44: Edfu to Marsa Alam (Egypt)

Pictures from under the sea:

Week 44 Update:

Edfu, Marsa Alam

Day 303:

The alarm woke us up before 7:00. We had agreed to join two other travellers for the renowned breakfast feast at the hotel. We sat down at a small table in reception and watched in awe as the elderly man brought in the huge plates of food. The starter was a heap of fruit and after we scoffed that the real food arrived. It was almost like being back in the lovely Sudan. We had scrambled eggs and bread and beans and pure honey and all kinds of things tempting the taste buds. We ate and ate until we could eat no more and instantly understood why the guestbook had so many accounts of people raving about the breakfast there. The feast took about an hour and a half to complete and with that we were ready to set off again. I had had my fill of ancient temples with carvings on sandstone walls I did not fully understand, but we had one place left to see.

After handing over a healthy tip to the hotel owner for the extra coffee, tea and helping with the purchasing of the previous day’s chicken we headed north again, following the Nile but on the much less travelled western side. Our destination was not far away and after negotiating the small dusty alleys of the numerous tiny villages we found along the way we eventually stopped at the tourist police stop at the temple of Khuun. I forget the exact significance of the place, but what was interesting to me was the fact that it used to be totally buried by the village that sprung up around and then on top of it. As with so many of the other ancient temples it was excavated at some point and stood in a 15m deep hole in the centre of the town of Esna (Isna). It was a massive square building with the predictable heavy roof supported by the predictable amount of stone columns. The carvings were in pretty great condition on the inside and the sheer scale of the place made the visit worth the effort. There were obviously plans to either restore or renovate the temple as every alley between the huge columns had some modern scaffolding positioned near the high walls. It did detract from the ambiance quite a lot, but we understood the necessity of protecting the ancient place from the seemingly fast growing grime and mould on the stone surfaces. We hung around trying to make sense of the carvings until a group of American tourists arrived. That was our cue to get out of Dodge!

We followed the river north until we found a nice big bridge and crossed over to the main Aswan/Luxor hi way. It was time to head through the desert and to the coast so we actually backtracked to Edfu before taking the road east towards the town of Marsa Alam. According to our maps we were blazing a new trail even though we were driving on a wide and smooth tar road. I remember looking around our environment while driving and comparing it to the rocky hills of the Richtersveld National Park in South Africa’s Northern Cape. I could see that the hills would come alive in the pastel red and pink colours around magic time. We were on another mission though and did not stay to find out. We were stopped in two road blocks where the police wanted to have a short chat about our nationalities and destination, but made great time and short work of crossing the 150km wide eastern desert.

In Marsa Alam town we had a quick look around before heading south towards the place we had identified as suitable for our diving needs. Their website indicated that they offered camping and that the diving there was very affordable. We found the camp first, established that there was no way that we could sleep in our tent or even self cater and at the Euro 70 a night price tag decided to move on instantly. The place was dry, decollate, characterless and ugly. We did find a dive operator close by and we were happy with their prices and services, but we were in desperate need of cheaper accommodation. The day was also drawing to a close so we decided to find a place to sleep and spend the next day searching for an activity provider. Someone we had met on our travels had given us a waypoint of a place to camp about 25km north of where we were, so we decided to head in that direction.

We found the Beach Safari Divers right by the first police road block north of town. At first glance we were not impressed. It was however late afternoon by that time so we really needed to find a place to pitch our tent for the night. We found the office and the manager; Shasli greeted us with a smile. A Swiss guy called Peter also walked into the office and within a few minutes we had made our minds up. We had found the perfect place for all our needs!

They quoted us E£ 100 ($16) a night for a stunning and massive room with en suite bathroom. Their dive prices were a third cheaper than the place we found earlier and the people as well as the place had a fantastic feel about it. The camp was small and almost secluded compared to the resorts we had previously seen. It consisted of two rows of typical desert buildings with round roofs, a separate area for the dive centre and a dining room made from wooden slats with a roof for shade only. We felt welcome and comfortable, so decided to stay and dive with them from the next day.

As the sun was setting we made some dinner on our desert patio and after checking our dive gear which had been stowed away inside Maggie since leaving Zanzibar we crawled into a very comfortable and very big bed for a well deserved night’s sleep. We did put up our own mosquito net though. (Thanks Ollie and Catt) We couldn’t work out where the insects came from, but they were huge and blood thirsty as hell.

Day 304:

As with most dive operators in the Red sea, we had to undergo an evaluation dive before being let loose into the big blue world under the surface. Peter, the Swiss guy we had met the day before was in charge of that. He had taken another guest on an early morning dive and we met them at the breakfast table around mid morning. After the normal paperwork we packed our gear onto the back of a pickup truck and drove about ten minutes south along the coat to a sandy bay.

