Taba, Egypt

by Darren Astles

Diving is becoming a catalyst for adventure and journeys both in the UK and abroad. That's fine with me and Amanda isn't complaining (well a January 7oC in Ecce Delph was pushing it!) so we had decided we would take the whole family away over the half term break as Declan was about to enter his GCSE's and it may be the last time we would all get away as a family together as the eldest two create their own agendas at this age.

Why Taba? Taba Heights is a purpose built "resort" just down the road from Taba itself, which is a stone's throw away from the border with Israel in the Gulf of Aquaba. There are a number of hotels from the Hilton at Taba (terrorist bombed last year) to the Marriot at Taba Heights. We stayed at the Hyatt Regency on a half board basis. Going on a holiday when the nights are long and the weather is poor in the UK is always a good idea. In fact it snowed the day we left. The omens were good!

We had to stop off at Gatwick (a late change in the flight plans by First Choice Airways, cheers dudes) but the flight from there to Taba airport up in the mountains took 4 hours 20 mins and the last 45 mins was spent gazing out of the window at the desert below us. As we disembarked I noticed how cold it was and wasn't exactly overly impressed but we later found out this was due to the position of the airport in the mountains. By the way, if you look up the temperature for Taba on the Internet it shows the airport, which is much colder. Look up Dahab, it gives a much more accurate reading of the actual temperature just up the coast at Taba Heights. I made sure the mobile telephone worked, dealt with the last few text messages from "worky land" and switched it off again. We then took a 45-minute coach journey to the resort, went through the "welcome" system at the hotel and collapsed into sleep.

A few more words about the resort are worth mentioning. There is very little going on at night, a few themed shows in the bars etc, a kids disco for an hour or so and a few organised things during the day if that's your "thang". Drinks cost a fortune, or so we were told. I don't drink and Amanda rarely does so that wasn't an issue to us but I guess if we did, the all inclusive hotels next door may have been more appropriate. That said, the Hyatt is deservedly renowned for being the best hotel in the area and we were not let down in any way whatsoever. It was spotless, the staff were fantastic, the food good and we had an exceptional holiday. There are two types of ways to spend your time in Taba, one is to laze by the (many) pools or on the beach and "chill to the core", the other is to use the free shuttle bus to go a mile down the coast to the "Water World" complex and other attractions (we also did quad biking in the canyons for example). We chose the latter.

The Water World centre is linked to the hotels (they have an office in the hotel grounds) so you can even book and charge to your room and on the first morning, not one to let time slip by, I booked our "check dive" for that afternoon and Amanda and I took all our kit (we took all our own kit except weights and cylinders as First Choice give you 30Kg per passenger when going to Egypt) down to the centre and were soon doing AAS and Mask Clearing in the shallows of the Red Sea to prove our hard earned BSAC qualifications were worth the paper they were written on.

Although Amanda had some buoyancy issues (no ankle weights) so I had to hold her steady for the mask clear, we soon passed through and were allowed to book further dives on the boats. I can imagine this would be quite annoying for more experienced divers but we class ourselves as "novices" so the check dive was, in my opinion, very worthwhile. You must remember, diving off a large hard boat is something we had never done up until this point.

The initial plan had been to dive every second or third day while Lauren (our 17 year old daughter) looked after Imogen (the 7 year old), but on the first dive all 3 of the kids tried out being on the boat for the duration of the dives and liked it so much they came every time which was much better as we could relax more knowing they were close by. We could get drinks and lunch on the boat too, so it soon became the normal dive day, up at 6:30am, breakfast at 7am, shuttle bus for 8am, in the water at the dive site for the first dive just after 9am. We did 2 dives per trip, although once we did 3 in one day and I did a total of 12 dives during the 2 weeks and Amanda 10, while days in-between were spent on other activities like water skiing, speedboats, quads and other trips to Dahab and St Catherine's Monastery (Moses, burning bush etc).

Let's deal with the dive statistics. Deepest dive was 22m. Longest dive 63 minutes. Water temperature was always 21 degrees at best and on some occasions, a dry suit would have been good (some dive guides and other divers were diving in dry suits while we were in 5mm full wetsuits). A hood was a wise move and I wished gloves were allowed at times because of the cold at depth near the end of the dive, but they were not allowed to be worn. Night dives are also banned in the area as is carrying knives although mine (flat ended small dive knife) is mounted on my BCD and I left it on for the whole two weeks and was only once questioned about it, which was soon explained away ("that's a knife", "yup...it is").

On one dive we were not allowed to dive down to 27m (the bottom of a well where the sea met a fresh water spring) and had to stay at the PADI limit of 18M (BSAC OD 20M rule was news to the dive guide) but I don't think we missed much and as was usually normal anyway, we came back to the surface with heaps more air than many of the others. Sometimes I was the most experienced diver on the boat excluding the guide! At other times the least experienced but as pointed out to us one day on the way back on the bus by a BSAC instructor "I can tell you're BSAC, you stick close (he made the sign with one finger from each hand to signal a buddy pair being close together), because you're used to diving in one metre viz!". I guess he had a point (Ecce Delph sprang to mind!).

