The first morning we were here, we were up at 6:30, dressed and down to the breakfast room of our hotel for 7:15. The bus for our dive centre picks us up in front of our hotel each morning that we're diving at between 7:30 and 7:45. Most of the time it was at 7:30 on the dot. It turned out that the hotel breakfast room didn't officially open until 7:30. At first they didn't like us coming in a few minutes early to eat before the dive centre bus arrived, but after a short learning curve we discovered that a handily placed tip allowed us a gulp of coffee and some toast and cereal before we dashed out to the mini bus. There were "breakfast boxes" available if we ordered them the afternoon before. We only did that once. They were pretty rubbish and included a green banana, a bottle of water, a juice orange and a roll with cheese that has gone off.
The security in Sharm El Sheikh was very high. There has been a fence built all the way around this purpose built holiday town. There are Tourist Police and the Egyptian Army protecting the town. To get out onto any boat, you have to go through a security check complete with walk-through metal detector and bag check.
This is a shot of George and Henry (purple t-shirt and hat) walking down the gang plank after walking through the metal detector.
These are some of the boats on the floating pier waiting to take eager day trippers and divers out to view the glories of The Red Sea.
This is up top-side on board The Empress Sharouk. This boat carried us on our first and many subsequent days diving.
George is very excited to be going out. Actually, we all think this is just the best!
When we moored up at the first dive site there was A SEA TURTLE there to greet us! I tried to get a hurried photo, but this far away shot is the best I could do. You can just about make out the blob in the centre of the photo. The blob is a Green Sea Turtle.
Henry, George and I hadn't been diving in warm salt water in about a year PLUS we had a bunch of new equipment that hadn't been used yet. So our first few dives really weren't all that great. We didn't show our usual skill and grace. Mostly we humiliated ourselves. Despite all that, the dives were fantastic! The Red Sea is just wonderful for divers. It even allows crap divers to have a look at the beautiful fish.
This is one of the first photos I took underwater on my first dive into the Red Sea. On top of this beautiful coral, the pink and orange fish are Anthias. There are also loads of little half & half fish called a Half & Half Chromis.
I was so amazed by the number and variety of fish in this first shallow and easy dive.
There were these pretty little blue numbers - I think I have this one correctly identified as Orchid dottyback. They're tiny, about the size of my pinkie finger and quite shy and like to hide. I love the colour!
Next I was dazzled by this Regal angelfish. Isn't it pretty? With the annoying delay that our camera has, I was SO thrilled to get such a good shot of this fish.
Then Red Sea Bannerfish. There are two types of Red Sea Bannerfish. We saw both varieties but I only have a picture of the kind that goes around in picturesque pairs. The Schooling Red Sea Bannerfish didn't get photographed this time around (naturally those go around in schools rather than pretty pairs).
Last, but certainly not least was this Giant Moray. This puppy was down at about 28 meters. I was so excited about taking its photo that I stayed at that depth for too long, used up all my air and had to end the dive early. I was compensated for the short dive by the fact that this eel stuck his majestic head and body most of the way out of his hidey hole and let me get a couple of good pictures.
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