We went scuba diving! I decided that being underwater while I turned thirty was a good plan. So I planned a trip to take us back to Dahab, where I'd had a great time diving with some friends last August. And speaking of last August, I managed, for the second time, to go diving in Dahab without the underwater camera! This time the underwater case was fine, but the camera had been struck down on the top of Mt Moses under suspicious (read: divine?) circumstances.
We stayed at the Dahab Coach House, a really splendid tiny hotel run by a wonderful Danish couple. I'd been introduced to them last fall, and I'd intended to take a trip to Dahab last Eid but ended up going to Lebanon instead. So this June was my first time staying with them, and it was really great. I wouldn't consider staying anywhere else (unless it were free, of course!).
And once again I dove with Sinai Divers Backpacker and couldn't have asked for a better experience. I even managed to get the same dive master as last time, Pritesh, who makes fun of me for being a slow diver but then points out living things that are invisible to my eye. Perfect.
We had a lovely first day's diving at Umm Sid where, among many other things, we found sailor's eyeballs (below left), lionfish, Red Sea walkmen (below right), eels (giant moray, eek!), sand divers, lovely chromodoris, and a blue-spotted ray ... and that's in addition to all the Red Sea regulars!
Thanks again to Google Images for saving the day!
We got seven dives in total, including another set of stellar dives to Canyon and Bells/Blue Hole. Canyon was a bit crowded, but it turned out to be kind of cool - all those divers made lots of bubbles, and the bubbles escape the crack in the floor (the canyon) in a curtain that rises from the edge. It's surreal, playing with the glittering silver bubbles, 20 m under the water.
I don't think I'll ever get tired of Bells/Blue Hole, which is a haunting dive. To do the entry through the Bells, we walked past a wall that has the names of all the divers who have died there. For me the best part of the dive happens after exiting the Bells, when we sweep along the outer edge of the Hole. There's absolutely no bottom, and on the left the blue stretches away into the unknown. Even though there's great sea life right in front of my nose on the wall, I find myself obsessively scanning the blue and below. I get the tingly feeling that there's something big - like a whale shark, or a thresher, or an eagle ray (which I did see once) - just out of sight.
The best/terrifying part of this dive is when we put our backs to the wall and swim out in the blue. It means being super careful, keeping one eye always on my depth gauge, but it's completely thrilling, being surrounded by absolutely nothing. I've done this dive three times now, and I've never felt unsafe or like I was doing something risky. I am not a risky diver. No way.
As we were crossing the saddle of the wall to get into the Blue Hole proper, I saw a big fish that I couldn't identify. I hovered right on the crest, straining my eyes. Was it a napoleon? That'd be a first for me. Pritesh had already dropped over the saddle, and KC was hovering with me, looking in the same direction. I decided to go get Pritesh so after the dive he could identify the fish for me. I signaled to him to come back, and when he arrived I turned to point out my mystery fish. And then to my intense surprise, I spotted a turtle! At the dive's end, KC told me that the turtle had been there all along and that's what he'd thought I was pointing at. Nope! I was the last one to see it, even though I was the one who stopped in the first place. Typical.
We were also lucky enough to do a few dives with a marine biologist from the Red Sea Environmental Center. She was a bit less focused on guiding than Pritesh - it was more like the three of us were just diving together - but it was fun having a fellow biologist with us. In fact, Pritesh talked us into doing a fluorescence night dive with her.
KC and I aren't really night divers. We'd tried it for the first time in Sharm, and we thought it was good but not great - not really worth too much effort. But the fluorescence angle sounded intriguing, and Pritest was really excited about it, so we thought we'd give it a go.
The evening started with a pre-dive briefing on fluorescence and fluorescence in biological organisms. We felt a little guilty because it quickly became obvious that we were ringers. KC ended up giving the "fluorescence" part of the briefing, and I gave the "fluorescent proteins in biological organisms" part of the briefing. Is it our fault that we actually work with these things for a living? We found ourselves a little skeptical about some of the ideas the biologist threw out there - we're not convinced that these things are used for communication at 20 meters. Just doesn't make sense. But eventually it was time to suit up with our special gear - blue wavelength flashlights (for excitation of the fluorescent creatures) and a yellow filter for our masks (to be able to see the fluorescence more clearly).
We stayed in about 3-4 meters of water the whole time. It was amazing, the first time I trained my flashlight on an ordinary-looking coral and it blazed green! We crept along the bottom and came to a small reef, where we moved an inch at a time, trying to find things that glowed. My favorite was the anemone crab (above right), which smolders a fluorescent red when you hit it with the blue light. We also discovered that scorpionfish fluoresce yellow - we didn't find too many fish that did glow, although lots of the coral did. I was having a reasonably good time until I turned my face over my shoulder - and found a (poisonous) lionfish within two inches of my nose. The lionfish are attracted to the lights, and even though our only white lights were with the DMs, I was surrounded. I enjoyed myself a bit less after that; I was uncomfortable knowing that the animals could see me but I couldn't see them. All in all, I'm glad I did the dive, but I don't know that I'll rush to do it again.
At the end of the Dahab trip, we arranged to go to St Catherine's, so KC could see the monastery and climb the mountain. This was a return trip for me, and within only a few weeks! Originally we'd planned to climb the mountain at dawn, but we were so tired from diving that we decided to hit the mountain at 6 am, just around sunrise. It was a two-hour drive from Dahab to St Catherine's, and we couldn't bear the thought of getting up at midnight to start our day.
And boy did we make the right decision, because to my shock, the valley was deserted at 6 am. When I'd arrived to make my last climb, the place was crawling with busloads of ill-dressed tourists and swarming with security guards and beduin "guides." The rule, of course, is that you must hire a beduin guide if you want to go up the mountain. This time, KC and I encountered a single snoozing security guard next to the metal detector. We tiptoed around him and dashed up the path, trying to get as far up the path as possible before we were found out and stuck with a surly guide.
But that moment never came, and we had a splendid climb. It wasn't really that hot while we climbed, and we didn't freeze at the summit. We were alone - truly alone - for something like 90% of our climb. No camel hawkers, no Russian tourists, no pilgrims. Nothing. The kiosks were either closed or deserted. Everyone was up ahead of us. We passed a few people on their way back down the camel path at first, but we'd missed the rush entirely. At the summit there was a group of about 10 Greeks - an amazing contrast to the hundreds of people I'd shared the sunrise with a few weeks earlier. And we came down the Stairs of Repentence completely alone, which was stunning. I'll post some pictures here when we've got them downloaded.
Bottom line: watch the sunrise on your way up Mt Moses. You'll have a better chance of finding the peace and serenity that has drawn people there for hundreds of years.
We spent about an hour and a half at the monastery after our climb, seeing the icons and the museum, the ossuary and the church. And then we made the long drive back to Sharm for the short flight back to Cairo.
But that's not the end of the story, of course! Our 50 minute flight was delayed for an hour in Sharm, and we spent another hour at the new terminal in Cairo trying to avoid being bled dry by taxi sharks. Cairenes, take note - either have City Cab or the university pick you up. It's not worth the hassle of trying to arrange your own transport from the new terminal.
Dahab: two thumbs up. St Catherine's in the late morning: five stars. Terminal three: gaaah.
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