Monday, November 18, 2013

Egypt Day 2: House Reef & Woodhouse Reef

Was woken up by an already awake and getting dressed Jon, as he had been asleep since 8 o'clock. Johanna and me where still in bed, so his solution was to rip open the curtains and let the sun stream right in to our faces. Got up, dressed and went to breakfast. Had to find Jon, who had reserved us a table and then had some eggs on toast.
After breakfast back to our accommodation to get prepared for diving. Carried all my gear over to the Extra Divers base and then geared up for the first dive. Got our Nitrox bottles and fixed all our air devices to it. Had our briefing from Santo and then proceeded to the yeti. Got the stuff on and then did our buddy check before jumping in to the water. Dived down to a diving platform at five meters depth and did a check up (if we can blow out our mask underwater). Had the GoPro on my head to film the first dive, so I was checking that the bubbles don't obscure the screen to much. After the check, where Jon and I got some extra weight, we started diving along the coral reef. Saw a bunch of really colourful fish (to be expected in the red sea) and the highlight of the dive was seeing a pair of clown fish with their baby (Nemo?) in their home, a red anemone. Was at 100 bars at that point, so it was time to turn round and head back. Saw some weird snorkel fish which none could identify. Reaching the yeti there where dozens of people in the water around it. Navigating through the people we reached the yeti and then proceeded back to the base to wash our gear.
It unfortunately turned out that the housing of the GoPro wasn't as waterproof as the builders of it had said it would be. Salt water had run all over into the housing and soaked right in to the GoPro. Built it apart and left it to dry whilst writing the dive log and hope it will work by tomorrow.
Had lunch shortly after that, lots of lasagne with a beef burger and some desert which tasted good. Back to diving after that, this time to the Woodhouse Reef with Salah and some other German speaking people. Drove out with a Zodiac, jumping from wave to wave and racing two other speed boats. Reached the dive site and all did a backwards dive in at the same time, so we wouldn't knock ourselves out. Shot down toward the ground, but as we where diving along a cliff side we stopped at 18 meters. Johanna being my buddy we checked the other person and then proceeded along the reef.
The highlight of the journey was a murrain eel, slithering through the reef and a sea turtle feeding (or something like that). Nearly backed in to the reef at one point but had an early warning buddy system, Johanna warning me before I impacted. My air nearly ran out at one point so I was hooked up to Salah for nearly the rest of the journey. Carried on along the cliff and saw lots of different inhabitants of the reef. Safety stop at five meters and then on to the boot. Proofed to be a challenge to get the weights and gear of and then getting on to the Zodiac. Sped back to the hotel, Jon taking a film with his new GPS video camera. Cleaned everything an then wrote the log book with Salah and Mohammed. Back to the accommodation to write the blog and then to dinner.
More pictures at Picasa and a link to the reef map here.

Diving time: 108 minutes
Diving depth: 18 meters
Speciality: Murrain ell swimming and a giant sea turtle, ran out of air early

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