We made it down to breakfast this morning. It's the kind of buffet type one, with an omelette slave, bread, pancakes etc. As they don't eat pork here there is no bacon but some slightly weird smoked turkey alternative. Anyway we had omelettes and bread and some very strong nescafe.
Our first dive was with a small smiley Columbian lady called Anna-María along with another girl who had to do her check dive. It was still hard work walking down to the beach but I leant on Paul to put the fins on and it wasn't so bad. The dive was better too because I was more relaxed, I used the air up more slowly and didn't make a disgrace of myself :-) We followed the same route as yesterday and saw lots of the same things, but I was looking at them more closely because I wasn't worrying so much about the technical things.
George was in his usual lair and today Paul took the go pro along (tiny little camera for filming and stills which has a waterproof casing so you can use it underwater) and took a video of him (and everything else). Red light gets adsorbed by the water first so all the footage is very blue. You can't see red things with your eyes either but they do seem to adapt better and see more colours than the camera can. As well as George we saw blue spotted rays and a baby spotted eagle ray which was flying along like a bird. It was so relaxed it stopped for a little snack in the sand. There was a crocodilefish too (big flat ugly fish lying on the bottom with big bitey jaws) and a cute bird wrasse with a pointy nose like a beak.
We also saw a boxfish (above) and a pair of anemonefish (like nemo) in their nest where they were guarding their eggs. One swam out all ready to attack Anna-María.
Anna-María declared me fit to dive off the boat so after a tasty kebab lunch (much nicer than the calamari) we joined Ghazala V which is one of Sinai Divers' fleet of dive boats.
They presumably must have at least 5 as well as lots of minibuses taking people to and from the jetty along with little vans to take their gear. We had to pack everything in our boxes in a certain neat order and leave it out the back next to the Ghazala V sign so the van took it to the right place. We went in a minibus which must have taken about 15 mins to do a 5 minute walk up the promenade, going the opposite direction then having to double back at 'U-turn' signs and stopping every few metres at a speed bump or security check.
Downstairs on the boat is an area for putting diving gear on, 2 loos with little showers and a covered room with tables in and upstairs is a seating area at the front where the driver sits and a nice lounging area at the back covered with pretend grass. We got ready then lounged around while we drove out to Near Garden which is just around the corner from Na'ama Bay. We had a briefing where our guide Dave showed us where everything was, how deep we would go, that we had to tell them with hand signals when we had 100 and then 60 bars left in our tanks, and whose groups we would be in. Paul and I were lead by a Belgian lady called Isa.
To start we had to get completely ready then take a 'giant stride' (like a john cleese walk) off the back of the boat. I had only ever done that once in Turkey into the swimming pool so it was a bit scary, and according to Paul, not giant enough, but fortunately my tank didn't hit the side so all was well.
We went down to about 20m and had another nice long dive of 47 mins. There was much nicer coral than on the house reef, including some gorgonian fans (big flat corals across the current like the network of veins in a leaf or the branches in a tree) and a massive lettuce coral, which is bright green and round like a huge 2 metre wide lettuce. Lots of little fish hide in the crinkles and folds on the surface.
On one of the bits of coral was a grouper (big fish that eats other fish -like George but much smaller) who was surrounded by little glassfish. He was chasing other predators away from them. Apparently when they have babies he will eat all the adults and let the babies grow up for the next round. We swam through a shoal of blue triggerfish, they have quite long fins like little wings and swam all around us. They can hurt you if you touch them, they have a kind of blade in their dorsal fin that they can shoot up like a trigger, but we just swam gently and they swam around us and were very pretty.
We saw lots of reef fish as normal, my favourites are butterflyfish and parrotfish which are both brightly coloured. On the way back we swam through a narrow channel, and had to be careful to control our buoyancy so we didn't hit the sides. Paul was behind me and was videoing and glad to say I didn't touch the edges at all :-) we were meant to be looking out for hatchetfish which you hardly ever see scuba diving because they live in caves, but I was so busy concentrating I didn't see them.
We had to climb up special open ended steps to get back on the boat wearing our find which was quite tricky. Fortunately there are guys on the boat who help pull the fins off or help you into your suit. We lay in the sun and warmed up for a bit and cruised back to the jetty. We booked for a whole day on the boat tomorrow.