Peter explained to us that the shore entry was easy as pie and that we would dive along a reef towards the northern side of the bay after proving our proficiency to him. The site was called “Kilo Tamania” which translates to “8 km” as that was the distance from Marsa Alam. It was all quite surreal. Before then we had only dived from boats, so to be able to just walk from a beach into the ocean was quite a change for us. When we poked our heads under water for the first time we couldn’t really believe what we saw. The coral gardens at only 2 or 3 meters below the clearest bluest water we had ever seen were just unbelievable! There was a lot less marine life than what we expected and what we had been used to at other dive sites, but the typography more than made up for it. We followed Peter along the reef spotting some interesting and fairly rare Lionfish and Blue Spotted Rays. We saw a variety of puffer fish and box fish and by the time we had to turn back to shore we were at a depth of 20m. The water was colder than we had expected and from the 40 minute mark we were both pretty cold, but not so cold that we did not want to stay submerged. We eventually surfaced again after a 65 minute dive and were suitably impressed with out experience. Peter told us that it was nothing more than a taster and that we had much more interesting things to look forward to.

Back at the camp we rinsed our gear in fresh water before deciding to join the others for a scrumptious lunch prepared by their in-house cook, Taha. Peter told us that they had no menu and that the contents of the meal plates were always a surprise, but always fantastic and priced so well that we decided to have dinner with the camp on a daily basis from then on. We had planned a second dive for the day, but had an hour or two to kill before, so headed back to our comfortable room for a serious bit of R&R. I turned my computer on and loaded the internet software, but for some reason I could not connect. I tried a few more times without success and put it down to running out of data fees. We had planned to drive to town the next day, so decided to tend to that then.

Our second dive was walking distance from our camp. It was at the house reef and entering the water was fairly challenging for us both. We had to walk over some rough rocks and corals to a channel in the reef. There we could hold on to a rope to keep our balance while putting our fins on while the waves were trying to make it difficult for us. Following the rope into the deep blue ocean was fairly exciting as well and we soon found ourselves at the end of the narrow and deep underwater canyon facing a massive wall of coral on one side. The other side was… well, open ocean. The visibility was phenomenal but there was simply no tangible end to the void on one side of us.

The reef on the other hand, which was so ridiculously close to the camp, bottomed out at 44 meters which was deeper than we were allowed to dive. The top was about 5 meters under the surface which made it perfect for our safety stops and the middle was just crawling with interesting life forms! The coral once again was incredible to look at and the small things we started noticing made us move a lot slower than the other two guys. The dive was fantastically satisfying and even relaxing to some extend. With camera in hand, looking at interesting marine life and typography the hour we had agreed on passed too quickly and the obvious addiction we had always known the existence of started sinking its claws into us. It was fairly certain that we would stay in that spot for a while.

Getting out the water was quite a challenge. The tide was moving out and the current was strong. We were both understandably grateful for the rope that was placed in the channel to help divers along their way and really glad to find the water only half a meter deep at the end of it. We quickly removed our fins and stood up in the shallows before simply walking to shore and the dive centre’s big bath of fresh water. For the second time that day we had dived for longer than 60 minutes and for the second time we rinsed our gear. We hung it all up in the space provided and headed to our room for a much needed hot shower. I was a little sceptical about the latter as they had only solar water heaters. We had come across them fairly often in Africa and they had never really been as effective as we had hoped. These ones however were the exception to the rule! The water was piping hot and although the pressure wasn’t the greatest we had come across, it was enough to get stuck under and wait for the normal 37 degrees to return to our cores.

We met the rest of the group in the dining room in the late afternoon. We brewed some coffee and ate some fruit and relished the heat of the afternoon sun next to the wooden building. I sat on a plastic chair facing it with my eyes closed soaking up the heat like a Lizard would and loved every friendly minute of it. I had still not been able to connect to the internet and our local cell phone did not seem to work. I asked Taha if he knew what the problem was…

The country was in turmoil! Apparently there had been mass demonstrations the day before. That was a Friday which meant that most of the country was not at work. The masses were calling for the current President Mubarak to relinquish his power with immediate effect and the demonstrations had turned violent in Suez, Cairo, Alexandria, Luxor and Aswan. The government had somehow blocked all internet access and cell phone communications and even the popular news channels were being censored. I could not believe it. It was like talking about a film we had all seen or a book we had read. There we were: Close to the end of a year long trip driving through the perceived deepest darkest Africa. We cut short our visit to Sudan in fear of a violent referendum and managed to avoid all the political unrest the continent had to offer only to find ourselves cornered in Egypt…

Still, where we were was perfectly safe and the Nubian people in the area could really not give two hoots about who was in power and what was happening in the country. They had basic survival as a main concern and as long as they had a place to sleep and food to eat, they were happy. We tried desperately to get in touch with our families to let them know that we were fine and safe. The internet was gone and the cell phones did not work though. Eventually we managed to make a call to the UK using a roaming sim card and managed a two minute conversation before running out of money. It was enough to reassure the people we needed to though and we could fall asleep easily knowing that whatever nasty things were happening we were still unaffected by them.

