Next days….

Here are two more pics of that dive:

When we got back to the hotel Gitta and I had some towel art in our room. Not sure why he made us a heart but I think it was because he didn’t know much else. 😀

After dinner we went for a walk again and I took this pic of ’shisha’s. This pic was cheaper than the one I took last year in Safaga. This time the guy owning the shop wanted only 1 Euro while last year the other one had asked for 2 Euro. Never paid anything though… *hehe*:

The next morning we got up early again as we always have to do when diving (guys, if you dive the days of ’sleep in‘ during vacation are over… ;)). That was the day when everyone else started to get sick. Got on the boat but since my cold was still bad I didn’t dive that morning but went snorkelling with Silvia. Going up the coast we saw this building which is being owned by one of the brothers of Osama Bin Laden.

Here are some snorkel pics. They do hide though that the reef is sort of dead. Too many people walking on it do that to a reef. It is a pity that in Egypt they don’t care more about the natural beauty they have. You could see the destruction everywhere.

When we got back on the boats there were manta rays swimming around. I didn’t see them as I was on the wrong side but Silvia saw them from the other boat. When the divers came back from the dive they were not too happy to hear that…. :p:

In the afternoon I felt much better so I decided to go back in diving. Was a rather uneventful dive though. Here a few pics…

Uneventful evening (don’t remember what we did but I think we went to the bar at the hotel after having walked around ‚the city‘).

The next morning we had to get up even earlier as we were going to Ras Mohammed which is a Natural Park and really beautiful (for diving). That day more people were sick (won’t mention it again but nearly everyone was sick at some point during that week). We did have two docs with us and one of them went to the pharmacists a couple of times per day in order to help us to find out which meds we should buy….

Here are two pics of Ras Mohammed. As you can see it is just – nothing. Only desert but that is much better than all those buildings that crowd the rest of the coastline. The beauty of that area is under water (and they make you pay for that as diving there costs another 5 Euro per day).

When I took them I didn’t know that those were the last pics I would ever take with my 400D. Once arrived at the dive-site we got ready and went into the water. When we were down and I wanted to take the first pic the cam was not working and at first I didn’t know why. But then I looked into the underwater housing and saw that it was already half full of water. Sh$$$$$! I had forgotten to close a button. Closed it then but since the cam was already dead it was needless to end the dive immediately. So I continued. At first we were to dive into a small cave but I didn’t go in. Too crowded and I wasn’t sure I would panic so I stayed out of it. The first half hour of that dive wasn’t too good as we were diving in small places and there were too many divers in there.

The second dive of the day was a really beautiful one though. It is one of the best dive spots on the Sinai peninsula. We didn’t have much of a current and so we could dive peacefully. On that spot there is the wreck of a ship called Yolanda but you can’t see the Yolanda itself, the wreck is too deep. What you can see though are toiletts and bathtubs and lots of other stuff of the freight she was carrying. What we saw there were giant eels swimming around openly. Rather impressing….

In the evening most of our group decided to go into the city as we had seen those shisha bars that looked like fun. So we went to a place called ‚Beduini per caso‘. That’s italian and means ‚bedouins by accident‘. Fits for Egpyt, does it? 😉 Every half an hour a group of about 4 guys dressed as bedouins would dance. It was a fun night, we laughed till we cried. At some point in time an official looking guy with a serious face came in and the music stopped. The waiter told us that the grandson of president Mubarak had died in an accident so they had to switch off the music. Half an hour later it was on full speed on again everywhere though… When it was time to pay we continued crying but we stopped laughing. Fun was over… for the non-alcoholic drinks we didn’t have a problem as prices were moderate like everywhere else. But the guys were asked to pay about 7 Euro (10 USD) for one can of beer. In addition they had added 4 beers and 3 cokes that we never had on our tab. What followed was rather ugly. One hour discussion, threatening to call the police. The owner even said ’next time…‘ – of course we ARE coming back… yeah, dream on! It was a pity because we’ve had so much fun that night and would have come back the remaining evenings. Under these circumstances we didn’t go back of course. So the fun night ended with not so much fun. The next morning we found out that one of us who had left early because he didn’t feel well had paid even more than the 10 bucks….

The next day we went to another dive spot called the ’strait of Tiran‘. Tiran is sort of the water between Egypt and Saudi Arabia. I was sad I didn’t have a cam as you can see lots of wrecks there. It is an interesting area. while going to the dive sites the crew from my boat was fishing to for lunch there was VERY fresh tuna.

Did have two nice dives there and during lunch break some of us went snorkelling or jumped from the boat. During the first dive we met a group of divers who had a videographer with them. That guy was stupid. We saw the first turtle eating peacefully, suddenly that poor thing had a videocamera right in her face. My group continued and then we saw the next turtle. Our guide sort of posed with her. Suddenly out of nowwhere that crazy video-guy was there as well and he was pissed off that he couldn’t take pics of the turtle without people. Bad luck! *hehe*

In the evening when we got back to the hotel I decided that me without camera just doesn’t work. As there was a Canon shop close to the hotel I went there and bought a simple new point and shot. I was told afterwards that when I came back I looked like a different person… 😉

That evening we stayed at the bar of the hotel where some crazy birds in the trees literally unloaded their shit on us… 🙂