Sharm - 2002
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Ben couldn't make the first days diving due to feeling unwell, so I travelled alone to meet the boat (Prince Hamet) and our dive guide... Ali Baba (honestly that's his name, he's signed it on my dive logs)
Unless there is anything specific I won't give details of individual dives; instead I'll give an overview of the dive sites, fish ID'd and any other interesting bits that spring to mind.
Dive Sites (in order): Temple, Turtle Bay, Jolanda & Shark Reef (abandoned due to buddy buoyancy problems), Lighthouse, Jackson, Gordon, Jolanda - Shark Reef & Anemone City, Ras Nasrani, Ras Katy and Ras Umm Sid.
The first two dives were spent trying to sort out my buoyancy; having decided to use my new 5mm suit for the trip and to use the weight integrated pockets on the BCD I spent more time inflating/deflating my BC than looking at the fish or corals. I did however see a large Napoleon Wrasse on the second dive. On the trip back to the marina the boat was joined by a turtle swimming alongside for a while.
Day 2 saw Ben joining us, however...
...On entry for the first dive of the day, a drift dive at that, we (that is all of us except Ben) descended to 5 m. I looked around to see Ben still on the surface trying to get down, because he was my buddy I tried to stay between him and the rest of the group (keeping an eye on both), who were quite naturally drifting away from us. When I saw the boat come back to pick him up I thought that the rest of the group would continue regardless and so after signalling to the DM I joined him on the boat. Having said that it wasn't a complete washout, once I dumped my kit I was straight back in the water for a snorkel over the reef. After 5 min I saw a dolphin about 10m away. I was annoyed at missing the dive but chuffed about seeing the dolphin.
Dive 3... Wow! Following fish ID'd, BIG Napoleon, 2 - 2.5 m White Tip! I swam with him in the shallows for a while (almost touching distance!) before he eventually got bored and swam off. Several largish Unicorn Fish and 2 BIG Morays.On the trip back this time we were joined by a pod of 30+ dolphins swimming with the boat.
On the fourth day the weather was pretty rough, the boat faced a hard time making any headway and when we entered the water for each dive we had to get out of the way of the boat quickly in case the wind brought it over the top of us. For this day we were joined by Aurora, a French underwater videographer. Having Baloo with me I thought it would be an idea to take him diving as well and get the event captured on video. That being said this was Baloo's fourth logged dive so I'm going to try and get him an OW certificate!
Dive 7 we spent 10 - 15 mins swimming with a turtle.
The last day was the best day for seeing big fish, maybe the rough weather from the day before brought them closer to the reefs, whatever it was I couldn't believe the first dive let alone the second...
Within 5 mins of being in the water we saw a young eagle ray (just under a metre wingspan), whilst watching this and waiting for the rest of the group I saw a shark coming in close to us, giving Ali a nudge we couldn't believe it when only 5m away we could see a large bull shark and an eagle ray in the same field of vision. During the same dive we also saw 2 large morays.
Dive 9, huge eagle ray, turtle and napoleon wrasse.
Stay safe out there
Happy Diving
Stef