| EGYPT Diving in the Red Sea My Log Book |
| 02/09/02 Monday First dive: Ras Caty, Sharm Lovely sloping sandy bottom, very good light and visibility, saw my first lion fish, a black and white one, and my first anemone fish, two of them, yellow with white stripes, just like the one at O2 Centre (near where I live in London). Also an Arabian Picassofish, lots of groupers, a puffer, butterfly fish, banner fish, sand perch, bicolour puller, etc. This is my first dive after 8 months. Problem with equalisation due to one blocked nostril. Ascended abruptly towards the end again, and Alex said it was because I was standing up in the water doing deflation while kicking my fins. No wonder! Good lesson learned. Second dive: Alternatives, Sha'ab Mahmud A female Napoleonfish swam up to our boat, inviting us to swim with her, so there we went. This dive was around three reef slates, visibility was not as good as this morning, but we saw a lot nevertheless. Two pairs of lion fish, one pair of banner fish, a porcupine fish defending him/herself against us, a star puffer, a longfin batfish with two golden beard, amazing! And many gorgonians - fan corals, so beautiful when Alex hung next to it against the sun, looking for her hawkfish. Need more practice to control my buoyancy, also effective kicking. Third dive: Alternatives, Sha'ab Mahmud This is a night dive, but same problem again: ascending halfway through the dive; must be that I was going up the slope without realising I was ascending. And then I should stand straight in the water trying to go down again! Anyway, all mistakes will help me improve. But saw a beautiful blue parrotfish just like in the picture, the latter half of a moray eel, and a sleeping lionfish. And at the spotlight of the boat, schools of fish were dancing around, including barracuda (or gambarur halfbeak?) And lots of "little stars" if you hide your torch light and wave your arm. 03/09/02 Tuesday First dive: Dunraven, Sha'ab Mahmud This is my first wreck dive. Only stayed outside and I was more than happy to do so. It was a cargo ship en route Bombay-Newcastle. Sank in Mar 1847 and discovered by BBC (World Around Us) in 1979. Length 82m and width 9.7m. Saw a few large parrotfish and a circular batfish as well as some very blue fish. But most beautiful was the coral garden nearby, small, many mild colours, like in a dream. Wonder if it is because of narcosis. I always feel happy going deep. Second dive: Small Passage, Sha'ab Mahmud Quite wavy on the surface, so we descended promptly and guess what? Right at the bottom lay a leopard shark! Getting impatient with us watching, it got up and swam away. This was just the beginning. Soon we came across a giant moray, more massive than the one last night. And another huge female Napoleonfish, some more royal angelfish, many beautiful wrasses including some sling-jaw wrasses, and many many others. When ascending the sandy slope, there were many patches of fire corals, and a massive parites lutea coral. The current was behind us so it was a bit drift diving, except I still need to fine tune my buoyancy. Third dive: Shag Rock, Sha'ab Ali Strong current althouth I didn't feel any, thanks to Alex. Normal beginning until Karen spotted a big turtle. My very first turtle, lying on the bottom resting. It was a magic moment. Then we started to see several blue spotted stingrays, not very big in size, with rolling eyes. A cleaner wrasse not at work, many kinds of butterflyfish (masked, lined, striped), black-barred surgeonfish with a white band on the caudal fin, group of yellow saddle goatfish, and a huge white-bottom, black-dotted greasy grouper (or malabar grouper?). And I wonder what the large black fish with two 'arms' is. Previous Page Egypt Main Page Next Page |
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