Diving in the Red Sea

Bob Marley, drugs and dreadlocks in Dahab
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An abbreviated version of an article published in the Weekend Argus, Travel supplement in Aug 2004

On my way home from Cairo, Egypt after following the Silk Road through China and Kyrgyzstan and five months spent in Turkey, I went diving in the Red Sea.

It's like swimming in an aquarium or the Discovery Channel

The Sinai Peninsula is arguably the best diving venue on the planet. So, what is it about the Red Sea that attracts visitors from all over the world? Crystal-clear, warm water, brilliant, amazing underwater scenery, fantastic reefs and an incredible variety of exotic fish darting in and out of the colourful coral.

Laid back Dahab
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I was invited to join a couple of experienced divers on what is possibly the finest and most dangerous dive spot on the Sinai coast and apparently claims the lives of divers every year - the Blue Hole.

Travelling along the dusty road, hugging the coastline, we stopped at the ‘Canyon’ for a warm-up dive. Here the reef forms a huge lagoon, like a fish bowl intersected by a number of narrow channels to a depth of 50 m. Divers first swim through a tunnel into the ‘bowl’, then swim above it to watch brightly coloured fish swim between bubbles of air from divers below. After the Canyon, divers had to wait two hours to allow nitrogen to leave their bodies.

The dive master tried to persuade me to go snorkelling and I hate to admit it, but I’m a water nymph who hates to put her head under water. Reluctantly I donned goggles, snorkel and flippers and, with the moral support of one of the divers, I waded out to the dive platform.

Assalah is a favourite base for divers, probably due to the golden beaches, turquoise and sapphire sea and offbeat café life. It was once a Bedouin village and famous as a druggies paradise. Bango (marijuana) was grown extensively in Sinai and cultivators could not be prosecuted owing to a loophole in the Camp David Accord. Nowadays dealers risk long-term imprisonment or even hanging if they are caught - and in 1997 the authorities burned 28 million kilos.

Nowadays, apart from a few Rastafarians and Bob Marley music, Assalah is a quiet beach resort and a great place to chill out in one of the string of almost-identical restaurants around Ghazala Bay, listening to the waves lap against the beach and the gurgle of the sheesha (water pipes). At night the lights of towns in Saudi Arabia can be seen on the opposite side of the Gulf of Aqaba.

The towns various dive clubs offer a full range of courses from an introductory dive for US$30 (R210), a five-day contract for $320 (R2,250) to a 2-day Advanced Open Water PADI course for $165 (R1,155). But don’t despair, there is a plethora of cheap, basic camps and the food is inexpensive.

Back in the Blue Hole, my guide told me that we would swim around the Hole anti-clockwise and that he would be ahead of me. I lowered my head into the water and my eyes almost jumped out of my head. “Wooow,” I gurgled, losing my snorkel in the process. It was like being inside a television in a Discovery program, or inside an aquarium of tropical fish. Shoals of red anthus, the most populous fish, are a stunning sight against the sapphire water at the entrance to the hole.

At the Blue Hole there is a spectacular platform of coral around a deep crater with the water colour from turquoise to midnight blue with the shaft plunging to 80 m. Divers descend to 60 m and then swim through a transverse passage that forms an arch, then come up on the other side. This spot marks the beginning of the Ras Abu Galum Park.

After the Blue Hole I was hooked and explored other dive/snorkel sites just north of Assalah. The ‘Eel Garden’ is a shallow reef where the endemic St Mary’s Eel sinks its tail into the sand at the first sign of danger. A mature eel can reach one metre. The ‘Lighthouse’ is a wall of coral 25 to 30 m deep. To the south of the village are ‘The Island’, ‘Napoleon Reef’ and ‘Lagoon’. At the ‘Lagoon’ the wind blows 200 days of the year, making it a haven for wind surfers.

The area is relatively unspoiled by man - in fact there are few places on earth where the complex eco-system and natural balance is undisturbed. The Sinai is a magical place with spectacular sunsets and clear, starry nights where rocks and desert meet coral reef. Its mineral-rich red, jagged mountains inspired the mariners of antiquity to name the sea Mare Rostrum or Red Sea.