All Settled in Dahab

Dahab with Saudi Arabia in background

Its been a while since my last post and we have been very busy since then. We made it safely to Dahab on the 12th in the afternoon after a 9 hour bus ride across the desert from Cairo. We passed the Suez canal and then followed the west coast of the Sinai Peninsula all the way to Sharm el Sheik, where we headed northeast to Dahab along the red sea. The drive was actually quite nice compared with the buses I used in Costa Rica, it was air conditioned and the seats fit willie and I very well. However the bus only stopped once and the only other option for a bathroom was a luggage sized compartment just large enough for the fetus position.

We arrived in Dahab in the afternoon were we caught a taxi to the nearest hostel and had a great dinner on the beach in a Bedouin style tent. We looked across to the sandy shores of Saudi Arabia finally having a chance to relax for the first time since arriving in Egypt.

The next day (the 13th this is kind of a catch up blog for me..) we walked all over Dahab trying to decide on a dive center to complete our training at. This was much harder than originally though due to the fact that there is over 50 dive centers in the city alone. We ended up deciding on a larger all inclusive center called Posiedon Divers. They have there own dive boat and the manager was very friendly and helpful. He set us up with a 2 bedroom fully furnished house and by nightfall we had already moved in and were already begun planning our dives for the following day. We soon leaned that all egyptian beds are hard futons and pillows are just extra pieces of futon material. Also bathrooms double as showers and laundry rooms. Screws are non-existent, everything in held together with nails. Besides some minor technicalities the house is great and it is near 3 young divers from the UK doing there dive master with the same company.

14th - we finally got to dive. We had to get a medial certification to dive, but due to questionable doctor ethics in Egypt that cost about 10 dollars US, with a so called check up aka temperature, ear check, and some of the sketchiest stethoscope work I have ever had done. I actually think he did more harm than good (non of his medical equipment was sterile) . I'm glad I had already been checked in the states.

We did 2 "fun" check-up dives to make sure our skills were up to par in the area just in front of the dive center. We did the open water skills test and then continued down the reef where we saw a big sea turtle munching on its dinner, Amazing!. The reefs here are teeming with life and I wish I could share some pictures with all of you.

15th - Today we did three dives off of the company boat, a 65ft specialized dive boat at a site called Gabriel el Bint. These dives were all for my advanced open water training. the reef was even more spectacular the first site and diving from a boat was quite the experience! On our way back from the dive site a pod of dolphins swam with the boat for a time. After dining we went out to dinner with our dive instructor from Switzerland and then to the blue beach bar for drinks and the Manchester-Porto futbol game.

16th - I woke up at 530 am to the worst headache I have ever had. My first case of food posioning had set in... I was very sick all day and had trouble keeping anything down. I missed my two last advanced dives and spent most of the day in my uncomfortable bed shivering.

17th - Luckily it the sickness passed quickly and I got to dive again and complete my AOW. The dives were at the two most famous and infamous dive sites in dahab, "The Canyons" and "The Bells to Blue Hole". The Canyons is a relatively deep dive into a crack in the reef about 100ft deep, in the Canyon there are large schools of fish and we saw a huge Napoleon fish. This dive was a deep diving specialty training for my class to experience the effects of nitrogen narcosis first hand, very strange.

My next dive in the afternoon was at the Blue Hole. This was my favorite dive so far with the entrance being very exciting. To enter the dive you free fall down a coral chimney ( a tube about 4-6 ft across) for 30 meters (100ft) that exits through an coral archway into the open ocean along the reef wall. We followed the wall around to the blue hole where we completed the dive. This dive had some of the most abundant life I have ever seen underwater in my life and makes you want to become a activist for reef protection.

18th Today we did come classroom work and are now officially "Emergency First Responders" a generic first aid class. Basically I learned that if you are dying I needed to say
"Hello, my name is Ryun Johnson, im an emergency first aid responder may I help you", first before saving your life.

"And that's how the falafel crumbles...."