DAHAB, EGYPT - A SHORE DIVER'S DREAM!


By Brian Rayner

After several years of keeping this destination on the back burner decided to go and see what all the fuss was about, as I'd heard the diving here was world class with such sites as the Canyon and infamous Blue Hole.

During a phone call to an old friend in London the conversation turned to the subject of holidays to which he said he could do with a break too, with that told him to leave it with me!

First things first. Lets get the ball rolling by seeking out a dive operator.

After a chance email to an old diving mate in Sharm was advised to get in contact with Ed Poore at Poseidon Divers as they have full tech facilities.

This gave me the opportunity of taking my rebreather.

After receiving a return email kindly answering my various enquiries, said they were also able to sort out accommodation too if required, with a choice from 'basic' upwards. With that decided on something mid-range and basically left that with the dive centre to sort, namely through Becky. This now only left the flights to book.

After looking at various websites got a good idea on prices and flight times for July. Finally we opted to book with Air Atlanta (part of Excel), as they left from Manchester on Sunday afternoons, and we were also afforded an extra 10 kgs excess baggage each over our normal 20kgs on production of our cert' cards at check-in.

As Reg' had to travel up to Lancaster from London on the Friday this suited us fine and gave us Saturday to chill out before heading for the airport.

It was good travelling with a fellow diver, especially one that wasn't packing any dive kit, this enabled me the opportunity to take around 60 kgs of gear, marvellous! Apart from the rebreather this also allowed me the added luxury of taking 10 kgs of Sofnolime. That was after I'd emptied Reg's suitcase and got his total weight down to a staggering 7 kgs, although he was still taking a pair of sandals, a T shirt, shorts plus with his soap bag…oh and some camera equipment!

(Thanks Reg it was appreciated)

After leaving the car at a satellite car parking facility in Altrincham arrived at the airport in good time only to find our flight was delayed initially by an hour from a scheduled 1pm take-off, as our flight crew were late from another flight.

We finally boarded at 1:30pm, only to have yet another 30 minute delay as not all baggage had been loaded, and with a technical fault with one of the cabin doors eventually took off at 3pm.

So after nearly two hours of delays the captain finally had a slot and made the decision to go even though some unlucky passengers would still be arriving in Sharm without their luggage! At the dive centre the next day we met one unlucky couple that this had happened to, although they were re-united with it the following day.

At last, we were finally airborne and looking forward to settling down to a relaxing 5 hour flight with a drink and maybe some in-flight entertainment… ………wrong.

With the seat belt light extinguished the cabin-crew busied themselves with their rounds including the sale of headsets at £2.50 only to announce 20 minutes later with apologies that the in-flight entertainment system would not be available during this flight!

Finally flight EUK 484 arrived in Sharm at around 10:45pm over two hours late. After retrieving our cases made our way to the pick-up area to find a very disgruntled taxi driver that had been waiting there for us since 8:30pm. (Becky at Poseidon had kindly arranged our transfer) 1h 20mins later after a drive of nearly 100 kms finally arrived safely in Dahab. With a generous tip of €20 soon found a smile returning to his face as he bid us goodnight.

We checked-in at our hotel just after midnight, and after throwing our bags in our room were glad to find some places were still open for a bite to eat nearby.

Sitting more or less in the road at a local take-out at 1am were very surprised to see a fair amount of activity in the resort. With locals and tourists still strolling around. There were also workmen repairing the footpaths through the night right next to our hotel, although it was never any bother to us during our stay.

On our first full day we started with a relaxing breakfast by the pool, and were quite impressed with Becky's choice for our accommodation.

The Yasmina Hotel (known locally as Jasmena) is a small family run business with around twenty rooms. We were pleased with the room, it was clean, spacious and with air-con and sat TV was more than adequate for us, plus it was only five minutes walk away from the dive centre and beach front.

At last we were finally here and could now get on with sorting out some diving.

After a short stroll through the bazaar checked ourselves in at the dive centre. Where we met Simon who gave us a quick run-down on the centres facilities and routine. After Reg' was sorted with dive kit arranged our diving for the next day. Before heading back to the hotel decided to take a walk along the beach front, the heart of which is a small bay we dubbed 'the strip'. A very bustley place consisting mainly of shops, cafes, bars, dive schools, and a bicycle hire place.

