Saturday, November 23, 2013

Egypt Day 7: Baron Reef & Nightdiving

The visit to the “Old Market” was interesting yesterday evening. I don't like to haggle when I have not got a reverence of the current price of the article. Johanna and Jon enjoyed it, haggling for clothes and spices. A lot of the locals where interested in Jons VERB (a GoPro equivalent camera from Garmin) and some filmed their shops with it. Also saw a lot of stray cats. dogs (with pups) and rubbish in the area.
After getting back we all had a restful sleep for the dive the next day. Johannas alarm went of at 7.40 am, so we went and had some breakfast.
After we had breakfast we went and prepared our diving gear. Johanna decided against going with us in the end as she has got some kind of illness which has had her having stomach cramps. Not very fun when you are stuck 20 metres underwater. In the end it was Jon, Brigitte (another person from Germany), Salah (dive guide) and me. When we dropped of the Zodiac at Baron Reef Brigitte lost her weights and shot back up to the surface. Salah picked them up a bit deeper down and gave them back so we continued on. Saw a few of the usual thing, lots of fish (of which I don't know all the types), a clown fish, my first scorpion fish, a giant puffer fish, a murrain eel, a blue spotted sting ray and a small jellyfish. About half way through the dive Salah spotted some type of ray and we later had a look through some books, but we couldn't identify it in the end. It was buried rather well in the sand and had a kind of tail we didn't recognise. After the dive we had some lunch and then did nothing except sleep and sun bathe the whole afternoon as we where night diving in the evening.
Started getting dressed when the sun was going down and jumped in to the water with torches on. Jon went in first and was greeted by the waiting tentacles of jellyfish. They seem to prefer the nights to be active. Went down with Santo, Jon and Johanna and spotted some ocean dwellers which are not seen daytimes. Some small sea stars and a lot more fish. All the while the jellyfish where around us. Jon got stung up rather bad in his short neoprene suit, while Johanna was stung on the neck once and me on the cheek. Turned round and swam back with the current before reaching a platform at five metres and settling down. My gravitational centre was a bit to far to the front so I kept tipping over forwards. We switched of all our light for a short while and when you stirred through the water the small plankton lit up in a green light. If you have ever seen the film “Avatar” from James Cameron with the small, glow lights floating around, that is what it felt like. A super dive, which I will be doing again I hope.
After dinner (with some very nice white chocolate as desert) we went to Soho Square. I cant fathom why they would name something as posh as that shopping square after the London Drug centre. Was a nice evening after bartering with the hotel about the Taxi price, we ended up paying a third of the original. Saw a fountain show and had a stroll around the shops before getting back and to bed.
More pictures at Picasa and a link to the reef map here. I could not find a more detailed one, we are currently diving between Tiran Island and the main land.

Diving time: 112 min.
Diving depth: 18,8 meters
Speciality: Glowing lights in the dark

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