Saturday February 28, 2009: Departure to Marsa Alam
We were having a lot of stress the last couple of weeks. Timo had already two days off, but he was working on his birthday and also on Friday. At work there was an implementation of a change, so he had to be there. Eef worked on Thursday and on Friday she had a day off already. Cool. Friday evening we could have dinner with Roel, Ann and Aagje: mussels with fries and andalouse sauce. Eef brought several jars and divided them. On Saturday the day arrives that we can go to the sun. We had little sun in Costa Rica, so we chose Egypt now. It will be chilly in the night, but during the day they already have temperatures of about 25 degrees and that is OK for
us.
Cold in Belgium, warm on vacation. We wake up at 03:50 because we booked a charter flight, so a flight very early. We already had packed everything; still a few small things to do and then we’re ready. Maurits picks us up at 04:30 and we leave to Zaventem. Thanks Maurits to pick us up so early and to drive us there. We check in, immediately are OK with everything and go for breakfast. We have a sandwich with cheese and ham and two coffees. We eat and drink and then at about 6 we pass the customs check and move on to gate B32. This time they hold Eef, that’s difference because normally it’s Timo who needs to be searched. The zipper on her new vest is causing the problems. We go to the gate, wait for about half an hour and can start boarding at 06:35. We have almost the last seats and have a good place, ten rows behind a child who is weeping all the time. It takes about 4.5 hours to get to Marsa Alam. We flew over Stuttgart, the coast of Croatia (and we don’t see anything) and then we clearly see Santorini: a beautiful sight with all the huge rocks and white houses. At the end of the flight we fly over the Nile, a green oasis surrounded with desert, it’s something special. Then they make it a last bumpy 30 minutes because the airplane shivers and shakes when we start to land. The landing itself is not a good one.
We reach the tarmac unhurt and wait a few moments until we can get a transfer to the airport building. It’s nice and warm in the sun; of course we have our warm vests with us from this morning. We pass customs for a visa of 15 USD and then pass immigration. Everything is very quick and we already see our bags come from the plane. Everything goes perfect, we almost don’t need to wait. We are welcomed very friendly outside the airport and need to get on bus 4 for Hotel Marina Lodge. First an Egyptian bills us 15 USD for the visa and guess what, that is typically Egyptian: it costs 15 USD and he needs 18 Euro or 28 Dollar. They are profiteers and abuse tourists. The people from Sunjets will hear this when they ask us for our opinion on the vacation. Actually this is outrageous. Even more important: he does not accept two coins of 50 cents, because he will not be able to do anything with that. Timo is a bit angry and tells him he needs to look for someone who wants to change it in 1 Euro coins. Eef does it in his stead. And then
we can leave with the bus to Port Ghalib, Marina Lodge. Within 15 minutes we’re there and we drive through a very dry desert and then reach the Red Sea. Our first impression is OK. We check in, have all in, so we can immediately drink and eat something. At the Indigo restaurant we take a salad and some pasta and hot vegetables. We drink a whole bottle of water, because on the plane we did not have any food or drinks. We were too stubborn to ask for water and to pay for it. After lunch we unpack our things, give everything a place in the room: a spacious room with two beds, shower, TV, balcony with a view on the garden and it all looks very nice. Then it’s time for action: arrangements for the diving. We take our logbooks, vouchers, copies of our passports and we need to fill out a bunch of things for insurance and others. We also decide to take extra excursions to Elphinstone and Abu Dabbab. We try on our BCD’s and wetsuits and then have a drink. In the sun it’s nice and warm and we enjoy the last sun of the day, because at 17:45 it’s getting dark. We drink one Sakara and take a second one to our balcony. There we drink something, write the diary and when that’s done it’s time for dinner and we walk to restaurant Indigo to eat. We already feel it’s not going to be late today.
We especially drink Sakara, Egyptian lager, not too much, because it’s our first dive tomorrow, so not too much alcohol. We drink water with it and take it with us for tomorrow. We have a soup, then main dish and after that a bit of everything: beef stew, pasta hot and cold vegetables. Then Timo takes a piece of pizza for Eef with tomato and calamari, pizza is good, calamari are not. We don’t make it late and go to bed on time. At 20:30 we’re back in our room and after an hour we sleep, sweet dreams for the tomorrow dives.