So what did we see? A large variety of fish life, the vast majority of which was new to us. Amanda could tell you their names, I don't have memory for such things, but I guess the pictures would tell their own story. We saw a number of Octopi and got some good video footage of them. Amazing creatures whose skin has this ability to go from ultra smooth to resemble the coral in an instant, whose body can fit through any gap it's beak (the only hard part of their body) will squeeze through. Totally captivating and there was more than one occasion that Amanda had to come back for me as I got immersed with the task of taking pictures or video footage.

Here is a dive from my perspective...

Shoes off at the boat side and a little balancing act along the plank into the boat. It crosses my mind that the kids may think this is like being a pirate but I suppress the urge to make pirate voices and climb down into the rear of the boat. The floor is wooden on this boat and only a touch cold. The kids head up the stairs to the wheel and sun decks so we can concentrate on the task in hand. First job is to make sure we have all the kit. The boxes have been brought onto the boat by the centre staff and contain all our own dive gear except wetsuits that we carried across ourselves as they had been drying overnight.

Boots (still damp), hood (still damp), fins, mask, regs all checked. I find a space where there are 3 tanks all close together and have to pick one tank up to put it in a hole closer to me. It's not really heavy but the tank itself is grey and has a slight rough covering to its paint that is different to ours back home, which are smooth and bright yellow! The sides of the boat have benches that have cylinder size holes in them and most of the holes are full of cylinders.

I can hear a few words of Arabic being spoken intermingled with English and a spot of French. The guide asks me if I am OK and as I gesture confirmation with a nod he turns to another diver and slips into another foreign tongue to, I guess, ask a similar question. It always strikes what a leveller diving is and that all the people here share that love of the sport. No race barriers here. Good. A quick glance around the boat and there are half a dozen people, 3 women, 3 men and the 2 male guides all kitting up. Everyone is busy but most have time to share a smile.

My BC is dropped over the cylinder and the metal fastener flipped into place. I grab my regs from the box and unscrew the pin, releasing the ball cover and placing them over the same cylinder I had placed closest to me a few moments before and which now has my BC firmly attached.

A quick twist of the gauges to face them away from me and I gently turn the air on to be greeted by a sharp pop/bang and the unmistakable sound of an "O" ring shouting its death throes.

Damn! I turn to see if the guide has heard it when I hear a second one go off on the other side of the boat. Must remember to convert to DIN when I get the regs serviced as that is another half dozen O rings I have heard go pop together with the half dozen we heard in Malta. Better now than at 25m though eh? Whatever, I ask for a replacement and am told by the Egyptian boat hand to simply use another cylinder so I have to unhook everything, move the cylinders around and start all over again.

A minute or two later and my gauge is showing 200 bar, all equipment is present and correct and, as I am not last (the other recipient of a deceased O ring is still fitting her gear) I retire to the sun deck with Amanda and the kids and the boat starts its engines and moves out of the harbour as the last diver joins us on top.

This boat has a fridge upstairs and for 20 Egyptian pounds each (about £1.80) you can drink as much as you can manage from the fridge of water, 7-up, coke or coffee in the galley all day. Worth every cent as the kids act like coke that actually comes in coke bottles is new to them...mmm...maybe it was!

It's 9am, the sun is beating down and it is a lot warmer than it feels as the breeze on the boat cools you. We have hardly broke harbour when a boat briefing begins telling us which parts of the boat are wet, which ones dry (no wet clothes thank you), the toilet (whatever goes in it goes straight out) and so on. We listen even though we have heard it before and then the guide begins drawing out his map of the site for the dive briefing and we cruise along, past the hotel on our left, onto the cove ahead. We will be diving twice later at Farun Island (a small Island with a fort historically occupied by both the crusaders and Saladin for a period of time), but for now, we are to dive a reef wall at the edge of the cove.

As the boat ties off on the marker and the (very) detailed dive brief comes to a close we make our way down the ladder to the lower rear deck and begin to kit up, starting with our 5mm full length wetsuits. The guide has a dry suit.

Kitting up for a dive always feels like the prelude to a mission for me, which I suppose it is. It's always tinged with anticipation of what we might find, what lies beneath and is always part of the fun. Amanda does buddy checks to the letter and after we have checked off with each other I always feel ready to go.

There is a bit of waiting around today, I think a couple of divers are maybe having their first open water dives so we move to the rear, are helped on with our fins by the boat crew and we both stride enter to the rear to get our of the way and let the other divers sort themselves out in their own time. We have been there, recently. We know what it's like, so we get out of the way. Anyway it gives us a minute or two to take some pictures and video footage from the surface of the boat and so on until everyone is in and ready.