Compared to resorts like Sharm and Hurghada Dahab is very small which no doubt adds to its charm. After a good look round found that this small bay, which is just 300 metres in total seemed to be the hub of the resort.

Although Dahab's entire beach front is roughly about a 1km in length, it's still expanding with more hotels and apartments under construction.

Day two saw a check-out dive first thing at a site called the Light House, which I found more useful for a shake down of the rebreather than anything else. For the second dive that afternoon I had a bimble just off the beach across from the d/centre on Mashraba Reef. It consists of a large sandy slope with outcrops of coral which angles down to depths in excess of 40m, where if you're lucky will see sharks cruising.

After finding a fair sized octopus at 18m reasoned this was going to be a good week, it was just a shame I didn't have the camera with me on this dive!

A nice touch back at the dive centre was a small hut in one corner where you could purchase soft drinks, tea, coffee, and toasties during the day.

Plus there was always a list of the weeks proposed dive sites on view so you could plan your itinerary.

On the Monday it was mentioned that there might be a trip to the Thistlegorm on Thursday if enough people were interested. Initially I wasn't going to bother but then thought it would be good to dive the old girl again after nearly 7 years, to see how she'd faired after all this time. So put my name down, although at €130 (£93) wasn't a particularly cheap trip, and it was going to be a long day.

Thursday finally arrived and Reg' not being an early riser decided to give it a miss. At 6am about ten of us met up at the dive centre and loaded up the mini bus in readiness for our 90 minute drive to the Travco Marina just south of Na'ama Bay. Our boat was the very fast 'Windy K' which motored us out to the wreck site in just under 2 hours. Enabling us to get in the water for our first dive a little after 11am. The Thistlegorm was very busy with at least five dive boats over her at any one time while we were there.

Diving on the Inspiration enabled me to spend more time to explore the deeper sections of the wreck and surrounding sea bed and visit the locomotive on the sand off from the portside.

It also enabled me to skilfully avoid the 'video chappie' who was onboard our boat trying to promote sales of his u/w handywork!

I eventually made my way over to the Bren gun carriers around Hold No 4 where the Thistlegorm received her fatal blows, then when things looked a bit quieter picked my moment to explore the forward holds between waves of divers from the various day boats.

The ever increasing popularity of the Thistlegorm is frightening and I wondered how long this wreck could cope with this ever increasing attention. Is the Thistlegorm now possibly the world's number one wreck site, it certainly looked like it.

While cruising along the bow area also couldn't help wondering how long it would be before the forward decks could no longer support the weight of the tank wagons and tenders, especially the tank wagon on the port side. (Although now I believe the authorities here are keeping a watchful eye on these matters, and her condition generally)

What coral life that was here has diminished from the upper deck areas over time. Although the fish life seemed quite healthy, and I did manage to spot several types of nudibranchs around the deeper mid sections, plus there was also a large school of Chevron barracuda patrolling above. But on these dives didn't manage to see any grouper, as they could sometimes be spotted around the area of the steam locomotives at one time.

Our last dive was at 2pm which enabled us to get back to the marina by 5pm.

A good time was had by all and after thanking the captain and crew for an enjoyable day had a quick stop in Na'ama bay for a bite to eat, arriving back in Dahab for 8pm.

The next morning saw us take the short jeep ride to the Canyon dive site just north of Dahab.

I buddied-up with Ed Poore as he was also diving his unit.

Today he was observing the progress of an extended range instructor development course.

The Canyon is basically a large crack in the reef which you can access from around 7m, although we entered it further round at about 18m, where you literally drop vertically down eventually ending up at the bottom of a narrow sandy gulley. There are two main exits one at around 30m and the other at 50m.

For coral without doubt the best dive for me was The Islands and it's only a ten minute jeep ride from the dive centre to the south of Dahab. With an average depth of 8m enables you plenty of time to study the hard and soft corals and fish life in this area, and if you have a camera even better. This dive is particularly good for macro photography, and as you weave your way up and down and around these beautiful coral formations here you'll see unicorn, lion, crocodile and pufferfish, and shoals of barracuda too if you're lucky.

The entry point is an 80m walk across the reef. I was diving the Inspiration as usual which is not really the right equipment for this type of dive being so shallow, and it certainly kept me busy with buoyancy control.