Day 305:

There was not much more for us to do at our little hideaway. We got up before the sun and got our gear ready for an early morning paddle in the water. We met Peter and Andy at the dive shop and waded into the welcoming blue waters at 6:30. The ocean was perfectly calm and the tide was in, so the walk and the entry into the diving area could not have been easier.

Within a few minutes we were floating at a depth of 35 meters looking at strange and fascinating snails and fishes. The sun was low over the horizon and the colours were developing right in front of us, but at that depth the reds and blues were already absent. We found some sea horses and spotted some mackerel looking for breakfast, but soon came close to our “no decompression limit” (NDL) so started a slow ascent up the roof. While stopping to photograph another one of the variety of Lionfish we had spotted I heard a sound behind me and spun around just in time to see a massive dolphin swim up to us. He was much bigger than any of us and simply swam in between us, making eye contact with every individual, before circling the group, turning to the open ocean and disappearing as fast as he had appeared in the first place. I was totally dumb struck and utterly speechless. If it wasn’t for the expression on the faces of my fellow divers I could have believed that the bubbles had made me hallucinate. In fact, it all happened so incredibly quickly that I hardly had time to turn the underwater camera on. I managed one fairly poor photograph as proof though.

The rest of our dive was almost pale in comparison, but still utterly enjoyable. We excited via the same channel as entering and as soon as our heads broke the surface we started cackling like small children, reliving our experience with the massive marine mammal we had seen. Peter, who had dived the same reefs for about 8 years, told us that he recognised the individual animal from scarring on his tail caused by a plastic bag that got stuck around it. He said that he used to see him quite often and always tried to remove the bag, but could never quite get to it. He was also convinced that the poor dolphin would eventually die because of the hindrance, but was really pleased to see it again, without the plastic. The experience for me was almost spiritual. The animal’s obvious curiosity made it swim around us and almost inspect us as individuals. It was just astonishing to see the look of intelligence in its eyes as it swam past and I could very well believe that it recognised its old friend, Peter.

For our second dive of the day we drove around to another sandy bay called “Marsa Igla”. It was only about a five minute drive away but was perfect for us. There was hardly any current and the waves broke a kilometre away over another reef. We waded into the water until we reached a comfortable depth and simply submerged ourselves into the wondrous world of tropical sea life. The rules of diving dictate that the depth of your first dive for the day limits the depth any subsequent dives. That suited us perfectly and although we still dove to beyond 20 meters below the surface, we stayed under for more than an hour once again. The water was perfectly clear and the visibility astonishing. The reef was crawling with abundant life and the coral itself was getting more and more impressive with every dive. We had obviously succumbed to the addiction of diving and were totally at peace with where we were and what we were getting up to.

We were all done with diving for the day before lunch time. We sat on our patio feasting on some freshly prepared food and spent the afternoon doing very little in deed. We had had plans to do a little maintenance on Maggie and do some writing, but before we could get to that we saw that it was 17:00 and time for our afternoon ghawa. So we strolled over to the dining room in search of boiling water and found Peter, Andy and some of the staff there. They were discussing the countries’ current problems so we listened with a keen ear. We were joined by Hassan, the general manager and head instructor. He had had some communications from Cairo and also from his family in Sudan and seemed to have fairly up to date information about everything.

Apparently the unrest had subsided dramatically since the initial Friday clashes. He told us that Cairo was still in bad shape and so was Alexandria and Suez, but the rest of the country was calm again. Tourists were leaving by the thousands because of the possible threats and apparently the tourist police had stopped all Nile Cruises from docking at the sites. I could just picture the hundred or so hotel sized barges lining up at the single lock at Esna trying to flee to Luxor. I’m sure it would have been a fantastic sight to behold! It was however getting serious for us as well and we needed to come up with a failsafe escape plan, should the need arise.

We could of course simply leave Maggie behind and fly home, but that came with its own set of challenges: With my fantastic green passport I could only fly to one country which was South Africa. I needed a visa for any other country and could only get one of them in Cairo… We also had a Carnet de Passage for Maggie. So apart from the commercial value of the car and the gear, we would also loose another 200% of the car value if we abandoned her there. Hassan told us that he had family in Port Sudan. That was about 800km from where we were and if we used the old camel trading routes we could travel that in two to three days. It was obviously not exactly the legal way of dong things, but any other country for onward travel involved spending time in Cairo to obtain visas.

After many mugs of tea and long conversations we had made up our minds: We would simply stay where we were in the sincere hope that the citation would resolve itself before we needed to leave the country. It was Sunday evening and all the indications were that things would return to relative normality within a few days. Still, the possible problems we could face stuck in the back of our minds as we headed back to our room and off to bed. We decided to watch a movie on the computer to take our minds off things and both fell asleep before the end.

Day 306:

It was a collective decision to make our first dive even earlier than the previous day. We had even gotten our gear ready the night before and by the time the alarm woke us at 5:45 we were ready to go! We drank a quick cup of coffee before braving the outside world but was still kitted up and wading through shallow water by the time the suns first rays crept over the oceans perfectly flat horizon.

