Day 8 – Diving the Red Sea

Today was great! I got to scuba dive in the Red Sea not once, but twice. Our hotel had a dive shop, so it was convenient and easy to just go through them. And the prices were hard to beat! I had to do a refresher dive first, since it had been more than six months since my last dive. It had actually been a year and a half since my last dive, so I was thankful I had to do this, as it gave me a chance to remember everything again. The dive wasn’t just a basic little test, though that’s how it started. Once we showed we could do everything (clear our mask, establish buoyancy, clear the regulator, etc.) we went down to about 50 feet and saw tons of fish and coral. I couldn’t tell you the names of the fish we saw, but they were so colorful, and there were so many! So my “refresher dive” turned out to be just as good as a real dive.

After going back to the hotel for a lunch break, we went back out to another site called Blue Hole. This place was unbelievable. There’s an archway deep underwater that we can see (but far too deep to go down to), and again so many fish and coral. The one thing that made this diving stand out is the amazing visibility, even 70-80 feet under water. It was so clear! It made it easy to see so much, but at times made it hard to watch my depth, because if you’re not careful, you can ascend maybe 20 feet without knowing it, because everything is so clear. Overall, it was an incredible experience to dive in the Red Sea, since it is one of the more popular places in the world to dive, especially for Europeans.

While I was diving, Sean and Jamie were out snorkeling, so we both had great days in the water. We capped it all off with a delicious seafood dinner at one of the many restaurants along the water, enjoying the ambience of the music and many customers at the restaurant, combined with the crash of the waves behind us. It doesn’t get much better than that.