In the evening we tried out an Italian restaurant which was pretty good. Paul very bravely opted for calamari, but not before checking how it came (in little fried rings like it does normally). Even so the squid they had used was clearly much bigger than the ones they have in Italy. I had sea bass, which had a very tasty sauce, but both the dinners were a bit mushy for no obvious reason (better than rubbery). We watched the sopranos on Paul's laptop in bed but I dozed off.
Our first dive was with a small smiley Columbian lady called Anna-María along with another girl who had to do her check dive. It was still hard work walking down to the beach but I leant on Paul to put the fins on and it wasn't so bad. The dive was better too because I was more relaxed, I used the air up more slowly and didn't make a disgrace of myself :-) We followed the same route as yesterday and saw lots of the same things, but I was looking at them more closely because I wasn't worrying so much about the technical things.
George was in his usual lair and today Paul took the go pro along (tiny little camera for filming and stills which has a waterproof casing so you can use it underwater) and took a video of him (and everything else). Red light gets adsorbed by the water first so all the footage is very blue. You can't see red things with your eyes either but they do seem to adapt better and see more colours than the camera can. As well as George we saw blue spotted rays and a baby spotted eagle ray which was flying along like a bird. It was so relaxed it stopped for a little snack in the sand. There was a crocodilefish too (big flat ugly fish lying on the bottom with big bitey jaws) and a cute bird wrasse with a pointy nose like a beak.
We also saw a boxfish (above) and a pair of anemonefish (like nemo) in their nest where they were guarding their eggs. One swam out all ready to attack Anna-María.
Anna-María declared me fit to dive off the boat so after a tasty kebab lunch (much nicer than the calamari) we joined Ghazala V which is one of Sinai Divers' fleet of dive boats.
They presumably must have at least 5 as well as lots of minibuses taking people to and from the jetty along with little vans to take their gear. We had to pack everything in our boxes in a certain neat order and leave it out the back next to the Ghazala V sign so the van took it to the right place. We went in a minibus which must have taken about 15 mins to do a 5 minute walk up the promenade, going the opposite direction then having to double back at 'U-turn' signs and stopping every few metres at a speed bump or security check.
Downstairs on the boat is an area for putting diving gear on, 2 loos with little showers and a covered room with tables in and upstairs is a seating area at the front where the driver sits and a nice lounging area at the back covered with pretend grass. We got ready then lounged around while we drove out to Near Garden which is just around the corner from Na'ama Bay. We had a briefing where our guide Dave showed us where everything was, how deep we would go, that we had to tell them with hand signals when we had 100 and then 60 bars left in our tanks, and whose groups we would be in. Paul and I were lead by a Belgian lady called Isa.
To start we had to get completely ready then take a 'giant stride' (like a john cleese walk) off the back of the boat. I had only ever done that once in Turkey into the swimming pool so it was a bit scary, and according to Paul, not giant enough, but fortunately my tank didn't hit the side so all was well.
We went down to about 20m and had another nice long dive of 47 mins. There was much nicer coral than on the house reef, including some gorgonian fans (big flat corals across the current like the network of veins in a leaf or the branches in a tree) and a massive lettuce coral, which is bright green and round like a huge 2 metre wide lettuce. Lots of little fish hide in the crinkles and folds on the surface.
On one of the bits of coral was a grouper (big fish that eats other fish -like George but much smaller) who was surrounded by little glassfish. He was chasing other predators away from them. Apparently when they have babies he will eat all the adults and let the babies grow up for the next round. We swam through a shoal of blue triggerfish, they have quite long fins like little wings and swam all around us. They can hurt you if you touch them, they have a kind of blade in their dorsal fin that they can shoot up like a trigger, but we just swam gently and they swam around us and were very pretty.
We had to climb up special open ended steps to get back on the boat wearing our find which was quite tricky. Fortunately there are guys on the boat who help pull the fins off or help you into your suit. We lay in the sun and warmed up for a bit and cruised back to the jetty. We booked for a whole day on the boat tomorrow.
In the evening we tried out an Italian restaurant which was pretty good. Paul very bravely opted for calamari, but not before checking how it came (in little fried rings like it does normally). Even so the squid they had used was clearly much bigger than the ones they have in Italy. I had sea bass, which had a very tasty sauce, but both the dinners were a bit mushy for no obvious reason (better than rubbery). We watched the sopranos on Paul's laptop in bed but I dozed off.
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