Our point of entry was the same as the day before but we decided to head in the opposite direction. Because of the absence of the sun it was still fairly dark under the surface and even the fish seemed to still be asleep. Peter had a plan to search for his friendly dolphin and was quite excited about the prospect of seeing a shark or two. For us it seemed cold, dark and unwelcoming where we were though. About half way though the dive we saw a couple of huge Barracuda swim by in search of food and then saw a funny looking creature called a “Napoleon wrasse” cruising in the opposite direction. He seemed totally oblivious to our existence and never even glanced in our direction.

By the time we had come to the end of the dive and doing our compulsory safety stop at 5 meters deep, the sun had riser fully and the reef started coming alive with colour and life again. We took a few nice photos in the shallows and headed out along the rope until we could stand. Walking out the water we chatted about the dive, but were all a little disappointed about the pickings. I blatantly put it all down to arriving there too early and suggested that we change our timing for the next day.

At breakfast we met a father and son from Poland who had arrived the night before. They still had to do their check out dive at a place with an easy entry into the sea so it was agreed that we would return to the Marsa Igla site. For us “old dogs” peter had another treat in store though. We met at the dive centre around mid morning and got our gear ready and loaded onto the back of the pick up truck. Shasli drove us south towards Marsa Igla but then headed off the road and towards the coats before we got there. We saw an old car wreck in the dunes and couldn’t really understand what that was about and also spotted an area that looked like ammunition bunkers with a fence around it. As soon as I asked the question about the place I wished that I had stayed ignorant.

We were apparently driving in the middle of two old minefields. The car wreck was there because a land mine had blown it up and the fence was there to mark the “uncleared” area. The mines were still there from war with Israel a few decades before and although the area was being totally taken over by tourism, no one bothered to either clear the mines or sign post the area properly. So there we were, avoiding the political unrest and demonstrations of the big cities by driving through a mine fields to go scuba diving. You had to laugh at the irony! To be fair, we were driving on a fairly well used track and Shasli definitely did not stray off the beaten track. In fact, he even used the very well marked turning circle at the end and instructed us to use the well marked foot path to the water’s edge. So the Catt and I, Peter and Andy waded into the welcoming waters and with the guidance of Shasli on his high vantage point found paradise!

We put our fins and masks on, settled our regulators in our mouths and descended into a tennis court sized, 18 meter deep hole in the middle of a massive coral reef. The place was like a natural aquarium and my mind was finally blown! It was obviously not dived often at all and the aquatic life was pristinely beautiful! You could clearly see that the fish we spotted lived there and would always be found in the same place. The coral itself seemed totally untouched and the colours seemed even more vibrant than any of the other spots we had seen. We spend about ten minutes there trying very hard not to let our jaws drop and our regulators fall out of our mouths. In that time we saw four Lionfish of various ages and colours and three Scorpion fish in the sand below us. We saw masses of colourful tropical critters and found it incredibly hard to leave.

We had been told that we could not exit the water in the same place and that we had to follow the reef south. We found the small exit out of paradise where Shasli had explained it would be and spent a glorious hour drifting on a gentle current towards the bay we had entered the previous day. By the time we emerged from the depths we could do little but stare at each other with the knowledge that we had seen something and experienced something very very few people on our planet ever would. It was an incredibly special place and we felt privileged and thankful to have been chosen to go there.

Once again we found ourselves back at the camp by lunch time. It took less time to warm up gain as the winds were calm and the sun was hot. We spent another lazy afternoon relaxing around our humble dwelling before following our new routine of heading to the dining room for a late afternoon brew. We found Hassan and Shasli there and asked about the current situation in the country. There was little change though. The internet was still down, the cell phones still did not work and the television channels were still censored. I started asking about food and fuel supplies, but they assured me that there was no problem there. Catt and I had enough fuel for our extreme escape plan and enough water to carry us for a week. We had a full fridge and freezer and could probably survive in the desert for about a month, so we did not worry too much. In fact, our biggest concern was that we could not get hold of our families to re-assure them.

If the dinner Taha produced was anything to go by, there was really no problem at all with any supply lines! We feasted for hours while sipping on sweet local tea and chatting about life and universe. We learned that our new friend, Peter, was a fanatical conspiracy theorist although he would probably never admit it. He had a theory that all paper money would cease to exist in the near future and because of that he had invested in gold and silver quite heavily. I did point out that he was, by definition, speculating instead of saving, but he would have nothing of it. That was the thing with fanatical people though: Once they had formed an idea, nothing could change their minds and no amount of sensible reason could make them see the truth.

It was the same with the unrest in Egypt. The faction starting the trouble was calling for President Mubarak to step down with immediate effect. Everyone was aware of the fat that the country had a scheduled election a mere 7 months from then, but they chose to dump the country, its people and its economy in absolute chaos and turmoil instead of waiting about 200 days for a peaceful solution. Gotta love the logic! Still, apart from Tahrir Square in Cairo and the masses of fleeing tourist, the country seemed almost back to normal again.