This site also has an interesting exit point which is gained through a narrow winding swim-through leading to a crack in the reef. Blue spotted rays can sometimes be seen here resting in the sand.

Sadly Saturday was the last days diving, so I decided to leave the best till last.

I tagged along with Toby, Ian, and Sumi who was assisting with the on-going instructor development course along with a guy called Gary who was doing one of his extended range course qualifying dives.

This site is arrived at by a very precarious jeep ride, which basically has to negotiate one very tight gap that has been cut out of the rock face. We managed to negotiate this gap without incident and still had all body panels and both wing mirrors intact on emerging from the other side! If all this would be too much excitement for you, you could always opt for a camel dive safari as an alternative!

The Blue Hole has been dubbed as probably the most dangerous shore dive in the world because so many people have lost their lives here. Sadly on reading some of the many memorial plaques most of the fatalities seem to be young Israelis that have come across the border to take their chances here using their own equipment.

The reason is because there's an arch at about 54/56m, so together with warm clear blue water, an adventurous spirit and a single tank of air makes for a deadly combination. Most fatalities have either been due to running out of air or circuming to the recreational diver's deadly enemy: nitrogen narcosis.

The arch leads out to the open sea where you can swim back along the outer reef wall and return via a gap in the shallows. The Blue Hole is an interesting dive site and very popular regardless of the arch, although some would say this dive site is over-rated purely by reason of the arch's reputation. Personally I think you would have to make your own judgement on this after diving here.

To start our dive we surface swim cross its cavernous interior to reach the north east side for our descent. After approximately two minutes were at a depth of 40m where we put on the 'brakes' to negotiate the arch itself. At 56m found I easily cleared its roof and headed round to the right to reach the open sea with the reef towering above me. After touching my target depth made my way up the reef wall to start the first of my decompression stops after which I rejoined the others where we re-entered the Blue Hole together to finish our deco, after finally levelling up to 3m for the last few minutes before making our exit. Sumiko Kataoka was the lead instructor during this dive.

Sumi hales from Japan and is one of the very few female trimix instructors resident in Egypt, and after watching her at her craft it didn't surprise me, during the 6m stop she just hung there and didn't move a centimetre, like she was standing on a table…very impressive.

Although the Blue Hole goes down to around 130m snorkellers are equally at home here making this site very popular with anybody that likes to splash about basically!

As with all holidays our break here soon came to an end, especially being only a week.

Allowing for 24 hours from the last dive to flying home it was just a case of thanking the dive centre for a great weeks diving, paying our bills and getting the kit dry ready for packing. Then the rest of the day was ours! What better way to spend it than have a few beers at the local watering hole on our last night and say our good byes.

Summary:

Overall:

We enjoyed Dahab and being a relatively small resort has a lot going for it. Although there are several hotel complexes still under construction here at both ends of the sea front it'll still be a few years yet before it becomes the sprawl of its more popular neighbours, as on arrival here you still get the impression that you are indeed in the middle of nowhere!

The Diving

There's more to Dahab than the Canyon and Blue Hole. Although we only had a week to scratch the surface there's still plenty of excellent diving to keep you busy for weeks.

The diving here caters for all levels and abilities. On the technical side there are lots of deep water formations still to investigate and some UK technical divers return here on a regular basis to continue their explorations.

We were told that apart from The Islands another excellent site is Gabr El Bint which has some beautiful coral gardens. Sadly we didn't have enough time to get this one in our log books. This site is roughly 25 kms south of Dahab and apparently getting there involves the use of camels as well as the trusty Jeep as the last stretch is not accessible by road. Never mind maybe next time?

Other activities:

There's not much here in the way of entertainment, so don't forget to pack your Travel Scrabble!

Dahab's night life generally seems to revolve around a few favoured bars along the beach front.

If a break is needed from diving there's always the camel rides, or if you're not that desperate can take a quad-bike into the desert for a couple of hours. There are also Jeep treks organised. For the more adventurous there are trips to St Katherine's Monastery home of the biblical burning bush.

Eating & drinking:

Although it might seem obvious always drink bottled water here and for the more adventurous among you there are plenty of establishments serving bottled alcohol!

