I am in love...with DAHAB!

What a place, and I cant wait to return.  The people are friendly, even if it was in a constant effort to get you to part with cash in their shops, once you got over that and got them talking normally rather than the constant bombardment of buy one buy one LOL

So the diving.  I had been lucky enough to have won a dive package courtesy of the Underwater Channel in conjunction with Poseiden Divers and the Le Meridian hotel.  This included two dives a day for two people, along with bed and breakfast at the 5 star hotel.  My sister accompanied me on the holiday and as she is a non diver (sadly for health reasons) we rearranged the package for snorkelling and diving.  We were well chuffed that they did this as it meant that my sis could get to see some of the fabulous coral reefs that are in that part of the Red Sea.  As a project she is crocheting coral for the Hyperbolic reef project.  So whilst I was under the water my big sis was on the surface, and I made sure I took lots of pictures for her for inspiration.  Will get them up as soon as I have cleaned them up in photo shop.

For me the diving was excellent, my dive buddy form Poseiden Divers - fabulous.  As I had not dived for a year we did a skills brush up which I was more nervous about than when I did it for my OW !!!!  And by the end of the week I was so chuffed with my buoyancy, which I do struggle with and I have to admit that I regretting not doing more diving as I only did 5 out of a possible 10+  The many different types of coral are stunning, on the downside the amount of plastic bottles that litter the area is shocking and something really needs to be done about this, and more the amount that washes down from Jordan rather than from Dahab.  With it being out of season it was so quiet at the dive centre, just how I like it, the water was still to me really warm and the climate perfect!

Of course with it being December I had arranged for me to be away for my birthday and this year yet again it was awesome.  As an adventure we had decided to do the Camel Safari and embarked on an hour long trek up to Ras Abu Gallom.  I was a little sceptical but thoroughly enjoyed it even if I did have to wedge myself into the saddle and have a dead leg for most of it.....  And to top it off we went of and did our first ever international geocache, on the way to my sis managed to get offered a camel but sadly we would not have been able to bring it back through customs :-(  and at this point I have to mention that my big sis became some what of a item of desire to the men of Dahab, within 5 minutes of landing she had an offer of marriage and this didn't change the whole time we were there, much to our amusement.

I cannot wait to go back, which if all goes to plan will be in June 2010, this time it will be for longer than a week as I fell that 7 days is not long enough to really enjoy the area, so much more that I want to see and hopefully I will gain some more experience/confidence to dive the famous Blue Hole.  I plan on lighting up so that I can reduce the amount of lead that I have to carry as it is bad enough with the dive gear let along a further 16k of weights.  If I could I would move there, we met some fantastic people both from the dive centre and Dahab.  The laid back atmosphere is welcoming and once you get past the tourist patter the people are friendly so if it is not on your list of places to go, it should be!

It has not be so much as reluctant but a case of opportunity!

I must confess that I have not been diving at all this year, however I do have a lovely holiday in Dahab coming up, and the best bit is that I won the trip as a prize from http://www.theunderwaterchannell.tv

So that will give me something to report on!

In the meantime I will endevour to get in to the water but have been a right wuss, I am still in a 5m semi dry, have not ventured into a dry suit so have not been brave for the cold waters in the UK this year.

just a few more from the trip I have loads more but will take an age to upload them!

I had planned the trip around the fact that 1) I would be celebrating my birthday on board and 2) Celebrity diver Monty Halls was aboard.

Both added the icing on the cake to an already fantastic holiday.  The crew wowed me with a birthday party and fabulous cake, I was so overwhelmed that I forgot to take pictures!  My fellow divers made me a card which I treasure and everyone made it such a memorable experience and yes I cried...LOL

I can highly recommend doing a trip with Mr Halls, he is entertaining, genuine and and a font of amusing stories, one in particular I think he wishes he had not told us .... ;-)  He has been to some great places and let us in on the backstage goings on which gave you a different viewpoint on the various series that he has done.  He was my dive buddy for my birthday which again was great even though it was a marathon swim around a reef.  He also scrounged a lift off me as he had no other means of transport form the airport however he did share the driving and offered me a place to kip should I have not wanted to carry on after such an eventful departure form the  airport, one you can read about in his column. Sadly I did not get to meet the gorgeous Rubin, next time eh!