Walking back to our room we started wondering where our friends Andrew and Lucy were. We had left them in Aswan and kind of expected them to arrive in Marsa Alam a day of two before. Their plan was to take a Felucca from Aswan to Edfu, spending three days on the Nile. Although that would have put them out of harm’s way the previous weekend, it also meant that they would not have known about the problems. We also did not know if public transport had been stopped or not and without internet we had no way of contacting them. They were very well travelled people though and we were confident that they would have found a suitable hideout if the need arise.

Day 307:

A quick vote the night before meant that we could sleep a little longer than usual. We were still up with coffee inside us and ready to brave the deep blue by 6:30. By the time we walked the familiar path into the ocean and stuck our heads under water, looking at the familiar channel into the house reef the sun was fairly high in the sky. Under water it looked like someone had turned a light on! The reef was stunningly lit by the morning sun and the colours and mix of life was just absolutely unbelievable! We braved the depths of the northern side once again and soon saw 35 meters on our dive computers. It was not as cold as the days before and even at that depth the sun’s rays were penetrating beautifully.

Our friendly dolphin was nowhere to be seen and the Napoleon fish did not swim by either. The small things were what attracted us though. We spent our hour’s dive with our noses close to the coral and finding fascinating little transparent fish. We saw some colourful snails we did not know the names of and again the end of the dive arrived way too soon. There was only so much we could see in a single session though.

Back on land Taha rang the bell for breakfast shortly after we arrived and we sat in the sun, out of the wind sipping on numerous mugs of steaming hot coffee, as had become our custom. By that time it was almost hard to believe that we had only been there a few days. It was scary to see how seamlessly we adapted to the life of diving and how comfortable we were at doing little else.

For the second dive Hassan recommended a reef about half an hour’s drive south of the camp. Most of the guys there were doing three instead of our customary two dives a day and the general consensus was to do both those at the same bay. Catt agreed to consider a third dive pending the temperature, so after packing a mountain of gear onto the back of the pick up we headed off.

The bay was pristinely beautiful! It was nestled in between two high dines and all you saw the stark desert sand on one side with the magnificent turquoise water bordered by the royal blue deeper stuff on the other. Even from land you could follow the curve of the reef under water and even before putting our wetsuits on we knew that the dive would be spectacular! We were not disappointed! The shallow part of the reef showed all the true colours glistening in the mid morning sun with the abundance of life going about its daily chores. We saw dozens of puffer fish and box fish and too many blue spotted rays to count. The Lionfish loved performing for the cameras and were totally undisturbed by the flashes going off under water. We spent a whopping 75 minutes diving that reef, making it the longest dive Catt and I had ever done and loved every second of it.

The compulsory minimum one hour surface interval was fairly uncomfortable. The wind had started blowing and we could not really hide from it. We were in wet gear with wet hair and it wasn’t exactly mid summer at the time. By the time we started gearing up for dive number three we were already cold. Although the temperature had not changed, the water felt freezing and looking at Catt I knew that we would not want to stay in it for another hour. However, as soon as we broke the surface and stared at the magnificent world under the small waves, everything changed. We found massive pinnacles of corals rising from the absolute depths and they were covered in tiny reef fish. We found what is known as a “cleaning station” where tiny orange fish nibble food off larger fish, performing a cleaning service. We saw the same life as the dive before and before we could even consider the cold it was time to turn back to the beach. We found a scorpion fish hiding in the sand and spent about five minutes photographing the stone like creature.

During our compulsory safety stop we spotted some plastic bags in the water and started gathering them. It was hard to believe that people would litter in a place that beautiful, but as we found in Sudan, rubbish bins were either hidden or none existent. Between the six of us dicing we managed to collect all the litter though and felt strangely satisfied that we were able to give a little something back to the place that had given us so incredibly much.

Back at the camp we found that communications were still down. We heard that the TV channels were running again and people managed to watch the news for the first time in five days. It spoke of hundreds of people dead in the cities and thousands injured. It was hard to believe that that was happening in the same country we were in and even harder to think that the perpetrators were of the same people we had been staying with. Over dinner we chatted about our plans and our back up plans. It was an uncomfortable topic to discuss, but necessary we believed. Although we would have liked to, we could not stay there indefinitely either. Our visas were valid for one month only and the Carnet for Maggie had the same limits. At some point we simply had to drive somewhere to extend the permissions. Still, the situation seemed to improve all the time. We heard that there were some huge clashes the Sunday before, but nothing major after that.

