Diving Madness... Danger is my middle name

(***quick note... if you want to read the exciting "dangerous" experience... then skip to the Day 5 - Ras Mohammed section of this post)

I'm leaving for Jordan tomorrow, and I'm sad to leave Egypt. It is definitely one of those places that I know I will come back to one day. Learning to dive here is quite truly amazing. Its kinda like learning to drive along Pacific Coast Highway along Big Sur. It sounds great, but there are 2 downsides - (1) its pretty hard to top your first experience and (2) its actually really to concentrate on learning, becuase there is so much going on around you that you are constantly distracted. Well... here's a little recap of my experience.

Day 1 - Diving lesson: "Confined Water Dive" and Open Water dive.
So... I quickly learned that the great thing about Egypt is that they don't really give a rat's ass about safety. I got there on my first day and joined a father/son combo that were on day 2. My instructor quickly went over some basic instructions and the first thing we did was jump in the water. The dive shop that I went to did not have a pool, so we did our "confined water dive" in the shallow part of the beach. The dive shop was connected to the Sofitel Hotel in Sharm which is perfect, becuase they had a private beach with magnificent 50 foot reefs right off the beach. As you can see from the dive pix on my last post... the water was amazing. We practiced safety techniques and basic skills while huge schools (hundreds not dozens) of fish swam by. I'm happy that I learned here in Egypt, because (as i said earlier) they take moderate safety precautions, but dont really care too much. They went really quickly through the lessons and it was pretty much sink or swim.

After our first lesson it was already time for our first open water dive. This is what's truly awesome about doing stuff out of the US. If I was in Hawaii, I probably would have spent the first day watching safety videos and the second day in a pool. Here... after the first 2 hours I was already 30 feet below water face to face with a giant Morey Eel. That sucker was huge!!!

Day 2, 3, 4 (more boring fish and reef descriptions)
Basically same stuff as Day 1. While the other two people in my class are going through their exercises, I spend most of my time staring at the coral and the fish trying to figure out how to describe them in words. There was one fish in particular, that I could not find on any of the charts, which had a blue and orange stripe across its eyes like a zoro mask and blue stripes on the back half of its body and the rest of was a pale color. Down in the water the lighting changes, so the bright colors really pop... making this fish look neon, kinda like a cheezy 80's Will Smith Video or a Hypercolor t-shirt. The coral is amazing colors down there too. Aside from the normal purple and blue coral you'd expect, I saw tons of neon colored lime green coral everywhere.

Of course the entire experience of being underwater is amazing. The craziest part is that you can control your position underwater by your breathing. Take a deep breath and you start to ascend... blow out the air and you start to descend. Crazy huh?

Day 5 - Guided Dive in Ras Mohammed ~ Just call me Jeff "Danger" Hui

After finishing my course, I had to put my skills to use right away. I joined a guided dive in Ras Mohammed, the national park and protected area in the Red Sea. Its considered to be arguably the top site to dive in the world. There were no other beginners, so they threw me in with a more advanced group, which I was happy with at first, but definitely caused me some problems later. Let's just say that one of the guys in my group is a dive instructor in Europe... so these dudes were a little out of my league.

As soon as we jumped in the water the first thing that we did was swim through a freaking underwater cave. I was a bit nervous to be honest... I mean its the first 5 minutes of my initial dive and I have to go through an underwater cave. I was so "new" that I didn't even know how to jump off the boat with all of my gear on and had to ask someone in my group how to jump into the water. I could see the people in my group kinda moan as the anticipated me screwing up their experience. The first dive went smoothly after the getting in the water and passing through the cave. We saw a huge trigger fish tearing up som jelly fish, passed by a spotted blue manta ray, and I even redeemed myself to my group members by spotting a crocodile fish hidden in the sand. (this is a stock photo from the internet)

