Thanks for the warm welcomes home and kind words! I need to go diving!
Here's a link to a few pictures from
the second day of diving. We crossed the border on foot to pick up our boat for three dives further South in Sinai. It was a large (60’?) boat, very comfortable, with plenty of room. We were served lunch on board and the crew was great. We motored about 50 minutes South and dove Ras Amira, The Fjord, and Coral Island.
I will try and go back and put some detail in the descriptions of the photos that I have posted on Flickr as I have time, but it’s a
BIG job… If you have a question about a specific pic feel free to post or shoot me a PM.
A few highlights were:
This
Coral Grouper,
Cephalopholis miniata
<a href="
" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1427/104 ... f0bb8c.jpg" width="500" height="375" alt="CIMG2252"></a>
These
Polyp Butterflyfish,
Chaetodon austracus were so pretty!
<a href="
" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1362/104 ... 69b9d5.jpg" width="500" height="259" alt="CIMG1990"></a>
I love the
Lionfish, and watching them hunt with their spread pectorals was amazing!
<a href="
" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1094/104 ... 3b1a3b.jpg" width="375" height="500" alt="CIMG2057"></a>
<a href="
" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1344/104 ... 4d66e2.jpg" width="500" height="375" alt="CIMG2356"></a>
These
Circular Batfish,
Platax orbicularis, were a real treat, although it was difficult to get them to pose. They would hang out under large table coral and I only saw them twice.
<a href="
" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1415/104 ... f17598.jpg" width="500" height="333" alt="CIMG2063"></a>
How can I not mention the so-called Frogfish for Rachel? When I checked the books I beleive this one is a
Painted Anglerfish,
Antennarius pictus. His camouflage was so good that it was hard to see him from a foot away unless you focused on his eye.
<a href="
" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1346/104 ... a5d011.jpg" width="500" height="375" alt="CIMG2215"></a>
The
Red Sea Bannerfish,
Heniochus intermedius, was seen on most dives, but proved difficult to photograph.
<a href="
" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1397/104 ... 7945c0.jpg" width="500" height="499" alt="CIMG2187"></a>
And I've got to include a picture of the
Stonefish,
Synanceia verrucosa (I saw 3 of them in 8 days) ...as scary and poisonous fish as you could run into, if you run into them!
<a href="
" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1394/104 ... 86f615.jpg" width="500" height="375" alt="CIMG2239"></a>
And because this post is already too long I will leave the picture of the Octopus, the Royal Angelfish, Clownfish, Spotted Moray, Blue Spotted Ray, etc. for another post. If you want to drill through all the pics you'll find them.
I dove with Aqua Sport in Eilat and made all of the arrangements by phone and email. They have a good sized operation and dive store in Eilat, as well as one in Taba right across the border in Egypt. Since Israel returned the Sinai to Egypt in the interest of peace (even a cold peace, if it’s real, is preferred to open hostilities) some companies have split their operations between Israel and Egypt. Aqua Sport does a great job of this. I’m pretty sure that they are a separate operation, but they do a good job coordinating the diving on both sides of the border.
All of the diving I did was within a day’s boat ride of Eilat. I know that there is good diving much further south, but for me dealing with the Israelis primarily was a real bonus, although I would like to dive the Southern part of the Red Sea some day. I did two days of guided shore diving in Eilat, one day of boat diving in Eilat, and 5 days of boat diving out of Taba right across the border. 3 of us booked different dives, and we ended up with 24 dives in 8 days. (More on that later.) My cost for 6 days of full service guided boat diving and two days of guided shore diving was $650.00, or about $27 a dive.
Now for a few more details. I’ll concentrate on the shore diving here, and talk in more detail about the boat diving in another post. There’s LOTS that I would do different on the next trip, and some things I was not happy with, but overall I am very pleased with the value and the diving.
Shore Diving: We stayed at the Prima Music hotel, (wonderful… 3 star, fairly reasonable) which was across the street and two minutes away from Aqua Sport and the majority of the good shore diving sites. All of the Eilat shore diving sites are within a several mile protected strip going north from the Sinai border. Most of my comments below focus pretty exclusively on that, although it’s easy to see what would also apply to the boat diving.
Some Pros:
*Warm water diving is SO easy… you just “fall in”, have all this tremendous freedom of movement, can actually DO something with your camera buttons, etc. etc. It is easy to see why you could be lulled into a false sense of security and become careless. Regular cold water divers have SUCH an advantage here! Things that others take for granted and never practice are routine for most good divers around here (at least the ones I dive with!)
*50 to 80 foot viz is so cool that it’s almost weird. If you’re someone who dives exclusively our cold, murky, green water then goes to the tropics you know what I mean.
*The house reefs are great, from coral “islands” in shallow sand flats, to more extensive reefs dropping below recreational levels.
*The types of coral and fish life are amazing, from soft corals to huge staghorn coral tables up to 12 ft across, and that is only what I saw. While there aren’t many if any large pelagics this far north in the Red Sea there is a great variety and abundance of various fish types, and we would see an “unusual” species on almost every dive. The guide would get excited, point it out, and sure enough one or two of those species would be our only sighting of the trip, or if we saw them again they weren’t as common. There was always something new to discover. The reefs are all protected, and even though the ones just out of Eilat proper get a fair amount of pressure they are in good shape. (Of course I don’t dive Indonesia yet!)
