Dahab

At the beginning of April Erica, Mark, Abi and I went to Dahab for a weeks diving. We were booked into the Nesima hotel and were diving with Poseidon Divers who are based a short walk along the beach from the hotel. Our flight out was scheduled for mid morning, so the plan was to spend the first evening familiarising ourselves with the local bars and restaurants. Unfortunately, the flight was delayed by 5 hours so we ended up familiarising our selves with the bars and restaurants at Gatwick Airport instead.

We arrived at the Nesima just before Midnight. Tiered and weary we did the sensible thing and threw our bags in our rooms and went straight down to the hotel bar. After the journey it was nice to sit in the fresh sea air and reacquaint ourselves with Sakara beer. The waiter told us he would stay open as long as we wanted, which sounded tempting but we told him wouldn’t be necessary for on that night anyway.

In the morning when we went to breakfast we could appreciate the hotels benefits. It was a fairly new hotel built in a Bedouin style. It only had 50 rooms so had a friendly feel about it. The restaurant where breakfast was served had windows running all the way round three sides. This gave a great panoramic view across the Straight of Aqabah and Saudi Arabia.

On arriving at Poseidon we were greeted by Pedro. Pedro was Portuguese and had only been working at Poseidon for a week or so. Prior to working in Dahab he had been a bus driver in Brighton and a removal man in North London, so he was very familiar to our part of the world. We were then introduced to Bart and Mamdu who were going to be our guides for the week. Poseidon really was a chilled out dive centre as stated on it’s website. Everything just seemed to mooch along at our pace.

We sat down with Bart who was a Belgian who has lived in Dahab for a few years. He was the senior guide and looked after the technical side of things. We told him roughly what we wanted to do in terms of the usual recreational type of dives along with a couple of deeper dives as we wanted to do the Canyon and the Arch in the Bluehole. A week’s itinerary was planned out and then we went off to sort our kit out. One of the best things was that they had manifolded twin sets and OMS wings so it was very similar kit what we use at home.

We made the decision to stick with the twinsets all week including the recreational dives. This not only saved us having to reconfigure the kit from one set up to the other, but it also provide the extra safety that we all insist on at home, but never seem to worry about on holiday. Once all the kit was sorted Bart took us for a checkout dive on Mashraba reef directly outside the centre. We didn’t see too much of interest on the dive but it served its purpose and we purged our twinsets down to 50 bar at the end of the dive for a final weight check. In the afternoon we dived the Lighthouse with Mamdu. Mamdu was a local and knew Dahab, and most other Red Sea dive sites, very well. This was a very enjoyable dive. We saw a lot of marine life as well as Sea Mice. These were funny little fish that looked like (you’ve guessed it) mice. They didn’t swim they just walked along the sea bed.

The following day we drove out to dive the Canyon in the morning and the Bells to Bluehole in the afternoon. Mamdu was our guide again for the day. When we dived the Canyon we descended down outside the Canyon to the 30m opening. It was quite impressive fining into this small cave area. The light penetrating through from above gave it quite a moody atmosphere. We then ascended up through the Canyon and finished off back on the reef in the shallows.

In the afternoon we moved to the Bluehole to dive the Bells to Bluehole. It was quite surprising to see so many tourists there. We had a nice leisurely lunch and Mamdu took us on a walk up onto the hills behind the main hub of activity and told us about the area, how it’s changed and the epitaphs on the cliff face below. There was also a Free-Diving competition that day, and we found out that an English women had just achieved a world record that morning for Free Diving to 30m without fins!

The Bells to Bluehole was a great dive. As those who have done it will know the entrance is like jumping into a small rock pool. For Abi who doesn’t like heights this was a bit of a challenge. Luckily some passing Japanese tourists gave her the moral support and shove that she needed. I think they thought they were taking part in one of their game shows! We descended down the Bells which was a chimney like passage down through the rock. This brought us out at just over 25m and then we swam along to reef towards the Bluehole, over the shoulder at 7m and into the Bluehole itself. We saw a Torpedo Ray and a Red Hawk Nose Fish in the Hole which was quite a rare sighting.

The following day we were back diving with Bart to do the Canyon deep. Mamdu was with us as support diver. This time we were going back into the Canyon at the 30m opening, but this time we were going to descend down and exit at the 50m opening. We found this part of the Canyon much better than the shallower part. It seemed to be a lot brighter inside and had some great swim throughs were it didn’t look as though you could pass at all. Also it had the added advantage of being away from the crowds that we had on the previous dive. After exiting we then ascended up the wall back towards the reef. We switched onto a 50% mix at 20m to deco on and spent the last part of the dive fining around the 5m mark on the reef.

The next day saw us back at the Bluehole to do the Arch. The Arch itself starts around 50m but you need to go through it at about 53m to 55m. We actually finned through it twice, once in either direction. It was a fantastic experience and a school of Glass Fish hanging around in the centre of the Arch really set the scene. We then ascended up from 55m through a chimney formation in the rock which wasn’t obviously visible. This brought us out at 39m and lead onto yet another swim though, this one stayed at the same depth. We then ascended back up the wall and switched to a 50% mix at 20m as we did the previous day. Both these dives gave Erica and I a good opportunity to play with our shiny new Vyper 2’s which performed superbly J. We then dived the Bluehole again in the afternoon and kept it shallow. On this dive Bart thought it was a good opportunity to get his Rebreather wet.

When we got back to the dive centre we sat around chatting about the day and drank a few cans of Sakara with Bart, as we did pretty much every other day. We got onto the subject of Rebreathers and Bart was telling us how he was trying to clock up his hours so he could become an instructor. Therefore, it seemed like a good idea for us to do a Rebreather dive the following day to see if they were as good as they were cracked up to be.

The next day we set off to Moray Gardens. This was a nice beach area with a few restaurants but without the crowds you get at the Bluehole. So we all sat down to drink nice cold Cokes while Bart talked us through the Rebreather. Once he had explained everything he took us in one by one for a 45 minute dive on the Rebreather, and it was fantastic. It really is a top peace of kit. Not only was it beautifully weighted and comfortable, but on that particular dive you could get up so close to the marine life without disturbing it.

After a successful weeks diving we thought we’d round it off with a relaxing chilled out Saturday. We got to the dive centre at 11-ish to pack our kit up. Bart was there on his non-diving day and insisted on buying us some beers. Mid afternoon we made it back to the hotel to drop our kit off and then hit the pool bar.

After a quick shower and change we got back to the dive centre where one of the drivers took us off into the dessert for a Bedouin meal. We stopped off at an Off-Licence on route where Mark and I ran in to grab some supplies. We weren’t sure exactly how many beers Mark and I would need, so we got 24 bottles to be in on the safe side! – If we ran out we were sure the girls would let us have some of their Vodka. It was a great evening, and so chilled out. The peace and quite of the desert with the camp fire burning and the great view of the stars was a superb end to a very different and enjoyable weeks diving holiday.

Look no bubbles!

Smile!

That isn’t going to all fit in there!

Bluehole

It doesn’t look like a girls scarf does it?

What’s Mark doing with his hands?

Sea Horse!