July 22 - Egypt: Na'ama Bay - the Sinai Peninsula of Egypt

Today was brilliant!  We woke up and had breakfast, and met our Camel Dive Shop ride at 8:45.  We have a group of 16 of us on the boat, some from America, France, Holland, Norway, the UK, and Canada.  Our dive master, Geoff, is from Australia.  On the way out to the first dive site, there were dolphins playing in the wake of our boat.  Silly dolphins! 

Dive #1: Ras Katy

Depth: 22 meters

Bottom Time: 49 minutes

Visibility: 20-30 meters

Sighted: Many, many fish and lovely coral

We stopped by Sharm El Sheikh to fill up the tanks as the boat is small and we only had room for one tank each.  Then we had lunch on the boat in a little cove and we all jumped off the top of the boat and played in the water.

Some of our fellow divers, frolicking in the water

Dive #2: Far Garden

Depth: 24 meters

Bottom Time: 58 minutes for Heidi, 31 minutes for Jon the air pig

Visibility: 30+ meters

Sighted: 2 huge tuna, stingray, angel fish, and schools and schools of fish that I can't possibly name.

The amazing thing about diving the Red Sea is that the fish are absolutely everywhere and are SO beautiful and colorful!  The reef is so close to the shore and in such shallow water too.  It's like nothing I've ever seen before.  We have something beautiful to look at no matter what depth we're at - even on the safety stops!  It's amazing.  We will never dive more than 30 meters here because Egyptian law forbids it - too much diving tourism is bad for the reef.  This is fine, because the diving will only get better - today was a "get acquainted" day for Jeff to assess all our skills.  Tomorrow and the next day will be more complex dives and we'll see a lot more stuff. 

We got back to the hotel at 6:00, showered, and then rested for a while before hitting the bazaar again for dinner (delicious Indian food).  But we were in bed early because tomorrow we're diving the Straights of Tiran so we have to wake up at 6:30.  Eww.  I thought I was on vacation!