Trip Report
Caught the Gatwick Express train and rocked up about on
time to go to the Caledonian desk as advised by the travel
agent the previous day to collect tickets etc. First problem -
the desk was closed and other counters around said there were
no flights for that charter that day. What a joyful stressless
way to start the trip - not! Wandered around the airport for
half an hour until I found someone who could explain from the
flight number I had was for a Sabre flight, and to join a
horrendous queue and ask for the tour operator (the name of
which I also didn't have, second mistake from the travel agent
I used). Thankfully I eventually found someone to help me out
and got checked in no problem.
Next delay - the charter flight was leaving from a far
terminal which required a bus trip, and the bus must have got
lost or something as we were still at the original terminal as
the scheduled departure time for the flight ticked by.
Eventually got on the plane took a seat, seemingly ready to go
half an hour late.
Next delay - the wings needed to be de-iced (there was a
massive snow storm the night before). Why they couldn't have
worked this out while we were standing waiting for the bus was
beyond all on board. The truck to do this ran out of chemicals
before it got to us and had to return to base to refuel. Two
hours late we finally got off the ground for the five hour
flight to Sharm El Sheik. Gotta love charter flights!
Arrived at Sharm El Sheik "International" Airport
- lets just say don't be expecting too much. Yet more queues
to get a visa as instructed on arrival by the local tour
operator (although I found out later that this is only
necessary if you plan to visit Egypt, not if you stay in the
Sinai - no doubt one of the local backhander scams). You could
pay 35LE or £12 - another little gotcha for those of use with
no Egyptian currency as that is a horrendous exchange rate of
3LE per £1 instead of the 5.4LE at any bank. Just about had a
fight with a local porter who had strategically placed my
backpack inside the carousel instead of on it, so that I
either had to climb on the moving carousel with everyone
else's luggage to retrieve it or ask him to do it (which I
did). He then of course demanded a tip for carrying it the
necessary 2m which I refused to pay for - scam #2. Walked out
of the building, immediately had another porter try to take my
bag off me to carry it 20m to our bus, a tug of war ensued as
I refused to let go being onto their games now and in no mood
after a long day. He was discouraged with barely a punch being
thrown...
Stayed at the Hilton Dreams hotel in Naama Bay which was
very nice although absolutely deserted as was everywhere else.
Everyone decided going away was not on this year after greedy
operators overestimated Millennium demand and overpriced
themselves out of business. Most restaurants I went to would
have barely 2 or 3 tables of people, there were more security
guards than people on the walkway down the waterfront at night
and shop owners were literally begging people to come into
their store even if just to talk to break the boredom. Quite
sad in many ways when you consider just how little money most
of these guys earn and this was supposed to be the peak
season.
The diving school started at 8.30am every day through until
5pm or so with a combination of watching videos, classroom
instruction, question reviews, exams and of course skill
practise sessions in the water. So not exactly a laid back
holiday if you are doing the PADI Open Water course as I was
but rather necessary - a bit like the parachuting school I
went to I guess, you really don't want to ignore what they
have to say...
Had a superb instructor (Khaled) who had a very laid back
approach to the whole thing and lets just say it would be near
impossible to fail the course particularly with him as the
instructor, as in comparison to perhaps how the course is run
in the USA where it is designed. There were three other
'pupils' starting the same day, although one pulled out after
a couple of days deciding it was not their thing.
Most of the first three days are learning and practising
skills for when things go wrong (again similar to parachute
skills) - diving itself if things go right (which they
obviously nearly always should) is as simple as breathing
through your mouth and flapping your legs, not exactly rocket
science! Mask clearing skills were the biggest concern for me
due to my contact lenses, but closing my eyes while
flooding/clearing solved that one to stop the lenses from
floating away...
I did manage to inhale less water than I swallowed on the
first day - we spent the first three days learning in the
ocean walking out from the beach rather than in a pool which
many centres teach in. I did have to strain the brain to
instruct it to only use my mouth for breathing - you can kid
yourself that you are doing exactly that right up to the point
that you take your mask off underwater and inhale salt water
with your next breath... needless to say you learn pretty
quickly that way!
Day two saw a 200m swim in the morning (compulsory for the
course) and my first experience of feeling queasy in the ocean
swells, which then continued for our first dive of the day.
Enjoyment plummeted and dreaded the next dive after lunch as
still feeling motion sick. While awaiting your turn to do an
exercise you are sitting on the ocean bottom (at about 2-3m
deep) rising up and down with every breath/swell, feeling
greener and greener with nothing to take the mind off as the
instructor was having problems with one of the other
students... I left the water feeling absolutely rotten and
wondering if I would have to pull out of the course, as this
was just tiny sheltered ocean currents, not even a boat trip
to a deep ocean dive...
