Scuba Dahab, Do

Crossing a friendly border.
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The Sinai peninsula has many towns, but I can comment on three in rapid succession.  Taba is a border town...'nuf said.  Nuweiba is quaint but largely exists as a ferry port to Jordan.  And Sharm el Sheikh has become an expensive, Westernized Egyptian resort city.  Dahab, however, deserves more attention than I can offer in this short blog.  During my first few days in this 'Koh Samui of Africa', natives and expats alike warned me of an unexplainable phenomenon called the 'Dahab Vortex'.  Perhaps the magnetic field or gravitational pull is stronger here, but this small beachside town has a tendency to keep visitors longer than they had intended.  An Irishman I met was at six months and counting after planning for two weeks.  Others had stopped keeping track since the 90s.  Whatever the force is, I succumbed to its power and let it suck me into its bars and bungalows and beneath the big, blue Red Sea.

Hello, Africa!
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I came to the peninsula to dive, save for one significant experience on land: sunrise atop Mount Sinai.  To achieve this feat from Dahab, an 11pm departure time was required, followed by a two-hour ride to the village of St. Catherine, so named for the monastery at the foot of the mountain.  Next came a 2.5 to 3 hour hike to the peak with multiple rejuvenation breaks along the way at various Bedouin tea/snack stands.  Even in the hot summer months, let alone January, the desert's night can be bitterly cold  We began wearing every article of clothing we possessed, and, in my case, some additional borrowed ones.  Thirty minutes into the hike, we're stripping layers and wiping brows.  Two hours after that at the top, we're doing everything short of a group hug to keep warm without paying for the overpriced blankets and mattresses.  But one hour later, this all went away.  I've seen many sunscapes on this journey, and this easily makes the top five.  The blaze began as a faint orange stripe on the horizon.  As the glow grew brighter, so did it become warmer, revealing pinks, reds, and yellows.  When the climax came, too quickly I might add, it was sound, not sight the dominated the senses.  The murmered chatter and muted whispers simply faded into an unforgettable, awestruck silence.

It was sound, not sight, that dominated the senses.

They have my vote for the coolest looking currency.
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I dove eight times while staying in Dahab, and while the sites were excellent, they were not the reasons why.  I knew Divers Down Under (DDU) was for me immediately after I met one of its charismatic divemasters, a half-Jordanian, half-Venezuelan man named Mo.  After a refresher dive, since I had not donned scuba gear in nearly a year, he introduced me to the different sites DDU explores, including an overnight liveaboard boat trip to Sharm el Sheikh.  In addition to food and lodging, the excursion included two dives, perimeter and penetration, on the Thistlegorm wreck, the area's most famous site, and one in the Ras Mohammed National Park.  But to prepare, I'd need at least two more dives in the Red Sea.  After hearing personal recommendations and seeing the collection of photographs on hand, I chose four, including a night dive at 'Lighthouse' and a drift dive around 'Blue Hole', the 800m vertical anomaly popular with freedivers.  My favorite site though was 'Islands', a triad of shallow coral gardens teeming with aquatic life.  Sadly, unlike diving blogs of the past, I have no photographs to share my experiences.  My underwater camera housing has been one of the few casualities of this journey, and I hope whomever the Swiss post sent it to enjoys it like I did.  For a sample of life under the sea, I invite you to search the web using the keywords 'Thistlegorm' or 'Ras Mohammed'.

I took several of these, but I won't bore you with more than two.
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Originally, I had no intention of stopping in Dahab.  Instead my attention was focused further south, to Sharm el Sheikh.  I had heard of its reputation as a 'Las Vegas on the water', a town populated with luxury accommodations and high-priced tour operators geared to the fancy clientele who want them.  Despite this not being my preferred scene, I still had an urge to go, if only to see it for myself.  I knew if I could handle its facade, I'd have immediate diving access to some of the world's top shipwrecks and coral gardens.  So, my initial plan was to spend a few days in Dahab before moving south to explore the underwater playgrounds around Sharm.  However, eight days after arriving, I was still finding reasons to stay.  The divemasters, instructors, and other friends at DDU explained the professional freedoms of becoming a divemaster, especially during difficult economic times, and encouraged me to stay and complete the course.  At the bungalow camp, my manager, and now friend, kept showing me the cheap, tasty eateries, taking me to the hippest hangouts, and introducing me to the coolest locals.  He encouraged me to take up semi-permanent resident status and offered his help in finding an apartment.  In a more clever and devious move,  he also leveraged time with his adorable four-week old puppy, Lucky Lulu.  In the end, I discovered the vortex's source of power, but it wasn't enough to keep me permanently.  However, they are definitely enough to get me to return.