Day Forty-nine - Dahab, Egypt

Tuesday 20th July 2010

We had a different addition to our little group, Mandy was only out for the dive yesterday and this time we had a very talkative, friendly South African called Rene who got on Matt's nerves a little by talking too much – a shame because she was really rather sweet. We all boxed up our stuff after going through the homework and knowledge review for the day's dives; the obligatory deep dive (to 30m) and a self planned multilevel dive. We bundled into a taxi which took us to roughly the same area as yesterdays afternoon dive and after a thorough briefing we tackled the deep dive. This was one that I was feeling rather anxious about, I didn't know what to expect whether it would be cold and dark or enclosed, but it turned out to be fine. We swam along to the beginning of the Canyon, passing shoals of fish and different coral on the sea bed to the beginning of the Canyon, approaching it we saw a long thin beautiful curtain of small bubbles, it was astonishingly beautiful and stretched out for about ten metres. I asked Matt what was causing it and he tapped his regulator, confused – I knew it was air, I'm not that thick – I saw the reason for it when we swam over the top – a line of divers at the bottom deep in the Canyon, their bubbles spread out by the coral and sand in the sea bed at the top.

The canyon was surrounded by coral and schools of fish but there wasn't much inside the canyon, I was grateful because one of my primary concerns is knocking something over and killing it, we descended two at a time. I had briefed Djalma on the buddy system that I wanted to use for these two dives – hand holding and never being separated, so he was very reassuring so going down was amazing, it got darker and the space we had wasn't much but I didn't spaz out or feel overwhelmed instead I really enjoyed it, we got to the bottom and did a colour test and some basic maths to determine if we were suffering from nitrogen narcosis, the effects being very similar to being drunk. I was utterly disappointed when the realisation came that I was not narked, just a bit slow even at basic addition. It was much lighter at the bottom than I had anticipated, which was nice and reassuring, we swam along the bottom for a bit, whizzing through our air at such a low depth but we ascended at the end of the short canyon to continue our fun outside. The canyon was just amazing and I had more fun diving here than I thought possible, it was so different to anything we had seen in any of our previous dives, just incredible.

We swam along to our exit point, different to the entry point, over table coral, a giant pufferfish, loads of different wrasse (some of the most colourful and patterned fish in the Red Sea) including bird, unicorn and cleaner wrasse, the latter of which cleans divers teeth if they remove their regulators Djalma, Matt and Rene had fun doing this but I was a bit preoccupied with choking so I gave it a miss.

From 10 Dahab

We had a good long lunch break – about three hours, talking about how amazing the dive was and going through all our knowledge reviews and then planning our afternoon dive.

Soon enough we were back in the water, this time for our multilevel dive in Bells to Blue Hole. Blue Hole has a particularly bad reputation as a dangerous dive site after several divers have died trying to dive it. What is remarkable about the blue hole is that it is enclosed by a sheer coral wall all the way round and is an immediate drop to 110metres from the shore. The surface was covered with sizzling snorkellers all enjoying the deep blue – you can't see the bottom.

From 10 Dahab

My spazzing out limits were sorely tested by just the idea of diving here, but in our briefing Matt put our minds at ease and as always calmed everyone down and made us all feel safe, so at the starting point of the dive a group descent to ten metres and then a chimney drop we had to do by ourselves – single file one on top of the other (with big gaps between, of course) didn't seem so stomach churningly impossible after all.

While it was my turn down the chimney (shaped like a rough 'C', we went down with our backs to the wall, facing out to the blue) I heard a mad pinging from Matt to get everyone's attention, this was just before I was bout to go down passed the closed section, underneath which the chimney stopped and went into the see. I looked up to see a Hawksbill Turtle swimming by - incredible - I took it as a personal message from the big man above that everything was fine. It didn't stop me from getting out of there as fast as my fins would propel me nor did it make me brave enough to look in the dark shadows or holes under ledges and outcrops as I sank, I kept my eyes on the prize – the bottom of the chimney. I felt quite a sense of achievement at doing it AND enjoying it. Djalma came down after me, at the briefing Matt gave him special permission to go head first (upside down!) while everyone else had to do it normally, it was quite possibly the best early Christmas present a person could give him, he spun round inside the chimney like he had a sick wish but made it to the bottom and gave me the 'fucking cool' sign – lots of hip thrusting followed by big OK finger signs.

All grouped together again, we swam up a little bit to conserve our air consumption and followed a single solid wall of coral which stretched from all the way down out of the blue to just below the surface of the sea. So we swam along with the never ending wall of coral to our right – our last dive in Dahab, our last dive with Matt – with the sea stretching out around us, a peaceful deep sky blue where ever we looked, never getting darker just the same shade below and around us, so calming and at the same time awe-inspiring. There were huge patches of enormous elephant ear coral, covering sections of the coral wall, incredible in size, shape and perfection. We also saw tuna (very far away), masked pufferfish, giant clams, splendour wrasse, parrot wrasse, royal angelfish, fire coral and gorgeous mushroom leather coral. There was a nice gentle current which helped us along, we saw antheus swimming into it giving us clues that it was there – it was so gentle. We swan up to seven metres to pass over the saddle into the Blue Hole, a section of coral ring which was deeper underwater and a much safer bet than the other entry point for divers, 57 metres below sea level – no thanks. Once in we slowly swan around the edge to the exit point. At our safety stop I hovered the entire three minutes watching two Red Sea Anemonefish swim around outside there home – a green sack holding the anemone clearly visible, it looked like a home in a bag – it was just stunning.
We got out the water, our minds blown by the most incredible day of diving and another turtle!

We headed back to the centre in the same taxi we came in, cleaned our kits and then sat down to our new Advanced Certificate paperwork and we said goodbye to Rene. We had arranged with Matt to go out for a couple of beers as it was our last day, Linda met us along the way and after many stops we eventually sat down at a restaurant by the sea and polished off a record three beers each and a cherry sheesha. We spent most of the time talking about the diving and our time in Dahab it was a lovely end to a beautiful day, but saying goodbye was much more difficult than we expected it to be and we made the goodbye a short one. More than the beauty of the Red Sea and an amazing location near the desert and the mountain, Matt was the main reason for such a delightful stay in what became our favourite place in Egypt. Goodbye Dahab, sniff sniff.

From 10 Dahab

To Marcel and Henrique:
Alemão, you bought us a day in Egypt. I had no idea which one to choose until we got to the end of the second dive. The advanced course wasn't planned so your generous present went towards that. Thanks brow. After handball and snowboarding, diving is my new sport. If you haven't dived yet, you gotta do it! It's just amazing!
Henrique, I know you've been going diving, so you know what we're talking about. I had to change your present to this amazing unexpected experience since we've decided not to take the risk of getting an Israeli stamp in our beautiful passports (that would prevent us from getting in four countries ahead in our long journey).
Thank you guys! And as lots of T-shirts advised in Dahab:
Dive now, work later!