan border. The Princess hotel is south of town near Coral Beach and
the Egypt border.
Most diving in Eilat is from the shore, except for one day 2 tank dive
trips to Coral Island, several miles into Egypt. There is Dolphin Reef
for those who want to either snorkel or scuba with the dolphins. See the
letter I posted last year about that experience (Dolphin Reef). Some dive
boats operate from Taba, which is really just the former Sonesta Hotel of
Eilat, that ended up on the Egypt side of the border after the peace
treaty. It now has a nice casino.
The snorkeling is good starting at coral beach near the Club Med and on
south into Egypt. After a couple of scuba dives in Eilat several years
ago, I decided that I can see as much by just snorkeling, and have done
scuba only at Dolphin Reef and on Coral Island trips since. There is a
marine park that charges for entrance, but I find it better to go just
north of the park to beach Ben Rosh where you can rent a lounge chair
for much less than the park entrance fee, enter the water and snorkel
all the way south to the large under water observatory. I don't even
use fins, just a face mask and tee shirt. Serious snorkerlers could
benefit from a few pounds of lead weights.
There are often young women from Club Med swimming nude to add to the
pleasure.
TABA, EGYPT and the northern Gulf
Coral Island is close enough to do from the shore if you are in Egypt,
and there are many hotels under construction on the shore near there.
But it looked like only one was actually in operation. I am told that
there are dive boats operated by Aqua Sport of Eilat, located near the
Club Med, which do scuba trips into Egypt from Taba. Call 07-334404 for
details.
LIVE ABOARDS
I know of three boats which operate from Eilat on an irregular basis:
Suellyn is operated through the Lucky Divers from the Gali Eilat hotel.
It is a power boat 24 meters long by 5 m wide and carries up to 12
divers plus crew. Phone 07-335990 for information. The Skipper is Moshe
Ninyo. Like most Israelis, he speaks English with a slight Hebrew
accent, and has a cell phone: his number is 052-713565.
Poolstir (Dutch for pole star or Polaris) is a sailing boat operated by
Red Sea Sports Club located on Kings Wharf, North Beach (under the King
Solomon hotel), and at Coral Beach. Phone 972-7-376569.
Jadran, is rather like the Suellyn in size and design. It is "online"
and can be emailed at idrcrus@netvision.net. It has a web page, and I
have a link to it on my "green" page.
A travel agency in Tel Aviv that books these boats is Route Tours Ltd,
44 Hayarkon St., phone 972-3-5162443 and fax 972-3-5160359.
SHARM-EL-SHEIKH
We had reservations for one night in Sharm, and had planned to go there
by boat from Eilat and fly back to Ben Gurion (between Tel Aviv and
Jerusalem). Sharm has an international airport but there are flights
to/from Ben Gurion only on Monday and Friday. So when the boat was
canceled, we took a "taxi" arranged by Lucky Divers. It was only a three
hour trip from Taba and since we crossed the border on a Saturday
morning there was little delay (I hear that sometimes it takes much
longer).
Sinai is quite and experience. The road follows the coast until a little
past Nuweiba and then goes inland and down a valley until Sharm. It goes
past a turnoff to Dahab, but we did see that town. There are several
tourist areas under construction along the shore.
SHARM and the 6 DAY WAR
Sharm-el-Sheikh played an important role in one of the most dramatic and
decisive military operations in the history of war. But few people there
now know about that, and I saw no remains of the historic fort.
On May 14, 1967 President Nasser of Egypt put the army on full alert,
and on May 18 he demanded that the UN soldiers leave the "buffer zone"
between Egypt and Israel. They did, immediately.
On May 22, Nasser proclaimed a blockade of the Gulf of Aquaba and the
Israeli port of Eilat, to be enforced by the guns at the fort at Sharm
el Sheikh, opposite the narrow Strait of Tiran. Ships to Israel were
already denied use of the Suez canal, and cutting off Eilat would be
serious to Israel: they pointed out that the blockade was a violation of
international law and demanded that it be lifted.
Egypt said no, and began moving its army into positions in Sinai.
Jordan, Syria and Iraq announced that they stood with Egypt in any
conflict. Israel said to lift the blockade, "OR ELSE", and began to call
up its military reserve units.
The meaning of "OR ELSE" became clear on the morning of June 5: all 400
some planes of the Israeli air force took off for strikes at the air
bases of Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Iraq. The first wave arrived at 8 am
over every air base with bombs to crater the air strips and trap the
planes on the ground. A second wave arrived minutes later and by noon
the entire air forces of all four countries were destroyed.