Khaled suggested I go see a local hotel doctor which I duly
did, who then advised me what my problem was (well, one of
them anyway). Apparently I have different pressures between my
left and right middle ear which makes it difficult for me to
equalise the balance and effectively makes me suffer vertigo.
Thankfully the wonderful motion sickness tablets I had found
from the UK were compatible with diving so he suggested I give
those a go, along with prescribing a nasal spray to help with
the ear pressure imbalance.
So, rocked up the next day hopeful I could last it out and
get some enjoyment out of my time in the water - and boy what
a massive difference the pills made! Suddenly I was able to
focus on everything around me and actually enjoy the dive
instead of spending the time counting the minutes until we
would leave the water - not exactly the point of the
experience!!! Had a superb day and was the turning point for
me for the week, absolutely loved every dive and did not feel
ill on the later boat trips out on the ocean despite some
windy days. I got thoroughly addicted to the totally
weightless feeling underwater, hearing little else but the
sound of your own breathing, floating amongst massive schools
of fish or the superb colours and varieties of coral...
So diving pretty much dominated the week. The course was
five days leaving two days on the weekend (Christmas and
Boxing day) to occupy, only Christmas Day being available for
diving as you are not allowed to dive within 24 hours of a
flight. Funnily enough the three of us remaining on the course
managed to pass it and all chose to dive again the next day,
doing two of the required five dives from the Advanced PADI
course (the naturalist dive requiring you to identify some
fish/coral, and the drift dive which just means the current
takes you miles away from where you started so you end
up floating/swimming around until you get picked up by the
boat). Actual time under the water was about 50 mins per dive
- it would have been longer but Gabrielle (the 15yo) had a habit
of sucking his air dry too fast and once one person hits a
limit we all had to surface...
Almost cracked up underwater on our last dive (by the way
for those of you who haven't figured it out yet laughing
underwater is a no-no as it generally means you will end up
swallowing it). Gabrielle was my assigned 'buddy' for the
week, meaning we checked each others equipment etc and swam
together. He was a typical nightmare forgetful teenager so
ended up giving him a hard time in my usual sympathetic way.
Let me give any non-divers reading this some background
here... you have a pressure gauge for your tank which gives
you a reading between 0 bar (completely empty) and ~200 bar
(full) for your tank which is obviously an indicator of how
much oxygen you have left to breathe and hence potentially how
much longer you can stay underwater. Generally you either dive
for a planned maximum time or until your tank gets to 30 bar,
whichever comes first. Under no circumstances do you run your
tank dry as this breaks the seal between the regulator and the
tank allowing moisture in, requiring expensive tank
maintenance. You have this repeatedly drilled into you during
the training. For us it meant you just
hand signal the instructor after checking your
gauge (a finger for every 10 bar plus
some extra signals to indicate 50 or 100) when he happened to
be looking.
Anyway our plan for the dive was to leave our bottom depth
(24m) to go a bit shallower once we got to 100 bar and then
shallower still for a safety stop once we got to 50 bar,
meaning we should leave the water with 30-40 bar left. About
30 min or so into the dive I could see Gabrielle giving a
sequence of concerned looks out his pressure gauge. I hand signaled
asking if was he ok and he gave me an ok sign back, but was
still looking at his gauge frequently. We continued on, then
reached a point after 45 mins where Khaled decided to ask for
our tank pressures to determine how much longer to continue. I
was down to just over 50 bar and duly signaled, and watched in
hilarity as Khaled received a single finger from Gabrielle.
Khaled had a completely shocked expression on his face as he
tried to work out whether he was being given the bird by his
student, and proceeded to ask Gabrielle again, for which his
he got the same sign repeated. Immediately he gave his own
alternate air source to Gabrielle (allowing them to both
breathe off the instructors tank) and signaled to surface.
Trying not to burst out laughing I correctly surmised (later
confirmed) that Gabrielle had decided that since this was the
last dive of the trip he wanted to stay down as long as
possible (he like me was enjoying every minute in the water),
at the risk of completely running out of air! He was down to
30-40 when I first saw him checking (for which he had given me
the ok signal...fool) and was creeping under 10 when Khaled
had asked - you have to wonder where his brain was. We then
had to swim for a while on the surface, and since he was
having trouble snorkelling he then proceeded to continue using
his regulator until his tank then was sucked completely dry...
The other student (Bill) had a cold by this day and was
unable to dive (as he could not equalise his ear drums below a
depth of about 6m) hence joining his wife in pulling out.
