The Red Sea & the Blue Hole

There truly cannot be another diving place like this. The entire coast is lined by coral reefs with an endless choice of dives. The dives we did off of the Mayan Riviera were pathetic in comparison. Maybe then we were simply unlucky and maybe a trip to Cozumel would have changed our opinion. However where we had been taken the coral seemed ravaged by storms, a mere skeleton of what it once used to be with a shortage of sea life.

Here on the other hand, our trip to the Blue Hole did not disappoint. The Blue Hole is a submarine pothole (a kind of cave), around 130m deep. there is a shallow opening around 6m deep, known as "the saddle", opening out to the sea and it is this opening that has the most sea life. For those experienced and qualified enough, or else too stupid to know better, there is also a 26m long tunnel, known as the arch, connecting the Blue Hole with the open sea. However this lies at a depth of 52m well beyond recreational diving limits and has been the cause of a number of deaths.


For us, our dives started with a trip to the Canyon where we got our Adventure Deep Dive certification descending down a narrow canyon to 30m. For the first time ever I had absolutely no issues with equalizing my ears, making the whole diving experience so much more enjoyable. We also got to see and swim after a baby turtle along with all the other fish that I won't bore you with.

From there it was on to the Blue Hole were our entry point was Bells, a deep crack in the reef enabling a vertical descent and at 26 m a swim through an arched passage way. From there it was a swim along an insanely gorgeous reef wall. I have never seen anything on such a scale. We were swimming at around 25m and the reef just continued downwards without end (apparently the drop off there goes in excess of 800m). It was a true highlight to finishing our dive there.

Other than that the rest of our stay in Dahab has been spent lazying around (at least for me) and sleeping of some bad strain of stomach flu in my dad's case. Tommorrow it's off to Nuweiba, from there a $70US ferry to Aqaba and what is currently looking like an expensive taxi ride to Petra (as the only buses leave in the mornings and early afternoon).

**Note: These fantastic underwater photos were taken by Rich Carey. Check out his Facebook profile or http://www.richardcareyphotos.com/ for more amazing pictures from the Dahab reefs, turtles, insane shark shots as well as your miscellaneous fish and reef shots.