The change of topic came soon and we started talking about diving and underwater photography again. Peter had a really nice camera and housing and I looked at his photos with some respect and lots of jealousy. Our underwater equipment was limited to an aim and shoot digital toy with housing and although I honestly believed we were using it to its full potential, our results were nowhere near as fantastic as Peters with his superior equipment. He was not a photographer though, so for him it was very interesting to listen to my preserved principals on the subject. I looked at his gear and suggested a few minor changes in settings and we vowed to experiment on all the dives of the next day. Just before Catt and I snuck of to bed we all agreed that 6:30 was the better meeting time an that 7:00 was the best time to start the first dive.

Day 308:

When we arrived, suited and booted at the dive centre at 6:30 we saw that our group had grown some. It was Andy’s last day of diving before returning home but we were joined by the father and son from Poland. We got our stuff ready and was about to walk into the water when Shasli suggested another dive site to us. It was only about a three minute drive away and he explained that the entry was over sand and the reef long and interesting. We did not need much convincing, so loaded up the pick up truck and headed of.

The area had seen a massive growth in tourism in recent years. Every few kilometres housed a new or nearly completed resort with dive operator. The bay we found ourselves in had a fancy hotel across the road, but an incomplete road and car park at the dive site. Shasli explained that they planned to charge divers to use their site from the day of completion. We could still dive there for free, so he was keen on abusing that right. The dive itself was absolutely stunning once again! We were slightly later than the previous day and the sun was slightly higher, but that only meant more light in the water. The coral was glistening in the rays and the fish seemed strangely more energetic because of it. We took some photos and made some jokes and felt totally at peace with our surroundings.

At the designated time and place the group turned back towards the bay but not before spending a few minutes looking at something called “an eel garden”. Sand eels, resembling a cross between worms and meerkats were standing erect in the sand for as far as the eye could see. They were simply swaying in the surge and current and seemed not to have a worry in the world. However, when one of the divers tried to get close and got spotted, the whole lot of them simply disappeared under the sand without a trace.

Our Polish friends had used up their air allowance by the time we reached the bay again and after their safety stop walked back to dry land. We still had plenty of reserves, so we stayed in the shallow water a little longer. We saw a school of wide mouth mackerels swimming around us with their reflective guiles which kept us busy for a few minutes and when we eventually surfaced we saw that we had broken the 75 minute mark once again. It was a fantastic dive though!

Back at camp we joined the group at their breakfast table. Catt and I filled our bellies with fresh fruit and litres of coffee while discussing the plan for the rest of the day. Hassan was busy teaching someone some advanced diving skills and suggested that we go to yet another bay for the rest of the day. Catt and I, fearful of being as cold as the previous day, committed to one more dive with the possibility of two. We did however decide to drive Maggie to the other site instead of sharing the camp’s vehicles. That way we were free to return to camp if we wanted to.

We soon found ourselves on a deserted beach in front of an unfinished hotel building. Hassan explained that that hotel had been in that state for at least two years and that he could not really see it ever being completed. In the mean time, all other dive operators had stopped using the site, meaning that the life was prolific and the coral spectacular. During the briefing he explained that we would enter the water through a system of channels and semi caves. He said that the route was marked with a rope that we could also use to fight the current if we needed to. By the time his explanation was done both Catt and I was fairly wide eyed and fairly nervous about the whole affair though.

We entered the water unsure of what to expect and found the end of the rope in a place that looked like a dead end. We followed the group deeper and soon swam from big hole in the coral to bog hole in the coral via a series of channels, as Hassan had explained. He definitely used the word “cave” which was not really something we were keen on, but these chambers had no roofs, so there was always a simple way out. The water was cold in the shadows and depths and there wasn’t much to look at at first. However, when we popped out of the system and into the big wide open expanse of sea and reef our minds were blown once again!

The very first thing we found was a fish called “walkman”. It was a poisonous kind of scorpion fish that camouflaged itself totally in the sand. We could only make out its eyes at first but soon decided to move away from the big scary mammals, revealing the bright coloured fins it was hiding. It was almost like those big and ugly crickets you found in Southern Africa. At fist they look like nothing special at all, but when they fly away they show their brilliant red and blue wing colours. This guy had yellow and red, but the same principal and it definitely projected a “be careful” vibe! At our designated turn around point we saw another eel garden and spend a few minutes ogling at the funny looking creatures. We swam back in much shallower waters stopping often for colourful things to take photographs of and eventually found the entrance to the cave system an hour after leaving it. By the time we surfaces our computers showed a dive time of 69 minutes. It was obviously becoming the norm.

I had cleverly parked Maggie in a way that I could place my Catherine in the sun and out of the wind. I knew I wanted to d the third dive of the day, but also knew that I needed to make sure she was comfortable before she would agree to join me. I boiled some water and made some tea and served my darling wife a lunch that could not be beat. By the time the kit up call came she was dry, fed, warm and happy. She was even excited about getting back in the water. I had to smile at my own skilful plans.