Sunday March 1, 2009: Two dives at Marsa Mubarak
The alarm of the mobile phone wakes us up at 06:45. We have slept all night, were woken up a few times only, but went to sleep immediately thereafter. We have breakfast in the restaurant, very good, but we can’t take a lot with us for lunch on the boat today. Timo takes three biscuits and two small bottles of water, because big bottles were not included in all-in formula, strange, but true. We return to our room to get prepared for the diving today; we need to be there at eight. There is the appointment to take the boat Rachel. We arrive on time, get on the boat and everyone starts to prepare his gear and everyone is also ready before we are, although we were first on the boat. We arrange the weight belts, then bottle and BCD. For Timo it works out fine, but Eef has some trouble. The first tank is empty, so we take a second one, and that
one is empty too. That is almost impossible so Eef returns to the diving center and asks for a different inflator. Now it works fine and the third time is the good one.
Now the boat can start and we arrive after about twenty minutes at Marsa Mubarak. A diving spot not far south of Port Ghalib. We sail out of the harbor and it is a bit bumpy, the boat wiggles like it is a match. Then it gets better and we move on to our first diving spot. They divide us in two different groups, Eef and Timo are buddy-team anyway and also part of the second group. After the first group we get ready and enter the water. At first we need to get used a bit to the circumstances; the first dive on vacation is always a bit different. We dive with the reef at our left side and immediately see many fish. It is just like Taba, only we see different species here, but the general impression is overwhelming: the beautiful coral, the beautiful colors of the fish and the number of fish. We take pictures at a hundred per hour and then reach pinnacles. We swim round them and see some emperor fish, Timo spots a blue spotted stingray and Eef can make some good pictures of it. It seems she getting the feel and hang of taking pictures under water. It will be good once she’ll get addicted. We turn at the pinnacles, because some people already have 120 bar and that was agreed during briefing.
We now have the reef at our right hand side and swim a bit higher back to the direction of the boat. We another kind of ray and again Eef can take some good pictures. The most important things we see are many damselfish, clownfish, different species of groupers, pipefish, it is too much to list all species here. At the end we’ll provide a list of all species we saw this vacation. We arrive under the boat and everyone directly goes up, except Eef, Timo, and the instructor Mo and a British lady. Apparently we still have enough air and we stay at depth of five meters and we like it a lot. Timo was a bit nervous for his first dive, but our buoyancy was OK and also the air consumption. We come to the surface after 50 minutes and come on the boat as the last ones. We dry ourselves and prepare for the second dive and try to dry our gear as much as possible. We did not order any lunch for Timo this morning, only for Eef, so we eat something, Timo the biscuits he took and Eef normal lunch, very tasty, but way too much. Timo only drinks water. At 13:30 we get the next briefing: we take the same route for a few minutes to the large pinnacles, that brings us over sea grass and the we return to an “ugly, small rock” and then return to the reef and the boat. Before we reach the rock and see turtles from a distance and then reach the rock. There are a lot of damselfish, some coralfish, two stonefish and many lionfish. Then we return to the main reef and the boat and start our three-minute stop. We see our first remoras and life here is great. We do the stop while we see many fish and take pictures. Eef goes a bit deeper again to see an octopus and then does the safety stop and Timo is waiting for her on the surface.
We come 
to the boat and are almost ready, when a dugong swims by. He or she even comes to the surface. The crew takes a few people on the zodiac to take some pictures when snorkeling; amongst them there is Eef. They follow the animal a long time and they now know it’s a young female. Eef takes pictures while Timo waits what they will be like. He did not join, because he already had his wetsuit off and he was thinking: this animal will leave immediately anyway. After half an hour everyone return and especially Eef is full of this happening. She can’t stop talking about it, Timo is a bit jealous and she shows the pictures to everyone who wants to see them. We sail back to the harbor of Port Ghalib and leave our gear on the boat, because we’re diving from Rachel again tomorrow. We go directly to our room, take a shower and save the pictures to the laptop and then go for a drink at the bar. We then take the pictures to Mo, our instructor, because he wants to make in inventory of al the dugongs here. Our Dutch friend, Anthony, who we got to know on the boat, also comes and check on the pictures and later a few British people, who were there when Eef was snorkeling with the dugong. We have another drink and then go to grab a bite. We take a salad, and drink a beer with lots of water, and even take some for tomorrow. After the appetizer we have a main course, of the buffet and as last thing Timo takes a dessert of pork with mushroom sauce, which actually is onion sauce. Eef has a chocolate pie for dessert. Then it’s time to go back to our room. At the last moment we remember to burn a candle; we almost forgot. Timo finishes a futuristic movie and Eef sleeps. It’s not late, because at 23:00 Timo puts out the light and goes to sleep.