We have been told by the guide, "You are qualified divers, work together, buddy together and follow my lead but don't expect me to manage you air." So although we all descend together it is just the two of us that exchange OK's and give it the thumbs down, ignoring the rest and the deep blue welcomes us with its cooling grasp and glittering array of fish and coral. We have agreed with the guide to let them know when we hit 100 bar, but the reality is we are never the first to run low and continually other pairs return to the boat while we dive for longer. Of course there are many other divers who have air consumption much better than ours, but at least we get to do the whole of the dives.

I give and get an OK sign from Amanda as we drop and I have time to switch on the camera and loose off a few shots as we descend, catching her silhouetted above me. I check the computer on my right forearm and it confirms I am dropping at the required rate so I breathe out what is probably a couple of litres of air from my lungs and the descent quickens. I drop the camera and it flips back on its tether just below the computer and squirt air into my BC to stop the fall with my left hand. A quick intake of breath to replenish my lungs back to full and a few moments later I stop, weightless and neutrally buoyant watching as Amanda drops neatly beside me. We seem to have come a long way from bottom bouncing at Capenwray!

We have hit 20m and the edge of the wall. It drops off to about 40m we are told but it is too gloomy down there to see so we do an air check to make sure we are both on about 180 (this is a habit we have of checking air at the bottom before we move off to make sure neither of us is losing any) and off we go.

The dive itself is fairly routine in that we see a lot of coral, many different varieties of fish, some that are as much as 3 foot long and an Octopus. Of course, "fairly routine" is a relative term and it is only routine now that we have been diving for over a week here. We fin harder than normal and the dive is a "drift dive" to reach a boulder at the end of the cove. On a number of occasions I simulate catching Amanda up pretending (in my head) that I was out of air and had to reach her for the life saving octopus she wears. It's a timely reminder to stay close and the requirement of alternate air and pony cylinders begins to make a heap of sense as closing even a 5m distance isn't as quick as you might imagine, particularly if there is any kind of current. The guide sends up a DSMB and the boat comes hunting us out so we do twirls and the odd somersault as we do the deco stop. My computer is insisting I do a 5-minute stop and I think it's because I was at 22m for the whole of the dive while others were above me. I can see Amanda looking for me above and I show with my hands that I am doing another 2 minutes of stops regardless of what the guide has said about surfacing.

Anyway, it quickly passes and the guide nods his approval as I explain why I stayed down. We haul ourselves back into the boat and pass that awful moment of zero gravity to "seriously big weight strapped to weak body" that signals the end of the dive.

Kit off, cylinder changed, wetsuit hanging to dry, towel on and bottle of water from the "£1.80" fridge while we discuss the dive on the upper deck and the boat heads off in the direction of Israel and Farun Island. The sun is now high in the sky, it's approaching 10:30am and we will be back in the water before noon. Good.

The dive boats run by Waterworld were all high quality boats with sun decks, galleys and a good diving platform at the rear with spine ladders. We sometimes went on the "half day" boat, sometimes on the full day where the boat was slightly larger but although the large boat could take 24 divers (we were told), we never had more than 8 so we had plenty of space to kit up in.

So to conclude, what was good and what was not so good? The location was fantastic, the views of 4 different countries, the people, the scenery of the Sinai and the places to visit. We didn't have the time for further excursions outside of the ones mentioned but it is an ideal spot to launch forays into Jordan, Israel and other parts of Egypt such as Cairo are all day trips away. We spent a fair amount of money as there were five of us (so five times boat fees etc.) but overall the costs were minimal in comparison to lots of other places. For example, we saw deals for under £400 half board per week on the web just before we left.

As a dive location for us less experienced divers and a chance to dive from hard boats for the first time it was just about perfect. We were glad we hadn't gone to the busier and sometimes more challenging Sharm area, although maybe the wreck dives there might entice us another time when the kids are not with us. We also didn't get to dive the blue hole in Dahab, although we did go there, because we hadn't enough time and the trip to Dahab took us high in the mountains where we couldn't dive and travel the same day (well according to my calculations we couldn't!).

Stories of Israel setting of depth charges to keep divers away were interesting for the boat journeys back, travel pills wiped out any sea sickness and I got to see my first ray, which was fantastic.

Negatives? Well we had to come back of course! As already mentioned, the flight (from Manchester) had to stop at Gatwick on the way there and back (this was changed after booking) and that added a couple of hours to each journey that was a pain but a forgettable one.

Taba has all the sea life you expect in the Red Sea but the larger stuff is rare. The geology is nothing like Gozo where we dived last year and in fact was somewhat of a letdown to me because I like that kinda thing, but there were a couple of dives where the coral made some interesting diversions and I never finished a dive without a huge smile!

Family friendly it most certainly is and very cost effective. Would we go again? As normal, Taba and the Red Sea are just part of an on-going adventure and form part of our experience and training as further dives and dive destinations are encountered.

I have just put another pin in the map, time to get something booked...



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