Apparently this is fairly common for people coming from the UK
in winter - they arrive with a niggly little cold which then
turns into something nasty forcing them to be unable to dive
(which is the point of going for most people), luckily my
superb diet and intense physical fitness program meant I was
in no danger of catching a cold... hee hee
Outside of the diving I mainly just wandered around Naama
Bay, getting hassled by all the
locals desperate for customers. The Egyptian people for the most part are extremely
friendly, unfortunately this varies between the genuinely
friendly/interested to the more predominant "what can we
sell you once we know your name" variety. The standard
routine is to ask where you are from, ask for your name,
welcome you to Sharm El Sheik, ask you to take a seat, offer
you a drink and then proceed with the "small shop, small
prices" routine. Obviously not the NZ/Aus way of selling
but can provide entertainment if you don't take it too
seriously. Normally it wouldn't bother me but as the place was
so deserted everyone was desperate for attention, even a
half glance in a window resulted in the owner rushing out of
the shop to go through the same routine to encourage you to
enter. I must admit if I had my own house to come home to
after the trip there were lots of trinkets I could have bought
as the prices were cheap (relatively speaking) and Egyptian
history interests me, but on this trip I was in a "no
thank you" mood.
There is a horrendous amount
of construction going on all the way up the coast to Sharm El
Sheik - hotel after hotel, who knows how they will fill them
all once they are completed. I would have to say that unless
you like diving it is not where I would suggest as a holiday
location as it lacks character (and greenery of course).
You have to pay to go sit on the beach (unless you are
staying at the hotel that owns that particular little section)
- not cheap too at about 30LE or so (£6). The sea was
warm enough at 25 degrees however
I wore two wetsuits (long johns and short john vest) to keep
warm as staying in for an hour will cool you down.
Particularly if it is windy when you get out which it was for
the last couple of days, and being winter it was a cool wind
particularly out on the boat. Daytime temperatures were around
24-28 degrees but rapidly cooled to 14-18 or so at night once
the sun set. It was sunny every day though and apparently only
rains about four times a year, it is a desert after all.
I ate mainly at European restaurants, not wanting to risk a
dodgy stomach while being trapped inside two wetsuits for
obvious reasons!
The hotel provided a few entertaining dramas for a number
of reasons, but fortunately nothing major. Had no water for a
shower for 24 hours despite three rants and raves, and my
repeated calls for a mattress as we know it (i.e. something
softer than the floor) to sleep on went unheeded. Also had
three Australians staying in the room next door who decided in
their usual juvenile shoe-size IQ way that knocking on my door
calling out 'housekeeping' or turning my 'Do Not Disturb' sign
over constituted better entertainment than their late night
drinking parties where they undoubtedly counted each other's
nose hairs...
The other thing you will notice about Sharm EL Sheik is the
road code which has four basic rules...
1. Lines on the road are purely as decoration for the tourists
- lane selection is optional.
2. Be sure to honk your horn and flash your lights at every
tourist you see.
3. Should you be driving a vehicle you must operate it as a
taxi.
4. Should you leave your vehicle, ask everyone you see if they
would like a taxi.
December is the month of Ramadan, which means for 30 days
the locals do not eat during the day and instead choose to
sleep, usually timed just when you are out and about expecting
their shop/bank to be open. For instance the banks were open
9am to 12.30pm and then from 6.30pm until 9pm.
Even the trip home proved eventful. During our transit to
the airport our bus paused in
the parking lot to find an available spot to unload us, and
two of the aforementioned highly capable Egyptian drivers
managed to have a car accident beside us. This was caused by
one perfecting his Michael Schumacher slipstream overtaking
maneuver (in his Mercedes) past another who decided that he
would rather they both lose the championship and pulled out
into his side nailing the wing mirror and scraping the door.
The Mercedes driver
immediately stopped his car and jumped out threatening
violence, gesticulating wildly and jabbering away excitedly as
we all watched from the bus. Our tour operator jumped out to
encourage them to take the discussion elsewhere as we needed
to get off the bus and the bus could not move. Instead the
Mercedes driver jumped back in his car, proceeded to park
diagonally blocking everyone from going anywhere and then
jumped back out again protesting that a grand of damage had
been done to his car and he wanted some satisfaction (and that
it was none of our business). Security arrived thankfully to
encourage the two to go find a nice quiet place out the back
to park and bang each other's heads.
After queuing yet again to try to get through immigration
to be allowed out of the country, I was second in line when
the airport workers all decided that it was time for breakfast
(6pm), so everyone there stopped working. We were told we
had to wait until after they had their break before we would
be processed. Needless to say there is no concept of staggered breaks here -
everyone goes off at once to sit down for a cigarette etc and
the booths are all empty...
On the way back to London there were 300mph headwinds, resulting in
a just over 6 hour flight, which was not quite what we were
wishing for, but was easily surpassed in pleasure by waiting
for over an hour in 2 degrees at 1am for a taxi to show up
at Victoria Station... home sweet home... not!
Summary
So... the diving was absolutely superb, although Naama
Bay/Sharm El Sheik as a destination for other facilities,
activities or character was pretty average (but probably as good as the area
gets). I plan to visit Egypt again to do the standard tourist
things, but will definitely be including another Red Sea visit
for more diving...
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