We were up bright and early, missed breakfast and were at Sinai Divers dive centre by 7.45 (keenies). We were in more than enough time to book ourselves in, get our kit sorted and have an intro to the dive centre which is a much bigger concern than Beer's dive shack in Turkey with a whole room of gear, about 3 nice shiny dive boats, showers, lots of dive instructors and even a little bar.
Our first dive was a check dive (where they review a couple of the PADI skills with you) off the beach right by the hotel with a guy called Seb from Kent. The water is so salty and buoyant I now have 10kg extra weights to carry as well as the tank etc and was pretty hot by the time we got down to the water (also vowing never to get 20 kg fatter). I then took ages to put my fins on and kept overbalancing, then one fell off and sank, then I got caught on a bit of rope while we were swimming out to deeper water. After that I was a bit freaked out and had to stay on the surface for a little while to calm down. All was ok in the end but not my finest diving moment.
Once we finally got down we did our skills (taking off, replacing and clearing masks underwater and 'losing', recovering and clearing the regulator (thing that you breathe through). Bit stressful and the über salty water kind of stingy on the eyes but good things to practise.
Then we set off around the house reef which is 3 small reefs and an area of sea grass. When you're under the water it seems like you have gone really far but in actual fact is probably only 100m or so. It was pretty amazing with more fish per m2 than in a fish shop and while you're actually on the reef it's like swimming in a giant aquarium. It is so near the beach that they seem to be quite unfazed by scuba diving tourists and we were surrounded by perky little colourful fishies all the time. We went down to 18 metres and saw two particularly amazing fish - a marbled grouper that lives in a pile of metal (from bits left after an underwater scuba practice area was destroyed in a storm) and who must be well over a metre long. We swam around him and he just sat there, with his tail sticking out. His name is George :-) We also saw a big Napoleon wrasse, which was very ugly but impressively large and quite flat from sideways on, with a huge hump on its forehead. The loveliest were the little colourful ones though.
We decided to follow today's dive with another guided shore dive rather then upgrading to a boat dive straight away so I could get a bit more confident and that was fine by me. We decided to have the afternoon off and do it tomorrow, so went for a potter up and down the Na'ama Bay strip, checking out the competition and then having got quite hot went to lie on the beach that belongs to the hotel. By this point we both had headaches and it was nice to just have a little lie down. I even dozed off, and Paul took some photos. We went back to the hotel to move rooms (to a cute little bungalow not in the main hotel building which has a double bed and is really nice like we have our own chalet).
I flaked out a bit and had a nap. We figured both our headaches could be from dehydration so we drank as much water as we could and I took some painkillers and eventually we both felt a bit perkier and had a drink in the hotel bar followed by a more successful dinner then yesterday's - we went to Tam Tam's which sells Egyptian food and had lamb shanks with grilled veg. I tried the local (only option) wine yesterday, unfortunately during happy hour so I had to drink 2 glasses of it. Today I just stuck to water. We got to see some crazy Egyptian fire eating and a cape-whirling dance on the way down to the seafront as well as an impressively wiggly belly dancer while we were eating our dinner. Feeling a lot better now and ready to try another dive in the bay.
Our first dive was a check dive (where they review a couple of the PADI skills with you) off the beach right by the hotel with a guy called Seb from Kent. The water is so salty and buoyant I now have 10kg extra weights to carry as well as the tank etc and was pretty hot by the time we got down to the water (also vowing never to get 20 kg fatter). I then took ages to put my fins on and kept overbalancing, then one fell off and sank, then I got caught on a bit of rope while we were swimming out to deeper water. After that I was a bit freaked out and had to stay on the surface for a little while to calm down. All was ok in the end but not my finest diving moment.
Once we finally got down we did our skills (taking off, replacing and clearing masks underwater and 'losing', recovering and clearing the regulator (thing that you breathe through). Bit stressful and the über salty water kind of stingy on the eyes but good things to practise.
Then we set off around the house reef which is 3 small reefs and an area of sea grass. When you're under the water it seems like you have gone really far but in actual fact is probably only 100m or so. It was pretty amazing with more fish per m2 than in a fish shop and while you're actually on the reef it's like swimming in a giant aquarium. It is so near the beach that they seem to be quite unfazed by scuba diving tourists and we were surrounded by perky little colourful fishies all the time. We went down to 18 metres and saw two particularly amazing fish - a marbled grouper that lives in a pile of metal (from bits left after an underwater scuba practice area was destroyed in a storm) and who must be well over a metre long. We swam around him and he just sat there, with his tail sticking out. His name is George :-) We also saw a big Napoleon wrasse, which was very ugly but impressively large and quite flat from sideways on, with a huge hump on its forehead. The loveliest were the little colourful ones though.
We decided to follow today's dive with another guided shore dive rather then upgrading to a boat dive straight away so I could get a bit more confident and that was fine by me. We decided to have the afternoon off and do it tomorrow, so went for a potter up and down the Na'ama Bay strip, checking out the competition and then having got quite hot went to lie on the beach that belongs to the hotel. By this point we both had headaches and it was nice to just have a little lie down. I even dozed off, and Paul took some photos. We went back to the hotel to move rooms (to a cute little bungalow not in the main hotel building which has a double bed and is really nice like we have our own chalet).
I flaked out a bit and had a nap. We figured both our headaches could be from dehydration so we drank as much water as we could and I took some painkillers and eventually we both felt a bit perkier and had a drink in the hotel bar followed by a more successful dinner then yesterday's - we went to Tam Tam's which sells Egyptian food and had lamb shanks with grilled veg. I tried the local (only option) wine yesterday, unfortunately during happy hour so I had to drink 2 glasses of it. Today I just stuck to water. We got to see some crazy Egyptian fire eating and a cape-whirling dance on the way down to the seafront as well as an impressively wiggly belly dancer while we were eating our dinner. Feeling a lot better now and ready to try another dive in the bay.
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