this years trip.
So this was my third consecutive december trip to sharm el sheikh. This time my favourite safety diver, my dear brother Pekka could not make it, but i had my girlfriend and my other brother Antti with.
Since i did not have my usual safety diver with and neither of my company had much experience in freediving, i had to limit my own depths to my personal recreational level araund 25 meters max.
Coming from Finland to Egypt in winter time is allways very relaxing and makes you forget about snow, cold and work. Sun ofcourse was shining pretty much all the time we were there, and the visibility compared to finland waters was great.
Unlickily we were not able to contact any db members there, even i tried to contact immerlusting who is/was working in Dahab. I've never been to Dahab and it would have been great to visit, but since my brother got quite sick during the last days we decided to take it pretty easy and not stress ourselves with traveling. Sorry about that Immerlusting, maybe next time.
In Sharm area we mostly dived at Ras Um Sid which is easily accessible from shore. It also has 'fairly nice' corals and fishes.
Ras um sid has a nice drop to around 40 meters with some beatyfull gorgonians ranging from 15 - 25 meters and barracudas often swimming at the blue. My very favourite spot in Ras Um Sid.
We also did four boat dives, freediving ofcourse..
The first dive was at Jackson Reef in straits of tiran. Straits of tiran are quite far away from everything, and the tiran island is claimed by both Saudi Arabia and Egypt and therefore there are no actual residents in tiran. Tiran has very beautyfull corals and very rich fish life. Propably due to fact that straits are isolated from the main land.
Jackson reef has a reputation of having lots of hammer head sharks, mostly on the other side of the reef than we were diving at. There are also population of turtles living on straits of Tiran, but unluckily we did not see any turtles nor sharks. at the time we arrived the water was already full of scuba divers. Jackson reef is my very favourite dive spot on sinai ,( i have never visited Dahab), and it is very rich with colorfull corals and beutyfull fishes.
The next dive we did was Woodhouse reef also in straits of tiran. This reef is also very beutyfull, although not as nice as Jackson.
In Ras Muhammed national park we did two dives,
first one was Shark reed and Yolanda reef. Shark reef has very nice drop to depths not accesinble by me
, and there are lots of fishes around. I got to swim amongst some quite big jacks..
Shark reef is quite small and very next to it is the Yolanda reef.
Yolanda reef is opposite to Shark reef. Its quite shallow, but more rich in small fishes and corals. Yolanda reef was named after boat that crahed to it, and the wreck of the boat is still there with its gargo ( toilet seats.. not very beautyfull sight.).
The next dive in Ras Muhammed was Jackfish alley.
At the time we went to water the sun was alreaydy starting to lower and therefore the visibility was not so great either. Jackfish alley has nice cave with entrance around 3 meters and exit around 9 meters. ( i did not dare to try it out since its very dark inside). Jackfish alley was not such great dive this time. we didnt see anythhing that great and the visibility was not so good.
Maybe next time we'll make it to Dahab.
Tuomo from cold Finland...
