Marsa Alam 2014 Trip – Part 1
Marsa 2014 Blog
Part one – 12-15th January
After an early start the 18 intrepid divers met at Gatwick, checked in and had the obligatory coffee and breakfast (or beer in some cases).
On arrival in Marsa Alam we soon realised that Raj’s bag hadn’t made it. Melvin offered to lend him his pants and a T-shirt.
We arrived at the hotel met the staff from the dive centre for a few beers and then went for a bit to eat. The next morning we gathered our dive gear and made our way to the dive boat. A quick check dive with ‘Ferret’ our dive guide made most of us comfortable in the water again. While we were out checking the Crocodile Fish, Lionfish, antheas etc the ‘ladies that leisure’ aka Alison, Jacs and my 7 month old daughter Kristie hung out by the pool waiting for their superheroes to return (myself and Melvin).
After a heavy night and having no dive kit which was now in Heathrow, Raj took a day off for some R&R.
That night Raj received some welcome news and was reunited with his luggage and dive kit. Jess and Trey decided to impress the other guests of the hotel who were partking in the quiz by shouting out all of the answers – NOT. Unfortunately Jess was outdone by some mad Dutch lady who decided to do a “special” dance for everyone during the break. Melvin laughed so hard he fell and hit the floor with an almighty thud.
The following day we had an early start and headed towards Dolphin House, a reef named after the pod of 100 or so dolphins that call this reef home. On arrival we could see 2 small pods that were sleeping. The group split in to 2 groups and my group headed off in the zodiac to the start of our dive. We descended down to the reef where we saw some stunning corals including broccoli, some giant tables and ‘brain coral’. After a 65 minute dive we finished our dive playing with the clown fish who were getting quite defensive over their aneonomies. After a 60 minute surface interval we descended for our second dive. This time our group went through a 5 minute long swim-through where you get plenty of fish taking cover and the different hues of blue penetrated by the rays of light coming through the cracks really make this impressive. Despite a few nerves even the novice divers found this very enthralling and made them feel even more confident in the water. Everyone’s air was now improving so a lot of people were making hour long dives.
About half the group then went for a night dive where they were rewarded with Octopus, Spanish Dancers, Lionfish and some cuttlefish.
The hotel put on a romantic meal offer of ‘viagra veal’ which we all passed on and stuck with the grilled chicken or fish and risotto.
I decided to spend the day with the ladies that leisure and catch up with some work and write the blog, as you can see by the picture I am finding this incredibly stressful. Anyway I have to dash now as off for a ‘Divers massage’ at 3pm.
More to follow in the next few days.