Monday March 2, 2009: Two dives at Marsa Shouni Kebir
The alarm wakes us up at 06:50 and we have a little trouble getting out of bed. Timo was snoring and kept Eef awake and Timo had a bad night, because he was dreaming about Cartouche, the poor dog was left in Belgium again, about boats that leave without us and all different strange things. Eventually we get out and go
for breakfast. The same buffet as the previous day, as expected, but now we take something different. Cheese, ham, bread, cornflakes, water to take away on the boat. Back in our room we brush our teeth and then walk to the boat. It is very convenient that the diving school is right at the hotel: we only need to walk two minutes to get from room to where the boats are. We ensure that we’re on the correct one, Rachel again, and start preparing our gear. Today we manage a bit better than yesterday, because we’re the first ones to go to the sundeck. Jippie.
The boat can leave soon to our first dive spot: Marsa Shouni Kebir; this is the bay of the big market, marsa means bay, shouni is market and kebir is big, in this way we also learn Arab. Our instructor gives the briefing after a ride of about 45 minutes and then we can enter the water. Nobody wants to do a third dive, except one person who is following training. He was left in the water already for a drift dive, that’s cool too. Everything is arranged very well here, no comments on that. Timo spots a turtle coming up for air, well done. When everyone is ready, we can start the dive: Eef and Timo go into the water first and need to wait for about ten minutes until everyone is there. Then we actually start. We go down very calmly and immediately spot a crocodile fish. Timo sees it and the instructor points it out to the rest of the group. That’s easy money. We dive with the reef at our left side and don’t go deeper than 21 meters until we reach a plateau of sand and grass. One person in the group had problems going under and to equalize and was panicking a bit, so she went up again. We had been waiting for eight minutes at 16 meters until everyone was there, but one person did not show up, so we go without her.
We reach the sand and there it’s time to turn around and go a little bit shallower, to make sure everyone can reach the boat without problems. No problem there and we see at less
er depth a whole variety of fish; it’s a beautiful scenery of shapes and colors and many different species. Many anthias, loads of damselfish, orangespine unicornfish, parrotfish, butterflyfish, actually way too much to mention. But we have fun like hell. The big advantage is that we keep the actual colors. We see a bighorn nembrotha, a sea slug, a beautiful animal. Also worth to mention is the big moray eel and the very beautiful clownfish. We’re doing a wall dive both ways and at the end we see some batfish.
After almost an hour we reach the boat again and then we come out of the water and quickly prepare for the second dive and then rest for a whole while. We don’t have lunch, because we brought our own food and drinks. We enjoy the sun and the shade and at about 13:00 we need to get completely ready for the second dive. Tarik, our instructor, asks if we prefer to dive by ourselves, but we won’t and will just be following the group. Now we follow the reef at our right side to a depth of 12 meters, we start at 17 and then swim over grass and then to a few pinnacles and then back to the reef a bit shallower and a very long five-meter stop. Everything is nice, the reef is beautiful, many corals, the same as the previous dive, many small fish, but also many different species. We think it’s great again; it is almost like an aquarium, but one where you can swim in-between the fish. We cross the grass, see a puffer fish eating from the sea grass, but we don’t see a sea turtle. That would have been nice. No luck today. We see sea wasps flying over the grass. Later we hear these are dangerous animals. We rise back to seven meters and see a tuna fish in the distance. A very large
one, but from a distance away. Then suddenly Eef shouts there is something to see. We go down again to 11-12 meters and can take a few beautiful pictures of a hawksbill turtle. Yes the purpose of the vacation is reached. We wanted some nice pictures of a turtle and of stingrays. We again go a bit shallower and have our safety stop for the second time.
Back on the boat we put everything ready to leave, today no goodbye from a dugong, but we saw a turtle and that’s nice too. Tarik says we can go to Abu Dabbab tomorrow and we need to unload our gear and give then to the crew, when we arrive at Port Ghalib: they will take care for the rest. Cool. We have a shower, a beer, create an inventory of the animals we saw and write the diary. At 17:30 it turns chilly; it’s still winter here, so we don’t stay outside too long and rink another beer inside. In the evening we’ll be able t do karaoke, so we won’t stay here. We have dinner, drink water and beer and then return to our room. We stop at the bar for two Stella and watch CSI with Arab subtitles and at about 21:00 we go to sleep.