*There are several nice wrecks accessible from shore, including a missile boat sunk as an artificial reef that is in about 90fsw that makes a great first dive of the day. I’ll tell that story later as well.
*The surface water temps were probably low 80’s and my computer gave my coldest temps of each dive at 78 or 79 at depth. The guides mostly wore 5 mil suites with hoods. My 2 mil shorty was MORE than enough for me! Unless you live in 90 degree temps year round a 2 or 3 mil suit would be plenty.
*Air temps ranged from 95 to 115, with a good breeze being constant. The dry heat and breeze made the heat bearable, but hydration was VERY important and constantly emphasized by the guides and everyone we dove with.
*The shop had a wide variety of gear and could hook you up with most of what you needed. What they didn’t have their store probably did. I brought all my own gear, including my 19 slung pony. (The looks that I got were fun! …of course that’s assuming that were looking at my long hose and necklace and pony, not this weird looking old fat guy…) It was fun explaining my configuration to the guides and any assigned dive buddies and everyone was fine about the differences. I think I unintentionally made a few converts by the time the trip was over.
*The guides were experienced and attentive, and after they figured out you knew what you were doing and weren’t going to kill yourself or someone else or completely abandon the group they would let me and an experienced buddy go slow and hang at the back taking pictures and come up 5 or 10 minutes later than the group. Briefings were thorough and helpful.
Which brings me to some Cons:
*I chose guided dives because I knew nothing about the area and it was my first time in warm water. Next trip I would just rent tanks and weights and go exploring the several miles of good shore diving available in Eilat. Sinai is another story, boat diving is definitely the way to go there, although there is a GREAT house reef at Aqua Sport Taba that I could do eight to a dozen dives on easily.
*Eilat is CROWDED in the Summer. I assumed it would be low season, and perhaps it was as far as European tourists go, but the Israelis were out in force on vacation! I met lots of great people, but groups were sometimes full. I’d love to come back in the Winter or Spring.
*We were limited by law to 3 dives per day. I was NOT happy about this!
The guides / shop could not take us on more than 3 dives, and since I was limited to guided dives it was a huge drag. I begged, cadjoled, and pleaded etc., and it did no good. Israel requires dive insurance and my DAN preferred was more than enough, but they couldn’t take me or let me dive off one of their boats more than 3 times in a day. I offered to sign waivers, etc. etc. but they were firm on this, and Egypt was firmer. I can’t help but wonder if this applies to liveaboards down here? I would NOT pay for a liveaboard that I’m allowed to dive only 3 dives a day on, period. Check before you go! I’m assuming that they couldn’t limit me if I rented tanks and weights and just went?!? But I’m not sure… that is what I will do next time with my shore diving. In any case, I “survived” and had a great time, but most days a 4th shallow dive or night dive would have been a great top off to the day. With Nitrox I would have done 5 some days, but that’s another story I’ll talk about below.
*Guided dives are limited to 45 minutes. I worried about diving aluminum 80’s until I finally figured out that they weren’t going to let me stay down longer than I could breathe one anyway. I had sympathetic divemasters (every person who guided a dive was instructor level) who saw my experience and frustration and allowed me to extend to 50 – 60 minutes, taking the newbs that had run out of air topside while we played on the reef. I think one could do a day or two of guided shore diving here and then go on your own for shore diving the rest of the time and be fine, if you’re willing to huff gear and have a rental car. The sites in Israel you can’t access by shore you can grab a day of boat diving on.
*Steel tanks were promised, and for the most part delivered… however… they only had 3 steel 15 litre (LP95’s) and only ONE 18 litre (LP119? Big bertha!) in the entire operation, and none of them were nitrox cleaned! If two of us wanted the steel tanks (which happened because my other Washington buddy wanted them as well) we were out of luck.
*Nitrox was promised, but an absent nitrox analyzer on the first day and compressor problems on the second, and my desire to use the 15 litre tanks on the days first deeper dives made it absent or unnecessary. The one time I dove nitrox on my only night dive I came up with a half a cylinder of gas! And with only 3 dives a day, limited to at the most about 55 minutes, it wasn’t that necessary, although for personal / physical reasons I would have been on nitrox even with those limitations. The 3 day dive limit explains why those I talked to didn’t think nitrox was a big deal, but I was never informed of this in advance.
In spite of these challenges, the diving was so amazing I couldn’t even work up a good long term “snit”, though I did let them know about it. Next Time (and I would go again in a heartbeat) I would make sure that these were issues that were clearly dealt with before I got there, and 90% of my shore diving in Eilat I would do on my own. If I had to I’d go to more than one shop (there are 3 or 4 major players and a few minor ones) to get tanks and weights I would. Amazing diving, and as a complete rookie as far as dive travel goes I learned a lot!
It has been amazing. Cindy and I spent two weeks in Israel visiting old friends, seeing old stomping grounds, and lest I forget to mention, 9 days in Eilat, 8 of those diving the Red Sea out of Eilat and Sinai. Our time was topped off by another 16 days or so touring Israel and cruising the Greek Islands with good friends.
If I ever stop diving here and only become a vacation-warm-water-wussie diver you know what to do! 
:naka: who influences the fish. 