I have to also say that the fellow divers aboard were all superb, we all seemed to just click which I was thrilled about.  No prima donnas or gadget one up man ship.  Just a bunch of strangers who became friends linked by a passion for diving.  the banter was constant with a wide range of backgrounds, and I have to thank everyone of them for making my time aboard superb.

So overall it is going to be a hard one to top.  A lasting memory that I daily think about and I cant wait to go back to one of the most stunning places on earth.

Why O Why do you ever book in advance or make plans and then pay full price!  Not only did I miss out on a show discount with the tour company but they have now slashed the price by £250!!!!

Now if there is one sure way to piss of your customers it is to do that.  One thing in future I will now bear in mind is not to bother paying full price but to wait and get a ridiculous discount.  This is my first experience of booking a holiday and it is a steep learning curve!

It really has been appalling lately, high winds, heavy rain so diving has not been possibly which has been very frustrating as I was meant to have been getting my logs up to 50 for my Egypt holiday, ah the perils of winter diving!

BUT on a gloriously sunny winter day and a gentle breeze we stepped aboard the Maid Maggie 2 and set off for the James Egan Layne shipwreck (http://www.submerged.co.uk/jameseganlayne-wreck.php).  This was to be my deep dive for my advanced.  Now I have been ever so slightly worried about this dive after reading far to much about getting narked!

There were three of us doing an AOW, myself to finish and the other two were just starting, I managed to make a very ungraceful tumble into the water rather than a giant stride, my fist time off the back of a hard boat lift!  Ho hum at least I was in the water...Ha Ha HA  Descending down the shot line I realised that the vis was going to be as usual awful.  In our brief we had been told that the view from the bottom looking up the bow of the James Egan Lane (JEL) was stunning, typically not for me today, it was urr not much, vis was about 1 - 2 metres and very gloomy, however I am well impressed with my torch and am glad that I blew the budget on this piece of equipment.

At the bottom we did paper scissors stone and compared the depth gauge to the dive computer readings, and I am relieved to say that I did not feel any sort of narcosis.  We then went of on a bimble around the boat and I was surprised to be told that after just 20 Min's we were to ascend, mainly as I still had 110 bar and we were at now about 15m.  I thought at first that maybe something was wrong but on the surface and in the debrief it was due to another member being low on air and came out with just 50bar.  Glad that everyone was okay even if it was a short dive.

So after changing cylinders and getting the rest of the dive group on board we headed over to the next dive site of the Glen Strathallan (http://www.submerged.co.uk/glenstrathallen.php), this is a wreck that had been deliberately sunk in  1970 however the fishermen kept catching nets on it so it was riddled with dynamite and blown to bits, so it is scattered over the sea bed but the big boiler still remains and apparently is home to a huge conger eel.  Sadly however after descending we didn't manage to find the wreck but am sure I will one day in better conditions.

So despite it being glorious on the surface it was very poor underneath.  I enjoyed the day though and am glad that I have taken a further step up the classification ladder. 

I also met another lady on the dive who like me feels all the same things just before diving, took it up with her boyfriend but despite reservations about buoyancy and confidence also had a super dive. 

So today was the second time of attempting to do my deep dive for my AOW, but alas was thwarted by the high winds!  Time is running out as well as I do need to have completed my AOW before I go to Egypt in a few weeks time.  However that said I did mention this tot he tour group and if worse comes to worse the would arrange for me to finish it out there, so maybe it is a silver lining as then it would be in lovely warm clear waters, rather than black and awful vis!

