Lew Shaw’s Blog from Haifa

The final leg of my trip was a five-day dive trip (called a safari here) aboard the Egyptian boat South Moon.  We were a total of 16 divers, all Israeli with the exception of one Belgian guy who spoke no Hebrew but it didn’t seem to bother him.  The group was in their 20’s and 30’s, just three women, with varying levels of dive experience.  The crew consisted of six Egyptians, plus an Egyptian and an Israeli divemaster.  The Egyptian divemaster, Mohamed Ahmed Abd El Hamed, was a 32-year old former policeman with great energy and dive skills.  Our Israeli divemaster,  Slava, was originally Russian, had only been leading dive trips for about 2 years and spoke no English.  Since communication with Mohamed and the rest of the crew was in English, coordination was a bit lacking.  Slava would give a dive briefing before each dive, but we eventually realized that he wasn’t well informed and we chose to rely on Mohamed for details about each site. 

The first day we crossed into the Red Sea from Sharm el Shek to Ras Mohamed, heading east to the point where the sea leads to the Suez Canal.  There we explored several spectacular World War II and earlier wrecks.  The best was a British transport ship about 100 meters long in fairly deep waters (30+ meters) with many motorcycles, trucks, and other artifacts still sitting on the decks and in the holds.  In three dives on that wreck we penetrated almost every room in the ship.  As with most wrecks, a very eerie feeling knowing that this was the gravesite of many seamen.

On day three we crossed back in the direction of Sharm and the rest of the dives were on pristine coral reefs, rather than wreck diving.  The condition of the reefs in the Sinai is much better than what one sees in the Carribean or Central America, partly due to stringent restrictions on anchoring, drag netting, and other practices which destroy fragile reef communities.  We effortless wandered along reef walls that began at about 20 meters and continued into the deep.  The bounty of hard and soft coral, miriad of species of tropical fish, and several opportunities to view large pelagics was outstanding.  Napoleon fish, lots of lion fish (quite poisonous), three species of moray eels, a leopard shark, two hammerhead sharks, triggerfish, several varieties of angel fish, sargeant majors, wrasses (different from the Carribean varieties), several porcupine and other puffer fish, box fish, tuna, turtles, etc., etc. 

The last day of the trip we crossed over to the Straits of Tiran.  This is in the middle of the Red Sea, southwest of Sharm and not too far from both Saudi and Sudanese waters.  Diving there was equally spectacular – huge coral formations teeming with life.  I spent five days basically in awe, trying as best I could to photograph the experience as well as take it in visually and spiritually.

The last time I dived in the Red Sea was in the early 1970’s, well before any organized tourism or dive industry.  At that point, the Sinai peninsula was occupied by Israel, to be return when Israel and Egypt signed the historic peace agreement in 1977. I’m not sure how much I remembered, other than that is was equally spectacular then.  Today, Sharm is home to over 400 dive boats, all full of divers from all over the world.  Mohamed told us that his next trip (starting the night we left) was with a Spanish group.  I’d say the diving was among the best I’ve ever experienced!  I’ll also note that food and accommodation on the boat was fine.  The crew was great and so was the assortment of divers on the trip. 

So we got back to Sharm el Shek harbor at around 4 PM on the last day, transferred our gear to a waiting Egyptian minibus, waited for the two tourist police to join us, and made the 3 1/2 hour journey to the Taba border crossing.  We finished exiting Egypt and entering Israel by around 9 PM.  I joined a couple of the divers for a bedouin meal outside of Eilat, then was dropped off at the dismal Eilat bus station to wait for my 11:45 PM bus back to Haifa.  I arrived back in Haifa at 5:30 and was home by 6 AM, to get unpacked and rinse off my dive gear, check a week’s e-mail messages, catch a quick nap, and get back to my Haifa routine.