Yolanda to Shark Reef

The current was even stronger at Ras Mohammad, and if anything the wind and waves had picked up. We were told to gear up and wait on the platform at the stern of the boat until we were told to dive in. Someone obviously screwed up the signal - someone shouted "Dive, Dive, Dive!", but I hesitated for a moment. "Go on, dive!", then a second two late, "Stop, wait!". Myself and another diver were already in the water, but the boat had started to drift dangerously close to Yolanda Reef, and powered up its engines. Next minute we were alone in the water. We looked at each other and just kind of shrugged.

The journey back

The boat came back a couple of minutes later and disgorged the rest of the divers - we had to fin hard against the current to rejoin the group. Looking down I could see that we'd been dropped almost directly on top of the wreck of the Yolanda. It's far less glamourous cargo of toilet bowls was strewn over the reef. Hovering above were big shoals of what I think were some kind of sea bream, plus some ghost pipe fish at the bottom.

Late afternoon

Given that this was supposed to be a drift dive it was a bit annoying that the first thing we did once we descended was to swim hard against the current. It was very hard to make any headway, and I was sucking down my air pretty quickly. Our patience was rewarded by getting a close look at some blue-spotted stingrays, a turtle and a huge lizardfish. As we started to drift with the current we saw a moray eel bigger than my thigh poking its head out from under some coral. We drifted out to where the reef dropped away sharply, then swam along a reef wall to our right. You could tell the reef was in far better condition than at Dahab - there were far more fish and soft corals and the visibility was better.