Tuesday March 3, 2009: Two dives at Marsa Abu Dabbab
Same drill in the morning, alarm at 06:50, prepare for breakfast, Eef has the opportunity to eat pancakes and Timo has some vegetables and cheese and ham. After breakfast we take all our gear for diving and go to the desk of Emperor Divers it’s very close, that’s nice. Tarik is waiting for us outside and asks if we need lunch, because that is included anyway. So we order pizza and Greek salad for lunch. It’s not a lot and not too heavy, because Timo always has trouble with his stomach when diving.
Hanneke and Remco, the dust makers are also there and we can leave with a small van. There is one stop to pick up Rachel at the hotel next door and then we go. Through the dessert and after half an hour we arrive at a beautiful bay, if the parasols and sun beds would not be there. With the protection of a roof we prepare the gear, it was brought previously to the beach and they didn’t miss anything. We are done quite fast and get a tour, toilet, restaurant, beach and then a short briefing. The first dive will be over grass and will only be 10 to 11 meters and then we turn back and arrive at 4 meters back at the main reef and follow that till we reach two meters and then can come up. That’s the plan and now we prepare completely and then dive. We are ready about ten minutes later and enter the water at 10:30.
We dive after one another, first Tarik and Rachel, then the two Dutch people, then us and hopefully we get to see a turtle. We’re di
ving only for five minutes and see our first turtle already, great; here we only see green turtles, but about 30 different animals. In reality the number is eleven animals and about eight different ones: a little bit exaggerated. We swim almost from one turtle to the next and suddenly Tarik is gone in a long sprint under water. He spotted a dugong, great; now Timo can also see this animal under water. Some remoras follow him and a few pilot fish too, we can’t find which species they are in our book. We’ll check that later on the internet. We then swim again from one turtle to the next. Our mission is accomplished, we saw a turtle. We finish our dive along the reef and reach our maximum dive time: 66 minutes, cool. We were not deeper than 11 meters, but still very good. At the end we see a big school of Indian mackerel and Tarik points us to a spotted snake-eel. Another species we saw. This is just great!
After our first dive we prepare everything for the next one and have lunch. We take water from the dive center and have a Greek salad and pizza margarita. It tastes very good, but Timo does not eat a lot. During the first dive he felt in his stomach the sausages and peppers from this morning at breakfast. We drink plenty of water, don’t eat too much and lie in the shadow on the beach. We will have gained color when we return to Belgium, but we must take care we will not get sun burnt. At 13:30 we start our second dive. Again we walk in the water and we will be diving the other way around from this morning. At first along the reef fro
m the right side and then a short distance over the grass and then back to the reef and dive shallow.
When we start we see immediately loads of small fishes over the reef: some bluespotted stingrays, anthias, butterfly fish of different kinds and unicornfish. It is very beautiful, but the visibility is troubled by the divers in front of us and by the current. After 25 minutes we turn 90 degrees to the left and dive to the sea grass. Here we spot again many turtles, see one go up to the surface and come down again, a beautiful view. We don’t see a dugong anymore, bad luck, but you can’t have them all. Eef and Timo swim last and have poor visibility because of the mud crawlers in front of them. Good luck for them they can spot some fish from time to time, a panther flounder, a goby with a shrimp and some smaller sea animals on the bottom of the sea. A hermit crab has found a very big turning shell and drags it over the sand. We see a small shrimp with a whole bunch of little fish with white stripes on little round bullets, of which we think they’re eggs. We return to the reef, stay a bit beh
ind the group; otherwise we don’t see a thing. A very nice dive, also about one hour and we came out of the water with 80 and 100 bar, that’s very good, especially for Timo. Well done. We sort everything and our gear will be transported with a little pickup and we can return with a small van to the hotel. We take a quick shower and then go to drink a beer. We sit in a niche where there is only sun and no wind, write the logbooks and the diary, Timo get the wetsuits and hangs them to dry on Amy, so they’ll be dry by tomorrow morning. We move to the roof terrace Viz and create a list of all species we saw. In the meantime it’s already a long list.
It’s still too early for dinner, so we rest in our room and then go to the restaurant Indigo. Today we have barbeque, so we have a lamb sausage and a piece of liver, very good, but not to Eef. We drink a beer and a glass of white wine, that’s something else compared to beer all the time. We start with a salad and then there is buffet and we go two times to the barbeque. It’s very good and then it’s time to go to bed. It’s only 20:00, but diving is very tiring and at 21:00 we fall asleep. Tomorrow a day of a local dive and then the next day hopefully to Elphinstone.
