2006.05.26_Dahab

In the afternoon HC and I went to a diving site called "Islands" for snorkeling. The reefs there were again beautiful and sea life abundant. I swam out to the coral mounts, where I had to pass through a deeper section of open sea. The coral mounts were spectacular, and I thought that they must be what the locals refer to as the underwater "islands".

After the "Islands", HC and I went to the southern tip of Dahab to do more snorkel. There was not much corals in the area, and the water was a lot deeper and as a result colder, despite it was 40 to 45 degrees Celsius above the water. In order to reach the south beaches, we got to walk along a seaside boardwalk and passed by dozens of resort complexes facing the sea. It must be the bombing. All the resorts were extremely quiet. We could only see the local staff killing time with card games and gossips in the shade. We went into one of the complexes and asked for washroom. A staff led us into a resort room to use the toilet. It seemed to me that the entire hotel complex (with at least 50 resort suites) was completely empty. And I got the feeling that it was pretty much the same for all the resorts in the area.

In the evening HC and I returned to Bishibishi for dinner and a brief rest before leaving for our adventure to Mount Sinai. AK didn't go with us. Because of her dives she would not be able to ascend to a high altitude within short period of time.

2006.05.26_Dahab

I decided to do a whole day of snorkeling. I rented the snorkel and flippers at Big Blue, and followed AK and her Italian instructor to Eel Garden. HC decided to do another introductory dive. Along with us there was also an Italian woman, in her early forties, traveling alone with her Dachshund dog. She came from Rome, had worked in a hospital in Trastevere, where I stayed for 4 months for my architectural study in 2002.

I snorkeled in some lagoons at Eel Garden. Apparently the reefs around Dahab is far better than the ones at Aqaba. I snorkeled at areas of around 3-5m deep, and saw uncounted colourful sea life including all kinds of fish, sea urchins, and of course, coral of various colours.

In midday we returned to Big Blue for lunch. While we ate a black cat appeared in the dinning tent. It suddenly jumped towards the Dachshund dog and scratched the dog on its face and nose. The dog screamed and scared to death as David, the diving instructor drove the cat away with a tea pot.

2006.05.25_Aqaba

View of Aqaba from hotel window

After we get up we immediately hired a taxi returning to Royal Diving Centre for our refund. The staff there tried to avoid us again. We refused to leave and at last a manager came out with a big smile and agreed to pay us back the admission. Then the taxi took us to the passenger ferry terminal and arrived at the gate at about 09:30. It took us over an hour to go through the customs and deal with the departure tax. At last we were told to board a shuttle bus. The bus drove up slowly into an entrance at the back of the ferry.

Once on board, we found the Egyptian custom officer to stamp our passport. The ferry didn't leave the dock until way over 11:30, over two hours since we got to the terminal. The ferry sailed southwest towards Egypt. We could see the shore of Saudi Arabia to the east. At around 14:30 the ferry arrived at the Egyptian port at Nuweiba. The port was quite chaotic, and that was our first impression on Egypt. At the minbus / service taxi station we met three Australians. The six of us hired a minivan for our destination Dahab, a backpacker seaside resort town at the Egyptian side of Gulf of Aqaba.

The van took us to the bus station at Dahab. The town seemed to me a little quiet, probably because of the recent terrorist bombing on April 24th. The town looked to me very young and relaxing, without the conventional and cheesy type of honeymoon atmosphere. At the station we met Alex, a staff from Bishibishi Garden Village. He led us to Bishibishi, a relatively new hotel establishment in Dahab. We don't usually trust these kinds of sales, but once we arrived at Bishibishi and met Jimmy the owner, we decided to stay at one of their air conditioned triple room. It turned out to be a good choice. AK decided to take a night dive. Jimmy took us all to Big Blue Diving Centre. While AK stayed for the dive, HC and I returned to Bishibishi for dinner. After dinner, we strolled around the town, dropped by an internet cafe, and bought another disposable underwater camera for the next day.

2006.05.24_Aqaba

In the morning we took the shuttle bus from Crystal Hotel to Royal Diving Centre. At the door we paid 10 JD for admission. A staff inside persuaded us to dive. As an experienced diver, AK immediately went for her dives. HC and I agreed to do the introductory scuba dive at 11:00. The sea in front of the diving centre wasn't the calmest, but we thought we would give it a try. The instructor gave us a short briefing about the equipment, and told us to put on the diving suit. We followed him out to the boardwalk to get into the water. The sea was cold, and I didn't get the way of using my mouth to breathe in the waves. After some minutes in the water I still couldn't learn to breathe through my mouth. At the end, I returned to the boardwalk. HC overcame the challenge and went down with the instructor to a deeper dive.

In the afternoon HC and I went for snorkeling. With the snorkel, I learnt how to breathe through my mouth, and gradually I could enjoy the world under the water. Each of us had a disposable underwater camera and we saw some nice reefs, not extremely spectacular, but we did see a lot of colourful fish. We snorkeled for a few hours and returned to the diving centre and found AK had done with her dives already. Upon leaving we tried to get the refund of the entrance fee. The policy was that whoever dives at the centre does not need to pay admission. The staff hesitated for a while and told us that the cashier was closed for the day. We had no choice but decided to return the next morning. At night we had dinner at Pizza Hut, and did a little shopping at a sneaker shop.