Although a part of me was hugely disappointed another part was so relived.  It was very cold and the thought of doing 30m+ in a 5mm semi did worry me!  Would have been a real nipple buster me thinks!  The colder it gets the more I am thinking of getting a dry suit.  Maybe Santa will see how much of a good girl I have been this year...... :-)

Had a very pretty dive today even if I was thinking that I would rather be somewhere warm!  Went out with some friend's on a small rib, launched at Mylor in Cornwall and went right a few miles.  First buddy pair were doing a depth dive towards training so it gave me time to sit and think on the boat and the usual thoughts surface LOL!  I was also the only diver in a semi dry 9and only 5mm), bloody masochist that I am.

Had a lovely chat with my new dive buddy, first time of meeting him today and it is his Rib.  I am on my 27th dive him his 127th...It was a camera day out and he gave me some tips on mine, most useful being the Macro button, being a new camera you have a look through the manual and then forget everything you have read, I had just set it to the Underwater setting and left it at that, but Andy showed me the force flash button as well as the Macro.  So after the roll in and eventual descent (I really do have trouble sinking) the bottom below me was covered in brittle fish and they are so pretty, such colours! 
My first ever underwater shot!

Scattered amoungst them were some huge starfish, a pipe fish and I nearly swam straight over the top of it and miss it completely, a stunning dogfish, he was just sat there and in my excitement I stirred up a little to much silt so could not get a decent shot with flash so tried one without



SO after decreasing the visibility my thoughts turned to buoyancy control!  Not something that I am especially good at, mainly as I worry when I start to go up and then panic, dump air then of course breath out and go crashing down so this time I put some air in BC and concentrated on the breathing technique, was a bit erratic at first but then settled into it and for one of the first times ever didn't go along bumping on the bottom, which I was thrilled with as I didn't want to harm the marine life that was in such abundance below me.  Something that when I get to dive the coral reefs I will be panicking about.

The hermit crabs were out in force and I think they are just so cute, all sizes but the really big one was very shy and just as I took the picture he disappeared into his big 'shell'  But I did get chance with others to experiment with different lighting, some with flash some just a torch



Something else that I have not seen before is a sea slug, I forgot to turn on the flash and also my battery was low. 



So I have to say that today was a super dive, probably one of my best yet and I am especially grateful to Mark for hauling my weak and feeble lardy butt back into the rib!

I do look at other peoples online diving blogs and wonder if i am the only person out there that goes through these feelings towards diving.  I do have a big interest in the oceans, I love the natural history programs about ocean life, and I would like to do a marine biology degree, even if I feel a tad late in my life.

Maybe it is due to this deep set thought that the only reason I do this is because it was a passion of my ex-boyfriends and in some way is it keeping me connected to him even though I never would dive with him again, or infact want to be with him! 

I wonder if other people who got in to the sport because of an ex partner feel or have felt the same before finding an inner passion for the 'sport'

I seem to have had an underwater epiphany today, and that was that I do actually like diving.  Today was my 26th logged dived and guess what I loved it. 

Why I am not sure but it could have been because I had a new toy to play with on the dive.  My brand new Vyper 2 computer!  I had a great time playing with the compass feature, managed to bookmark something, and will in the future, when I have my other new toy of a camera with me will use that feature to log where I took photos of interesting things!

I cant say there was anything at all interesting to look at, apart form following one of the other divers doing an underwater navigation exercise.  There was in fact very little marine life to look at.  Could this be due the dying off of the kelp, I really dont know.  It was probably a dive that I saw the least on.  A few wrasse and dragonites, but that was about it. 

I found a crab claw that I took home for my son to marvel at but boy did it stink!  I did also find a golf ball but dropped it in the surf.

The oddest thing as well today was my inability to bloody stand up on exit.  I honestly could not get up out of the surf even with help!  I was knackered, now I put this down to the act that I have a bad cough that must be wearing me out so I think maybe now is the time to cart myself off to the quack to get it sorted out as it is obviously sapping my energy!

Oh the location was Porthoustock, just round the corner from Porthkerris.  Vis was about 2-3 meters with max depth of 11-12 m