Wednesday March 4, 2009: Our next two dives on Marsa Shouni Soraya
Get up, have breakfast, same drill as before. We make sure everything is ready and go to the boat Amy, not Rachel or the car, today we sail with Amy. We have relatively ma
ny people on board, 20 divers and 4 snorkelers, two adults and their two children. When the children board one of the divers makes a good remark: nice, shark bait! The parents are very quiet from that moment on, you could say they understood it. It takes a long time before we leave the harbor, but once we are on the road, it’s always nice. We talk to other divers and enjoy the atmosphere, the trip to the dive spot and the sun. That is something everybody misses in Belgium, the sun, but here she is fully present. In the wind and on the boat or in the evening it can get chilly, but in general temperatures are OK. The trip to the dive spot takes about one hour and there is a lot of wind and waves, but we get there without problems. Great. The group of divers is divided into two: we are with the les experienced divers, no problem, because in the end we are. The first team enters the water and everything is going great. Eef and Timo wait a while because one deck down it’s too busy and Tarik told them, they are ready very fast. Finally we are ready to jump in before the rest and wait because we need to close the row. We jump last and are on the bottom first. One person has trouble equalizing and another one, his girlfriend, has only 70 bar after only ten minutes. We think they did not do a proper buddy-check.
We swim along the wall, not too deep, immediately spot some stingrays and a scorpion fish, a pretty large one and then follow the group. There are many rather small fish, but the numbers are that big and again the colors are great. The anthias, the hawkfish, and the damselfish: one thing is as beautiful as the next one. There are many butterfly fish here too and different species, really worth diving here at the Red Sea. Parrotfish are spotted here in different shapes and colors, really marvelous. It still is unbelievable, although we don’t see that many new species and we are diving with a bunch of starters. Like mentioned before not really an issue, but some of them actually have problems not to swim against the corals and to find the correct position in the water. At some moment we think the instructor will take them out of the water, because it really is b ad diving. After 15 minutes along the wall we arrive at a coral garden and swim over it until we reach 30 minutes. We return to the boat and stay a bit shallower now and reach the boat after 45 minutes. We both have a lot of air left, yes Timo too and we stay a few more minutes under the boat. We don’t stay too deep, see the beautiful colors and enjoy the variety of species and colors. We stop after 52 minutes and we still have 50 and 90 bar in the bottles, which is OK. Replace the tanks and prepare for the second dive, get warmer, because there is a lot of wind and we find it chilly. Once we’re dry and on the sundeck it’s better.
At noon we get lunch, but we did not order any and only eat some biscuits. We drink a bit of water and eat and enjoy the warmth of the sun and also the peace. We think it’s good here, certainly better than in Belgium. At 13:30 everyone needs to be ready for the second dive. Again we have the same groups and we join Tarik’s group, the third day in a row. Now we start at the other side of the bay (two minutes snorkeling) and then we go down with everyone at the same time – one diver is only 
at 5 meter depth, but everyone has joined us. We stay at the side of the wall and then cross a sandy spot. Here we see a lionfish and a feather duster worm. We focus now more on smaller things like gobies. Everything is OK and then we reach a couple of coral blocks. We swim over them, except the two divers in front of us, because they’re having a fight. By accident he touched her mask and therefore they’re fighting. And we were thinking there was something serious. Tarik checks on them, because everyone was waiting. There’s nothing wrong and we move on over the coral blocks and that way we reach the wall again that we saw when we started. A hawksbill turtle swims by and we enjoy the sight; it’s always nice to see a turtle, even when we saw many yesterday. A bit further we also see something special. A black and white fish and we have no idea at all what it could be. It is a juvenile of a black snapper. We cross the bay at a depth of four meter and here we still have a lot of air and we stay here a bit longer with the two of us. That’s very pleasant.
We surface after a bit over 50 minutes, take our gear off, dry everything and go a deck up to get dry more there. We’ve just reached the sundeck and everyone is already ready and the boat leaves immediately. With the zodiac they get the ropes and then we leave for the open sea. The sea is wild and one person is hanging over board. After an hour we arrive at Port Ghalib and gather our gear and need to wash it. Just before Eef has watched an underwater movie that they want to sell. It looks a nice, bit expensive memory, but we think we should do it. We return to our room and have a shower and then write the diaries and we do this with a Stella-aperitif. At 18:00 we go inside, because the sun has set and it’s getting cooler. Eef has a little hunger and we go for dinner: the same as before, it’s tasty, but today we can have pasta as well, so after appetizer of mainly vegetables we have pasta. Eef takes something sweet as desert (read: chocolate cake) and gives the scarce strawberries to her dearest. At about 8 o’clock we go to the 201 and Timo follows Navy NCIS. Eef tries but after the first commercial break she falls asleep. We sleep good without alarm, because tomorrow we’ll have a day off.