The average paid for an Egyptian Stella lager beer was £1/ £1.20 as for the premium lager beer Sakara Gold that's a little dearer.

Meals are equally good value at around £2.50/£3.50 generally speaking.

Tota's bar is very popular with divers especially with those using Poseidon Divers as it's right next door (the bar with a boat shaped frontage). It's roomy, serves good food plays a fair selection of music, even I was impressed. It also has a sat TV area, a large beer garden to the rear and a roof terrace where you can watch the world go by with good views across the Red Sea towards Saudi Arabia.



Flights, accommodation & transfers:

I booked the flights on-line with Excel, our tickets cost £240.00 each. Although prices do vary according to season and time of year. (The in-flight meal is extra usually around £10.00)

Our taxi transfer was arranged through Poseidon Divers, the payment of which was to the dive centre along with our accommodation.

We stayed at the Yasmina Hotel which was approximately £47.00 each for the week on a B&B basis.

Here at least they don't seem to have cottoned-on to the single room supplement tariff's yet, so if you were on single occupancy you'd still pay the same.

Dive Centres & costs:

We decided on Poseidon Divers because it was recommended and has technical facilities. It is also British owned and run by Ed Poore, although there are several dive centres in Dahab to choose from. Below is a list of a few Dive Centres and their websites.

Gas charges: O2: €0.02 per litre / He: €0.06 per litre / Sofnolime: €12 per kilo.

During my stay I had 8 dives and spent €342.00 in total (including the Thistlegorm trip).

My gas costs were €80.00 which also included rented stage cylinders for some dives, so this bill isn't a typical one.

That said I was very lucky overall cost wise, having a travelling companion who was taking very very little enabled me to pack extra kit and so keep my expenses to a minimum. As I could have so easily incurred at least another €85.00 for Sofnolime if I hadn't taken it with me, plus excess baggage charges both ways. At around £5.00 per kilo would have made this trip a very expensive one. If taking mountains of gear its sometimes worth considering buying another plane seat.

Currency:

In days gone by the US$ was the currency of choice, now thanks to the Euro things have changed. We took a mixture of Sterling £, US$ & Euros €.

The dive centres generally deal in Euros, the locals will accept Euros, US Dollars, and of-course their own Egyptian pound.

We found life was far easier using local currency when out and about in the resort, as paying in other currencies you'll be given a different price every time! Now whether that's because not everyone knows the current exchange rates or because having to deal the three currencies is all just too much hassle who knows?!

Generally credit cards are not popular in Egypt, even dive centres and most hotels will only deal with cash. But they are handy at banks to get cash if you find yourself getting short.

General Advice:

On arriving, ask the dive centre staff or other divers the best places to eat, drink, shop, get phone cards or anything else for that matter. It makes your first couple of days that much easier settling in without having to pay over the odds at the start.

If you are unfamiliar with travelling to Egypt be warned that tipping is very much apart of their way of life, in fact virtually anything they do for you you'll be prompted for a tip. That said tip if you feel one is warranted, if not don't be intimidated, they may give you a frowning look but they'll get over it. In my travels here I've always found airports the worst place for this mainly by the 'unofficial' baggage handlers that hang round the carousels.

Although luggage trolleys are taken for granted in most airports be warned that in Egypt you'll almost certainly be charged for using one from anything up to £2.00, so do like I do take a wheelie style suitcase!

Before booking anything don't forget to check-out the BSAC's Travel website for any special offers.

Clothing:

Going in July the air temp was in the mid 30C's so you won't need to pack much, only may be for sun protection, packing a hat and sun screen are not a bad idea either.

If you don't like the heat give Egypt a wide berth during August as temperatures here can quite easily soar into the mid 40C's. Generally the season runs from May to October.

Web sites:

Dive centres:

Poseidon Divers

Emperor Divers

Dive Urge

Sinai Divers

Flight Companies:

Excelairways

Cheapflights

Red Sea Flights

Take a look at this forum for Excel (it has some interesting customer feed-back)

Forum

Package Companies:

Explorers

Libra Holidays

Regaldive

Brian Rayner

BSAC DL A676945/0945 / TDI: SCR & OC/CCR AD TMX

If anyone would like to get in touch about any aspects of this report please mail me on: Brian Rayner


Return to EGYPT Main Page