Dahab & Diving

On the one hand Egyptian buses are a vast improvement over our local Greyhound buses. On the other hand, they are noisier than GM Place after the Canucks score a goal. Having been unable to secure a seat on any of the 10 daily flights to Sharm el Sheik, we were forced to take a night bus from Cairo to Dahab departing at 12:15am and arriving around 9:00 am. Most long distance buses that I have traveled on, whether in South America, Asia or here in Egypt, are far more luxurious than our counterparts in Canada. The seats lean back to virtually a lying position, often some also have foot rests that come up similarly to barknloungers thus making a long journey more comfortable than any plane ride. The downfall of these buses is their entertainment program which in this particular case was comprised of several loud calls to prayer, an Arabic movie played at full volume, 2012 played at full volume and some fantastic Arabic music that was blaring for a large majority of the journey. By the end of the ride I found the prayers quite soothing. Might have been a good idea to put the iPod or earplugs in the carry on luggage as opposed to in the main backpack that was stored underneath.

We arrived in Dahab shortly before 9:00am to be picked up by Nadar within a few minutes. I tracked Nadar down via the Couch Surfing website and if we were to exclude our “couch” stay with Agnes in Amsterdam, this was our first real introduction to couch surfing. Nadar has proved to be an amazing host. He has this very quaint little apartment 20 steps away from the dive center in which he works and another 40 steps away from the Red Sea.


He’s taken us with Juma, his Bedouin friend, on a camel safari off into the local mountains where we had a fantastic Bedouins dinner. Despite it being cooked over a fire, it by far surpassed much of the recent food we’ve been having in the restaurants. We were joined by 7 Belgians who were wrapping up their Dahab diving trip and got to listen to the Virtual Barber Shop (highly recommend for everyone to try to download it, but make sure to listen to it with headphones and your eyes closed), and play a variety of very entertaining games.


Dahab is an interesting little town. It’s a scuba diving mecca with several dozen dive shops mostly manned by Europeans and Australians: people that come here, do a few dives, then decide to stay for several months, get their full instructor certification and then several years later find themselves having a difficult time leaving. Truth be said there is not much of a beach here, but the waterfront is lined with amazing little open air restaurants with plenty of tanning chairs right along the water, so even if you don’t dive, there really isn’t much to complain about. The reason for the lack of beach is that the reef starts virtually right on shore. Most of the dives here are shore dives but there also is no shortage of boat dives.

So far we’ve got our first 2 dives done, one about 200 meters from where we are staying and the other a boat dive out of a 5 star resort. For some unknown reason I have insane problems equalizing, always had, and no matter what I do I can’t seem to rectify that. As a result the dives are a bit less enjoyable than they would normally be, but so far we’ve seen: Unicorn, Puffer, Glass, Cornet, Lion Fish, Regal Angelfish, Fusiliers, Indian Bird Russ, Goatfish, Red Sea Bannerfish, a Napolean (same somewhere underneath me as I was trying to equalize my ears) and the list goes on. Tomorrow it’s off for some deep see diving at the Canyon and Dahab’s famous Blue Hole.



PS: What has technology come to? I am writing this post while sitting in a little beach-side restaurant in the desert oasis town of Dahab while uploading all the photos taken over the last few days, checking emails and paying my bills.

PS: To anyone traveling, I highly recommend Couch Surfing: www.couchsurfing.com . It is a fantastic way of getting to know local people, and experiencing their cities/towns based on their recommendations as opposed to what might be written in a guide book.

PS: Rob – Thanks for recommending Hostel Bookers. We made use of that in Cairo.