Thursday March 5, 2009: A day off, so relaxation all day
It will 
be a calm day today; we have inserted one day of rest and tomorrow we will be diving our last day at Elphinstone. We should be out of the water on time, so we can fly 24 hour later and then it’s finished. Today we wake up very calmly, but we don’t really like it, because we love it in bed; the beds are really good. Eventually we drag ourselves out of bed and we go for breakfast. Timo has an omelet and Eef takes pancakes. It tastes very good and we drink some coffee with it. Then some bread with cheese and fruits and then we’re ready. We look at the boats how they sail away this morning to go diving, but we don’t mind we’re not there; we’ll still be able to dive twice tomorrow. Back in our room we take all stuff for snorkeling, because that will be our first and only activity today. We take our snorkels, fins, and the two cameras and then go to the other side of the port with the water taxi. Where the diving boats stop, there is often also a little taxi-boat and that brings you free of charge to Port Ghalib. You can’t call it a village, because it’s more a collection of tourist shops and bars and hotels and further there is not really something authentic. A couple of years ago the only thing here was dessert.
We first walk to the peer and try to explain to an Egyptian that we’d like to snorkel. We will start at the second peer and with the current return to this one. It’s all clear to him and he will take an eye on our pack. We take our snorkeling gear with us and walk on to the second peer. Here we enter the water and we need some adaptation, because the water is cold like hell. Once you’re used to it, it’s great, but it’s a long swim and we need to see if it will be OK. It’s a nice spot to snorkel; a wall of a few meters deep and Timo needs to go down several times. We only see one new species of fish; a small napoleon fish. We miss the turtle and the reef shark, but Eef doesn’t mind. The remainder is almost the same as we already saw, but we still like it a lot: butterfly fish, beautiful corals, wrasses, small anthias, parrotfish; it’s all worth coming to Egypt for. A large pufferfish lies under a piece of table coral and we leave him be. We move very slowly, although the current is in our benefit and when we reach three quarters of the trip, it’s getting chilly. The last bit we swim a bit faster and Eef comes out of the water first. Here the water is a bit warmer, but not really warm enough to stay in much longer. Timo doesn’t spot anything special anymore. A few emperor fish are located here in the shallow areas and after one and a half hours he comes out of the water too.
We walk around in the village, but don’t buy anything and we don’t stop for a drink. It would be s bit stupid to pay here, when you have everything all 
in at the hotel. We take the water taxi back to marina Lodge and shower the salt of our bodies. We lay down in one of the niches they’ve created here, nice and warm out of the wind and in the shadow. It’s already after one o’clock and we start to get hungry, so we have something to eat at the restaurant Indigo. Timo takes two Egyptian sandwiches with white cabbage and pasta and hot tomatoes and some more vegetables and that really tastes nice. After lunch it’s time again to do nothing and we do that at the top of the roof of the bar. Without the wind it’s terribly hot here. Timo is in the sun for a few moments, but needs to get out and Eef is smarter and stays out of the sun and rests in the shadow. Here we stay for about an hour and see from the roof that the boats are returning. From the roof you have a good view over the bay and port in front of the hotel. After this siesta we walk to the dive shop, because we want to buy a diving T-shirt. Next to it there is an Egyptian shirt shop and we buy a shirt for our godchild Aagje. We buy 5 T-shirts in total, two at the dive shop and three from the Egyptian. There we go; we’ve helped out the local economy.
We keep it calm today and drink a beer in one of the niches, write the diary and drink beer and cola. Later it will be time to eat and tomorrow we’ll need to get up very early, because the boat leaves early to Elphinstone. We even ordered breakfast on the boat; because we won’t have time to have breakfast at the restaurant departure is at 06:00. We enjoy the peace and quietness, return to our room for a few moments and then it’s time for dinner. We don’t take a lot, but very quickly and we don’t stay here too long. Quickly a salad and a main dish and then to our room: watch TV for half an hour and then go to sleep.
Friday March 6, 2009: Elphinstone
At 05:45 we hear the unpleasant noise of the alarm. We don’t feel like getting up, but we have a good outlook for today and that makes it bearable. Cool, today we go to Elphin
stone, a very known reef, a little bit further that local dives. It costs 35 Euro per person extra, but we specifically wanted this. We can just do our last two dives, because then we’ll have 24 hours between the last dive (we should be out of the water at 13:00) and the departure with the plain. We’ve arranged it quite well. We take snorkels, masks, fins and the whole back pack to the boat. Today we leave with the Seadream, the largest one of the fleet. There are a few people we already know: the mud crawler without his girlfriend, the cool Britt of the Isle of Man (cfr. Shark bait) and another British, very calm people, just like us actually.