With complete air superiority. the IDF forces moved quickly into Sinai,
the Jordan occupied West Bank and Jerusalem, Golan and of course to
Sharm, where a short battle ended the blockade. The battle for Sharm is
told in a Hebrew folk song recorded by popular singer Ron Eliran.
DIVING SHARM
There is a string of hotels along Naama Bay. In Egypt they are
typically only one to three stories tall. There is a nice walkway
between the hotels and the beach, rather like the one at North Beach,
Eilat. The "nicest" hotel is the Movenpick (next to Karahmana), where
the big shots all stayed during the recent Mid-East peace conference.
But ours was quite nice.
We arrived in the early afternoon, but after checking in to the
Karahmana Hotel and meeting with the Sinai Dive Club at the Hilton (not
to be confused with several other dive clubs with similar names), and
after being fitted with a wet suit top and gear, it was too late to do
much but go to the beach for a rest. But we took our face masks.
The snorkeling is usually not very good in front of a beach. And there
is a place on St. Croix where I had found what I thought was the best
place to snorkel that is close to a beach. But Naama Bay is absolutely
incredible. Large reef fish swim around rocks and bright coral of many
colors, just a few yards from the beach in calm clear water with great
visibility. Who could ask for anything more? We stayed until sunset
The next morning early, we departed the dive shop by van for a nearby
bay where the dive boats leave, most by 8:30 am. There are many boats
all trying to load people and tanks at the same from a small pier. The
boats are moored in the bay and come to the pier to load for the trip.
There are many dive sites up and down the coast of Sinai from Tiran
island to Ras Mohammed at the south tip. Boats typically make a long day
with 3 dives at different locations, unless they do Ras Mohammed which
is a longer distance, and then 2 dives are the norm. While the water
is cooler (in June) than the Caribbean is in January, a full wet suit
is not necessary (but many people do wear one). I found a shortie top
to be fine.
For big fish and beautiful coral, this is the best I have seen. But I
saw only one sting ray and no turtles, squid, or sea horse. But we
did encounter a swarm of jellyfish on one dive. They were about 4 to
6 inches in diameter and had some pink color. They do not have the
strong sting of the Mediterranian variety.
The dive sites are often crowded with divers from several boats. And for
each hotel in operation, there are probably 10 that are under construction,
all up and down the coast. They tell me that there were very few hotels
there just a decade ago, but it will be very big in a few more years.
Boats all return at about the same time (5 pm) and have the same problem
in unloading.
There are many nice restaurants and a casino. The most common language
is Italian, but German, Arabic and English (usually British) are
common. There are many European tourists but few Americans. They tell me
it is cheaper for Italians to fly to Sharm for a week than to vacation
at home, and Israelis say the same: a week in Sharm costs less than one
in Eilat. Banks there change all variety of money (even shekels) to
Egyptian pounds (about 3 to the dollar).
TROPICAL REEF FISH
If you are familiar with the tropical reef fish of the Caribbean, the Red
Sea fish have the same shapes but different colors. Some species are the
same, Sargent Majors for example. But the usual parrot, angel, butterfly,
tangs, etc. have different colors and patterns from those of the Caribbean.
These fish species don't swim across large bodies of open ocean. There are
3 different populations of tropical reef fish that are similar in type or
family but differ in species: the Indo-Pacific (including the Red Sea),
Atlantic/Caribbean, and Mediteranean.
Before the theory of plate tectonics became accepted, it was a puzzle why
different oceans had fish so similar but yet not exactly the same. Now the
explanation is that the continents and oceans have moved rather recently
and the various species, once part of a would wide tropical ocean, have
been separated, and have diverged in their evolution.
Also, there are many clownfish and the beautiful (but deadly!) lionfish
in the Red Sea that I don't see in the Caribbean. And the groupers are much
larger than I am used to. On a dive at Coral Island, I saw a large Picasso
triggerfish expelling water under a sea urchin, attempting to turn the
urchin over so the sharp spines would be out of the way and and the urchin
could become a safe meal.
SUMMARY
I will probably return to Israel in a few years and will plan on a week
in Sharm. I see no advantage to the live aboard since the dive boats do
3 per day, which is enough for me. But I may change my mind. Now, the
boats which leave Eilat for Egypt (except to Coral Island) must go to
Sharm and clear some paperwork before they can go diving. If they could
stop along the way at some less crowded places along the coast, I might
do that. Until then, I hope to return to St. Criox where the diving is
less crowded. Care to join me?
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________________ooo__(_O O_)__ooo___________________________________
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(jeblair@facstaff.wisc.edu) University of Wisconsin, Madison USA
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