Dive number three was predictably as fantastic as the previous one. The wind had increased while we were on the surface and the currents had become much stronger, but with the help of the rope we had no trouble finding out way. Around the reef the currents were starting to kick up some sand reducing our normal and expected 30 meter visibility to much less. The water was however the same temperature and the life in it was as fantastic as we had hoped it would be. It took about half an hour to reach our turn around point and swimming back to the exit point took a little less. Inside the cave system we performed our safety stop before heading to the surface.

At some point Catt and I stopped to photograph a magnificently lazy and massive puffer fish. When we turned around the group was gone! We had a look through the cavern we were in and found a tiny hole in one side as the only other exit. I recognised another route though and when I pointed at it we saw some divers in that direction, so moved on quickly. The divers were not part of our group though, but they were at the very end of the rope we had used before, so we could just follow the rope back to the beach. We found our group within a few seconds and we could clearly see that they had indeed used the tiny hole to swim through. We were much happier using the normal route though.

After washing our gear and then ourselves I turned the computer on and tried the internet again. I had been doing that every day since finding out that it was blocked, but that day it actually worked. We were back online and I could download my emails. I got the worse possible line that any family member can possibly send you from my mother: “Urgently phone home”. I was pretty sure that she was just worried about us and wanted to know that we were safe, but writing those three words without explanation could just as easily mean news of the worst possible kind. I picked up the phone and dialled the number, but it was still blocked. I tried the UK phone but that did not work either. My mother did however acquire a Blackberry not too long before then so at least I could send an email to that, finding out that nothing was wrong and she just wanted to know that we were safe…

I spent the rest of the afternoon contacting people who had left messages of concern. I picked up on some bits of news portraying the situation as much worse than any of us had believed it to be. It was all happening in the big city though which were miles away from where we were. It could be compared to being in Hondeklip Bay on South Africa’s

West coast worrying about the safety situation in Soweto. Whatever was happening in the rest of the country had no effect on us at all. At least not at that time.

At the dinner table we shared out internet connection with the other guests who needed to contact their families and we even managed to track down our friends, Andrew and Lucy. They had arrived in Marsa Alam the day before and had no way of finding us. They had found the dive operator we had spoken to south of town and a suitable apartment to stay in town, so settled in there for a few days. We decided to go in search of them the next day. We had been diving for five days straight so also decided to take a day off to replenish our food stores and do some admin. We went to bed early, and dead tired!

Day 309:

There we no alarms to wake us up tat day. I became aware of people moving around outside when the rest o the divers went for their early morning adventure. We got up as their dive ended. We had some coffee before discovering that our water tank was empty, but decided not to wait for that to fill and heat up for a shower. Instead we packed some stuff into the car and headed towards the other diving place we knew our friends would be.

Both Catt and I were fantastically lazy that day so nothing happened very fast. We found the dive site and established that our friends were there. We found them as they were about to dive, so agreed to hang around until their surface interval. We found some hammocks on the beach and took up a comfortable position for the hour that they were under and made coffee with perfect timing to present to them when they returned. It seemed that they had had interesting times during the unrest. They saw the mass exodus of the Nile Cruisers while sailing on their Felucca and as a result they ended up being the only people at the temple of Kom Ombo. That was the site we shared with 57 ships full of people, so I was a little jealous.

We agreed to meet them for dinner that evening and while they were getting ready for their second dive, we headed north again. We had read in a pamphlet that the town of Port Ghalib, a mere 30km away had full immigrations and customs facilities. Apart from that, the brochure spoke of fantastic cafés and restaurants on the marina and that sounded like an absolutely perfect setting for lunch on our day off. We timed it perfectly as well. We stopped at the entrance to the town at mid day but were stopped by someone without a uniform. He asked for “papers for the car” and I handed over the insurance and drivers licence. He then asked for “papers for you” and Catt expertly extracted the car papers from him before handing over our passports. By that tie a line of vehicles had formed behind us and we were requested to park on the side of the road. Once again Catt took back our passports before we moved. Another man arrived and started the whole scene again: “Papers for the car” and he took the licence out of the folder. “Passports” and we reluctantly handed them over as well. He then gave us a hand written tag and told us that we were free to enter the town. Yeh right buddy! Before the man knew what hit him Catt leant out the window and snatched all out paperwork from his hands. I bluntly told him that all we wished to do was to spend our hard earned money in his town, but he was preventing us from doing so. He hinted at a little “bakshsih” to let us pass but the “fuck off” came in stereo from both myself and Catt before I put Maggie in reverse and drove out. I mean, did he really think that would leave our passports and car papers with him while spending time in the town on the coast in a country with that much political turmoil and be happy with it? In fact, driving away from there I was fairly convinced that he had great plans to keep our papers ransom until we paid him “a little something” Idiot!

By that time we were both a little hungry and very grumpy so decided to head to the nearby airport in search of food. As we approached the gate saw a sign demanding payment for entry, so for the second time in about five minutes we selected the reverse gear and drove back up a one way street to leave. It was becoming scaringly clear that we had been protected in our little happy bubble of a dive camp which was clearly not really part of the ridiculously irritating country they called Egypt. Taking a few deep breaths we did the only thing we really could and pointed Maggie’s nose back to the south.