We get everything ready to jump in the water once we reach Elphinstone. After about ten minutes all is OK and we’re ready. We wait on the upper deck, not the highest one, because that’s full of disgusting Englishmen. You know the type: when they are in a group they’re not behaving properly. They have got the upper deck completely, so they don’t bother us. We first have breakfast on the boat, nice, but not really necessary, because in the meantime the breakfast hotel was open, it’s 06:30. The benefit is though that we immediately leave when everyone is ready and otherwise we would have already a delay at the beginning. That is a bit of disappointing about Emperor Divers; there is a supplement for about everything, for Abu Dabbab, for lunch (we already had all in at the hotel), for breakfast, for the trip to Elphinstone, also for the SMB, although we had full equipment rented. In the end that does not really matter; we did good dives and saw beautiful things already. The diving spots are OK, the guides (Mo and Tarik) are also nice and good. The oat leaves at 07:00 and enters the open sea. We don’t stay close to the reefs now and along the coast, but stay away a distance. The sea is flat and that is a benefit for an Elphinstone trip. The time to Elphinstone is a bit boring, but luckily we see some spinner dolphins and enjoy the rest on the sea and the views over the water.
After about 1.5 hours our two guides-instructors start the briefing (Vanessa and Silke). On Elhpinstone it’s finished with sissy-diving, you need to have at least thirty dives to go along. We’re lucky and there is not a lot of current. We can easily attach the boat to a buoy and jump in the water. At about 40 meters deep we see the reef below us, but that is not really special, because all colors are gone at this depth, especially when you’re already at 25 meters. We are not allowed to go deepe
r than 30 meters and a little bit over 32.9 we sink, but that’s not really a problem, because we have control over our buoyancy and the depth. We have the current against us here, which makes swimming harder and we sometimes hang still in the blue to see a shark. At this depth we don’t see a thing, so we go shallower and to the reef against the current. It’s not nice, because it costs a lot of energy and a lot of air. Timo uses in the first quarter of the dive 50 bar of air. No problem, higher on the reef is much nicer, the colors return and now we have current in our favor. And then suddenly we hear someone banging on the tank like hell. In the shallow water at about 5 meters we see an oceanic white tip shark with pilot fish accompanying the shark. A beautiful spectacle. We see the shark from a distance, but you can clearly see the white tips on the fins and the pilot fish are only small fish compared to the shark, but they measure at least already 30 centimeter too.
Everyone is so focused on the shark that they don’t notice the three meter long giant moray eel: we do and we can turn around to see the shark another time: marvelous. Quickly Timo needs to intervene, because Eef has a bit of trouble with the buoyancy, but that’s quickly sorted. We swim on with the reef at our right side and enjoy the multitude of fish. Elphinstone is a reef with a wall that disappears into the immense abyss, a few hundreds meters deep. Here up the reef it’s beautiful, the colors, the many species of soft coral, really great and we even spotted a shark. The red groupers with the yellow dots swim through the coral garden, also the millions of anthias and the emperor fish; it’s too much to mention. We were not OK with the first 15 minutes, with the deep bit in the blue, but now it’s magnificent, almost the best ever, just great, you can’t describe this with words. After 40 minutes we see the boat already; we have finished our safety stop already a long time along the reef and can climb on the boat without problems now.
Before lunch we should do another dive, to allow everyone (except us) to do a third dive after lunch. We prepare immediately for the second dive and leave our wetsuit on and stay below on the wet deck. We get a briefing after 45 minutes and now swim from the north reef to the south reef and always keep the wall at our right side. This will be nice diving. The sea is flat as hell, so the circumstances are the best. It does not happen often that they can do three dives on Elphinstone and today we can. So we enter the water and stay well next t each other as a buddy team opposed to some mud crawlers. That Dutch diver always had other things to do than being with his buddy, very friendly. Not our problem though. We spot the same fish as earlier and also a special kind of scorpion fish, and the rest all the normal ones. It seems you get used to the beautiful colors and high numbers of fish in the Red Sea after a week of diving. That does not mean however that we don’t like, because we still think this is hugely impressive. We stay under water almost an hour until we reach the boat and spot a few larger napoleonfish, one of the largest species in this sea.
After the second dive we’re done, we don’t want to take the risk of a third dive, because we could get into trouble when we fly tomorrow and that’s something we surely don’t want. 
