Egypt

Sharm El Sheikh

September 14-18, 2010

I just realized I never finished writing about our vacation!

Diving in the Red Sea was absolutely incredible. Scuba diving in general is, but when you combine diving and the Red Sea, it is just unreal.

We enjoyed our time doing boat dives and also a shore night dive. I must admit the waters were a little rough for me on the way out (as the fish were able to enjoy my breakfast after I did), but once we were in the water, it was peaceful and serene.

I have posted some stock photos of the fish we saw.

One favorite experience was watching the lionfish hunt at night. Lionfish are attracted to light, so as we shone our torches on the bottom of the sea, the lionfish would follow it. If a small fish was captured in the light, the lionfish would slowly approach it and...SNAP--dinner. It never grew old watching those lionfish hunt.

The coral was also fabulous. I couldn't believe how many colors there were. The fans were HUGE too.

Blue spotted ray, night dive

Lionfish

Giant Clam

HUGE Moray Eel at night

Scary face of eel...once your shine your light elsewhere, you don't know where he is when you are on a night dive....

"Raccoon" puffer fish--LOVED these little guys

Red Sea 'clown fish' They live in vibrantly colored anemone and are such timid little fish. I am glad we saw them.

During the night dive I also saw an octopus. They are very unique creatures. They have chameleon-like skills and even seem to change texture according to their surroundings. I found this video. It shows what I saw (except the one I saw was much smaller, and I only saw it move a little before it totally blended in with its environment and sat motionless). Once you see an octopus, it is hard to point it out to a fellow diver due to its adaptive skills.

This website has more photos of the "normal" fish we saw.

Here we are on the beach (see the Red Sea in the background)

This is what we did when we weren't diving. Egypt is HOT and the sun is potent.

This next photo is taken in the cab on the way to the airport (to go home). It just shows the unique land in Egypt. Very, very desolate. There is sand in all directions along with random, sharp, rock 'mountains' that seem to rise straight up out of the sand. The only trees are the ones planted for decoration. My heart ached knowing that this was the type of land the children of Israel wandered in for 40 years. No wonder they complained and went a little crazy sometimes.

We want to go back to Egypt and dive again!!! It was great!