About two thirds of the way back to camp we saw a sign for “Red Sea Divers” and turned in. They were bound to have a cafeteria or restaurant and we were curious to see how the other side did things. The place was a fantastically pleasant and very modern resort. The man at reception printed out a price list for us to ponder over and the staff in the dive shop were all really friendly and eager to help. We chatted to them about a trip to an offshore reef called “Elphinstone” before being directed to the restaurant for lunch.

The lunch was pricey at E£65 per person, but once we saw what was offer even that looked like a bargain! It was massive buffet with a selection of no less than 40 dishes. The fruit and vegetables looked absolutely amazing and the tea and coffee was free and ample. We decided that it would irresponsible to let all that good food go to waste, so made a very real and conscious effort to finish as much as we could. It took about an hour and a half before we just had to admit defeat, but we were absolutely stuffed! Looking at their pricelist was also fairly interesting. Working on that fee for one meal, you could basically get your accommodation for free if you dived there. There was however no possibility of self catering and their diving was a little more expensive than where we were. At the end of the day it would have cost us about a third more to go there, but to be honest, we would have received at least that much more value. Next time perhaps…

We rolled back into camp and back into our comfortable hideaway by mid afternoon and just in time for piping hot showers and afternoon ghawa. The rest of the gang told us about their dives of the day and Peter was suitably impressed by the results of his photography with the new settings I had recommended. We heard that there had been no new developments in the political arena and even though we had cancelled dinner that evening, Taha still came by to make sure that we were not eating with them. We were obviously fast becoming part of the small and efficient family at the Beach Safari Camp, which was something money could not buy!

IN the late afternoon we drove back to Marsa Alam. We invested in 177 litres of diesel at the princely sum of E£195 (About $30) and bought a 5 litre can of motor oil for about half of that. We visited our friendly green grocer who gave us fair prices the previous time and popped into the supermarket that did not try to cheat foreigners. With the shopping done and the stores full to the brim we met Andrew by a café and were led to their humble self catering apartment. Lucy was there shopping vegetables and cooking up a storm and I could not actually believe how little they paid for the place.

It was a single bedroom place, but came with big flat screen TV, impressive bathroom and kitchenette with fridge/freezer. The building was brand new and their cost was E£150 ($25) a night including breakfast. The TV was tuned to the BBC news channel and for the first time in a week Catt and I actually saw how severe the situation the country looked on TV. NO wonder our families were so concerned. The reporters showed only the one square mile of Cairo that was in the middle of all the trouble and then turned their attention to a single demonstration in Alexandria the day before. They obviously reported on faces covered in blood and injured people in alley ways and spoke of the number of people who had lost their lives in the conflict. They were very careful not to specify the areas of concern, but expertly managed to create a small bit of panic even in us.

I logged onto the internet and received accurate and up to date information on the situation from my Friend Tony Weaver. Tony is the deputy editor of the Cape Times in South Africa and obviously had his finger on the pulse of what was happening. I checked the ferry timetable for our preferred escape route from Alexandria to Venice, but learnt that the company had moored up in Syria, waiting for the unrest to end. I did however find out that the ferry to Sudan was still running weekly as normal and that we could get new visas in Aswan, which was only about a four hour drive from where we were. I also found out that no nationality was evacuating their citizens out of Egypt and decided that I would not start to panic until they started ding that.

Dinner was brilliant and the company even better and after turning the TV off the sombre mood in the apartment also changed for the better. It was past 23:00 by the time we decided to return to our desert camp, hoping that the area did not have a curfew that we did not know about. We were stopped in the police roadblock by our camp and when the man recognised us he said nothing more than “good night”. We had reached our room, parked Maggie and found our bed before midnight and fell asleep happy and instantly.

If I had to do it again:

There is no way to predict political unrest in Africa. The only certain thing is that it will happen at some point in every country. We do find it funny that we got caught by it in the last country we intended to visit on the continent.

We have a few escape plans in mind:

Our fist would be to hopefully take the Alexandria/Venice ferry as we had planned before after being able to extend our visas, our car permissions and spending another month in Egypt.

Second option would be to drive through Suez while it’s calm and head into Jordan, driving to the UK via the Middle East. Third would be to escape through Libya and Tunisia. Both of those will cost a lot of money!

Lastly, with us being able to get visas for Sudan in Aswan and Ethiopia in Khartoum, if things get really bad we will simply turn around and head back to South Africa. We worked out that we could do that in about six weeks if we had to and at about the same cost as the Libya option believe it or not…

The biggest regret I have is not stock piling red wine while we were in Aswan. Egypt is not a dry country, but where we are now you can only buy alcohol in hotels at European prices. I do like wine, but I’m refusing to pay 12 Euro a bottle for local plonk and 3 Euro for local beer.

Lastly, our plan now is to stay put for at least another week. Not very exciting I know, but the safest option we could come up with.