We make sure that everything is ready to check out from the dive center and enjoy the lunch and the beautiful view here. Regularly you can see the sharks a few meters under the surface and you can actually see them very good. Another thing that is nice: the reef is located here very beautifully. Far away from the coast and only a few meters under the surface. One can see the great colors from the boat. During the third dive of the others we see some dolphins in a distance and a few sharks under the boat. It creates a special feeling we were with the sharks a few minutes ago. We try not to get sun burnt and stay in the shadow. After the third dive everyone is tired and everyone is happy that it all worked out fine and that the sharks have been spotted. The crew wants to leave asap and when everyone is ready they leave. Now we sail for another two hours and we’re there. The trip back to Port Ghalib is not boring: about twenty spinner dolphins accompany us the whole time at the side of the bow. It’s a large group and everyone loves it, even after we’ve spotted large sharks. After two tranquil hours on the boat we arrive at the port, we wash the gear, take them to the room and then we clean everything from the diving center that we’ve rented. We try to pay our open bill, but the Visa-MasterCard read it not working properly. Let’s try again tomorrow. We celebrate the end of our dives with a beer and a cuba libre in the bar (called 50 Bar) after we’ve prepared for our last dinner here.
We eat with good appetite for the last time, a salad – something we making this very spicy and we don’t know what – a main dish with primarily rice, pasta, a lamb sausage of the barbecue, water and beer. Very nice. We get some more beers in the bar and drink those in our room, while we watch a movie. Timo watches it completely until 23:00 and Eef thinks she’s had enough after the first commercial break. Get up early and two dives, that is enough for one day. Timo extinguishes all seven candles and goes to sleep.
Saturday March 7, 2009: Departure home
A last good night of sleep in our room number 201 until about eight in the morning. Timo already got up earlier and checked for missing species in our list of spotted animals in the red Sea. Certainly the shark and the dolphins of yesterday should not fail. Eef reads the trip reports and makes some corrections and at 08:30 we can have breakfast. Now we need to eat very well, because later today we won’t get anything anymore. Timo has omelet with cheese, tomato, paprika and onion and then some more bread; Eef takes some cornflakes and some fruits. After breakfast we try again to bill our bill with Emperor Divers, that’s less funny, but it still was ove
r 200 Euro. BUT we’re on vacation and then we always the slogan: money is not an issue. The MasterCard works perfectly now and then we do our last walk on the hotel domain. We have no choice anymore and need to start packing, from this moment till tonight it’s annoying. At 10:15 we’re done with packing and we have a drink at the bar. We only get something after 11:00 and that‘s good, because then we can drink our first beer. That’s done. We want to enjoy some more of the sun, in the shadow, because we’re already wearing our long jeans and at 11:00 we drink our beer: the train of 11 is already gone, so we can.
At 11:30 it’s time to check out of the hotel and then drink our last beer. We take everything from our room and bring it to the reception and everything is settled without extra fees, cool. We have a chat with a stewardess, who we never met before – of course. She will be going to Santorini this summer and we advise her to check out our site for pictures and that kind of things. Then the bus arrives and brings us to the airport. First there is a general check of all luggage and of the persons, then check-in; with VIP-snobs who were cutting the queues, but not for the passport control. Then there is another full control and we arrive at the two gates. Because it will take some more time and we still have some more Egyptian pounds, we have a burger menu, not bad, but it’s of course fast food. We are eating and apparently everyone from our flight is already gone. Eef quickly smokes the last cigarette and then we hear a call for our flight. Together with a couple from Wallonia we’re the last ones on the plain, but apparently they had already called twice, but we didn’t hear anything, so we could not follow. We can go to the aircraft now, found a free spot as last people, because the flight was completely full and then we fly from Aqaba to Jordan.
Here we stay one and a half hours on the ground to tank and to drop off people and to pick up other people. It is a bit chaotic, but everyone is reaching his place. We have three free seats for the two of us and that’s cool. At about 15:00 we leave from Jordan for a flight of five hours. Once the fasten seat belts are off Timo start up his laptop and then finishes the reports. Eef has fun with some crossword puzzles and two children are almost never quiet. Some children were better not born, but a person can’t say that with that many words. The flight takes longer than we would expect, probably because we had an extra landing in Aqaba. After five hours we arrive in Brussels, Linda and Patrik pick us up and take us home. Mama Linda has cooked us a meal, we eat and drink something. Then Maurits and Betty arrive to brief us how well Wim had painted our house. They had cleaned the house completely. Thank you very much!
