A Dive

Wednesday 24^th April 2013

            Another day, another dive. The weather is in charge of site selection, so we don’t know where we are going until we get there. It doesn’t matter really, this is the Red Sea, and it always has something good to offer, warm water, and an abundance of underwater life to marvel at. Liz and I have logged hundreds of dives in this part of the world, and still bowled over at the insane goings on below the surface. Today’s choice turns out to be Turf Le Shaed, Arabic, we are told, for “Between the Mountains.” I’ve tried looking it up on Google, but all I find are components for lawns, or restaurant offering plates of steak and prawns. It must have another name, Small Giftun we think.

We’d just put our wet suits on, when the shout went up, “Dolphin, Dolphin.” Everyone dashed starboard; the boat ignoring this impetuosity, remained steadfastly uncapsized. We scoured the water between the boat and the ankle deep coral reef less than two hundred yards distant. There they were, two glistening dark grey shapes just breaking surface, they were there, and they were gone, Dolphins because they couldn’t have been anything else, but all we saw was a distant glimpse of dorsal fins on arched backs. We completed our preparations as quickly as we could; as I was making my way to the stern I realised I’d forgotten to turn my air on. We spent several futile minutes searching a featureless seabed, between coral outcrops,  for another sighting. Never mind, we are Egyptian residents, and now we know there are porpoises in these waters can look forward to more encounters. For the rest of dive we pottered about half hoping to see them again, staying away from the reef and using the time to practice our camera technique, note to self, kicking up sand does not improve picture quality.

We passed a coral outcrop, activity central, with bright yellow-saddle goatfish, bandcheek wrasse and a grey moray eel waltzing randomly in and out of the rocks, and when startled the whole ensemble moved in formation away from the threat. 

 

After lunch, the boat moved, not far, about ten minutes or so to Shaab Sabina, a site that is on the maps, and a drift dive. “You will have to jump off a moving boat” they told us which sounded like fun, but in the event the ship slowed to a crawl, doubtless good seamanship, you don’t want your divters scattered over a few hundred yards of ocean, but not the half hoped for daring deed. The last time we did this was off a liveaboard, at a drift nicknamed “The Washing Machine,” an inexact handle in my opinion; I felt more like a ping-pong ball in a high-pressure fire hose. We had to do some kicking on this shallow dive, max, 10.7 meters and we drifted slowly past walls of purple, orange, pink and yellow coral teeming with life and through watery sunbeams and dramatically lit fans of ochre reef. This is why we love diving, why it is as addictive as any pharmaceutical and why we now live in Hurghada.

 

I found a red eye hiding in some coral, and shoals of dazzlingly orange bright scalefins darting over the rocks. The underwater seascape was lit with an ethereal clear water, bright sunlight radiance thta gives objects a floating in a zero-gravity nothingness look.

A sedentary speckled sand perch kindly remained on station long enough for me to get a few shots. Usually, these well-camouflaged bottom dwellers scurry off long before the autofocus has locked on. I managed a just not sharp enough snap of an
habitually shy Picasso Fish. Dark brown sail-fin surgeon-fish lazed past, generous enough with their time to allow for some decent portrait work. I seem to be having a problem with lens flare, perhaps I need to be more diligent with the pre-dive cleaning regime, and/or change the position of the flash. A parrotfish teased me with its presence, affording an opportunity to record just one out of focus and one uninspiring overhead shot before it scurried off to do something more important. Back at the boat, we waited on the bottom for the ladder to clear. Someone tapped Liz on the shoulder, and gestured to a nearby rock. For a few moments we couldn’t see what had excited him, then spotted it, a stonefish basking in the open, doubtless banking on its reputation to stave off ambush. We managed a reasonable picture. My strobe, an Inon, bleached out a few images though. It is a complex piece of kit that doesn’t have an instruction manual and I am trying to remember how to use it all over again. It was a relaxing sun blushed half hour back to the dive centre across the Red Sea, a faultless vibrant aqua blue, with the sandy buff of the desert in the distance, as perfect a piece of exterior design as you are ever likely to encounter.

Hurghada 10, Blighty 0.