Then, the second dive started... and that is where the trouble started for me. To start with, I noticed that my tank was slightly below the 200 bar, while it was usually filled to 210-220 range. I told my guide, but he didn't seem to care, so I didn't either. We started the dive by plunging straight down to 21.5 meters (even though my "limit" for my level is supposed to be 18 meters). It took me a long time, cuz I wasn't used to dropping so fast. My group had to wait while I equalized and adjusted to being 70 feet deep (70 feets seems so much more dangerous than 21.5 meters). Then we swam around a huge reef, where we saw more eels, rays, baracuda, and a lionfish. (also a stock photo)

Then we swam by the Yolanda... a sunken ship that was carrying toilet bowl. Coral was growing all over the broken bit of porcelain, and fish were swimming in and out of crazen toilets... pretty interesting sight. Then... the fun began. We hit a current that was pushing us pretty hard. I was swimming as fast as I could to keep up with the group. I still hadn't really mastered using my cheap rent-a-fins and so I was using my arms and flailing around like a 5 year old in a "mommy and me" swim class. If I could have made noise, I'm sure I would have been grunting like Maria Sharapova and screaming like a school girl. When we finally got out of the current, I started to float up at an alarming rate. I struggled to push out all of the air of my flotation device but I couldn't seem to get any air out. As my group watched me float away, I had not choice but to swim down to them. If I floated to the top I could have had some serious issues that come with ascending too fast. Luckily I'm a strong swimmer, cuz I started to ascend, the air in my flotation device expanded and I was basically trying to dive down with a damn life saver on tied to my body. By the time I got to the bottom, my guide had to hold me down while I pushed out all of the air of my flotation device. I checked the air in my tank which was already down to the 50 bar... meaning I should be getting ready to ascend. I gave my guide the signal that I was running low on air... but he didn't seem to really care too much. Our underwater conversation was like this:

Me: Tap tap tap... pointing to my guage... and giving a fist signal (meaning I was down to 50)

Guide: Blank stare and Ok signal

Me: Vigorously head shaking and again the fist

Guide: Ok signal, with a look in his eyes that read "okay, stop being such a damn baby"

My guide then inflated the emergency floater, indicating that some idiot in his group was having a crisis. We ascended to the 5 meter mark where we were supposed to readjust to the oxygen level. Meanwhile, my guide is holding my hand so I don't float away. I'm floating next to him, arm in arm, trying not to look like the total pansy. We notice that I'm now down to the 20 bar... but we need to stay at the 5 meter mark for a few more minutes before we surface... so we go through the emergency procedure that I learned on day 1. He hands me his secondary regulator (breathing hose) and we go hand in hand to the top. When we get to the top, we swim hand in hand to the boat... and when I get out I meekly thank him for saving my life and scurry to the top of the boat where the rest of the group will hopefully not find me. Unfortunately, they specifically looked for me to confirm that I had, in fact, "ran out of gas". Embarassed and humbled, I called it a day and watched my group go on the optional third dive, while I shot the shit with another diver that was also too tired to do the 3rd dive. Of course, he was 70 years old and retired... so that wasn't a real big boost to my confidence. The good news is that I have no shame, so I basically forgot about the incident by the time the entire group was back on the boat. Even though I ended my dive holding hands with another grown man, I'm still looking forward to my next dive... perhaps in Turkey!

Day 6, 7, 8 - Dahab... relaxation

Up the coast (about 60-90 min) from Sharm is a town called Dahab. Definitely more of my vibe here. Low key, backpacker kinda down... gone are the casinos, bard, and neon lights of sharm replaced with bedouin tents, tea, and a more local crowd. I also caught a cold (god I'm such a little girl) from diving ... and getting in and out of the water. I've spent the past 3 days sitting here just reading on the beach. I found a little hotel at the very end of the beach where very few people walk by... and so I basically slept, napped, and ate by the beach with minimul disturbance. I had my lunch brought to my lounge chair, where I balanced my plate on my stomach and ate while lying down... damn, I'm a slob. At night the full moon completely lights up the sky, and I can see all the way to Saudia Arab with the light of the moon. Here are some pix of Dahab...