Advanced Open Water diving

Trip Start Jun 19, 2008
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Trip End Sep 04, 2008


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Where I stayed
Red Sea Relax Resort
(Dahab hotels)

Flag of Egypt  ,
Monday, June 30, 2008

I uploaded a few random pictures for my previous 2 days in Dahab, so check that out. And thank you so, so much for your comments and words of encouragement! It means a lot! I am indeed having a blast in Dahab. Today was completely devoted to SCUBA diving and completing my Advanced Open Water certificate. 3 dives on the plate: deep dive at The Canyon, drift dive from Bells to the infamous Blue Hole (!), and night dive at the lighthouse. Sarah and I got a room upgrade because we persistently complained about the malfunctioning airconditioning. I stayed at a place without a/c in Cairo so sure, I could bear it, but why should we have to be anything but completely comfortable in Dahab? Sarah already had her AOW, so she came along with me to do the dives for fun.

The Canyon was brilliant!!! As the name says, you swim through an underwater canyon. Just see the pictures. I saw an octopus at the end too.

We then drove over to Blue Hole; snorkellers and tourists from Sharm had taken over the shore. In between the dives, we ate lunch by the beach and rested for Bells-Blue Hole drift dive. Entering Bells, I felt like a Santa Claus descending a chimney. So cool! Then we followed the wall to Blue Hole, where many divers have tested their limits, fatally. It was completely blue. Everywhere. I am not sure if I liked it though... I had trouble with bouyancy, so I was rather scared and uncomfortable. I kept thinking of the video I saw on youtube of an Israeli guy sinking down to 81m and struggling before his death in Blue Hole. Another thing that made the dive uncomfortable was that there were 2 additional people with years of diving experience doing their Nitrox certification dives. I felt like I did not have enough supervision and had to keep up with others who were diving in Blue Hole like it was a pool in their backyard. Penguin should not have mixed AOW, Nitrox, and fun divers in one pot. I did not have a good experience in one of the most famous dive sites in the Red Sea. I was just glad it was over.

After that, we had some time to kill until the THIRD dive of the day, and I certainly killed time by lounging around in the room. The sun slung low when we headed back to Penguin Divers. Despite my exhaustion and anxiety over diving in darkness, the night dive turned out to be one of the best AOW dives! It was so surreal! I dived at the same site yesterday, but it was a totally different experience, as I saw different sea animals and some of the same things I saw looked different (i.e. colors and movement).

With the successful completion of all 5 dives, I am now officially an Advanced Open Water SCUBA diver! Hurrah!
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Comments

edilainegm
edilainegm on Oct 1, 2008 at 10:09AM

Diving in Dahab-Egypt
Many thanks to Sojanet about diving in Dahab-Egypt. It is useful and very important for the divers to have coments about operators.
I have certification on adventurer diver.
Edilaine

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