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If you call any cabbie in Dahab they'll take you to Sharm from Taba border for 75$ per car including luggage.

Just as a follow-up - yesterday, at the Taba crossing, I was denied entry into Egypt for carrying an underwater camera rig. They demanded I leave the whole thing with them or they wouldn't let me through.

First, no way in hell am I leaving nearly $10k worth of gear in a random shack, second, I cannot pick it up since my plan is to fly back to Israel from Hurghada Airport, third, without the camera, there is little point for me in spending thousands on this trip, and finally, after this kind of treatment, **** if I'm going to ever spend a single lira in Egypt ever again. I'm going to send a nastygram to their consulate in Tel Aviv to that effect and cross Egypt off my list of future destinations - there are plenty of countries out there that will be more than happy to take my money.
 
Wait, what?
It's a well known thing that Egypt has a policy against drones but unless your underwater camera rig could be considered a drone I don't understand what happened there. In an case the Taba border crossing is NOT a shack by any stretch of imagination, unless you didn't even made it into de building and they stopped you at the initial suitcase scanner.
I have entered Egypt by land and air and had various camera rigs with me but never had any problem. Do you mind sharing a few photos of your setup? It could help others avoid similar problems.
 
At the suitcase scanner, they tossed my entire bag, catalogued everything, then assigned me some guy who didn't speak a word of English or Hebrew, grabbed my passport, rushed me through the passport control, then after that, he took me me off to some side building that tharted its life as either a mobile home or a shipping container where some other guy tried to have me sign some piece of paper and leave my camera bag with him to collect within 30 days. I told him no ******* way, I'm not leaving my stuff here for the reasons that I mentioned above, took my passport back and returned to the Israeli side.
This is what my rig looks like when assembled, more or less (at the time, I had it with a dome rather than flat port).
sLjPEs9.jpg
 
Well, I guess they were either scared this could be assembled into some sort of weapon and didn't wanted to take credit (so to speak) for letting you in OR (most likely) were afraid the rig could do things on it's own therefore somehow falling into the drone category. No one in Egypt is going to risk his state paid job over something they don't know/understand.
At that point your best bet would have been to ask for the commander of the checkpoint or at least the customs manager (or whatever the title may be). Talk to someone in charge, or at least wait a bit inside the main building for an Israeli tourist who speaks some Arabic etc.
In any case, the staff at that particular checkpoint is notoriously idiotic, my bet is that with this rig you would have entered Egypt on any other checkpoint without too much trouble (on Israeli passport that is). Same can be said about the staff on the Israeli side at Eilat/Taba, maybe too many radars/jamming devices/etc fry their brains or something, affecting people on both sides.
 
Well, I guess they were either scared this could be assembled into some sort of weapon and didn't wanted to take credit (so to speak) for letting you in OR (most likely) were afraid the rig could do things on it's own therefore somehow falling into the drone category.
From what I've been told, they get triggered by any camera with a large-ish lens. They think it's all spy equipment meant to take pictures of their super secret military installations.
At that point your best bet would have been to ask for the commander of the checkpoint or at least the customs manager (or whatever the title may be). Talk to someone in charge, or at least wait a bit inside the main building for an Israeli tourist who speaks some Arabic etc.
I was with an organized group, our guide spoke Arabic, we had an Egyptian agent on the other side, no one could do anything. Later in the day, the manager of the tour company that was running the trip called me and said that in two more days, they can get their chief agent to the checkpoint, and there's a good chance that the guy might get me through, but at this point I just said screw it and went home.
 
Well, what you could have done, given the circumstances, was to check in for two days at Mowenpick right after the checkpoint, do the following day the splendid little trip to Saladin's castle on the nearby island and claim your rig during the second day, when their chief agent came in.
Of course, this worked only if didn't threw you off the LoB schedule or something like that.
There's also a nice reef just in front of ex Hilton (currently Nelson Taba or something like that) - well worth a dive if you have to spend a day there.

IMO there's no way they were triggered by the camera, all you had to do was to remove it from the enclosure and show it naked. At some point (like 18 years ago) I entered Egypt with a professional camera and a very large telephoto lens among other stuff and never had any problem.
My bet is on the rig itself and in general on the lunacy which reigns supreme at the Eilat/Taba border on both sides.
 
Of course, this worked only if didn't threw you off the LoB schedule or something like that.
The group was going to a liveaboard, yes.
IMO there's no way they were triggered by the camera, all you had to do was to remove it from the enclosure and show it naked. At some point (like 18 years ago) I entered Egypt with a professional camera and a very large telephoto lens among other stuff and never had any problem.
As I understand it, there's a separate set rules for Israelis from everyone else (remember, we have a history of five major wars in living memory, and the peace we've got is not particularly warm, with a mob storming our embassy in Cairo not that long ago), and even then, it depends on where in Egypt you're heading - I was told by the agent that if I was entering just the Sinai area, on a 14-day Sinai stamp, there's a good chance they would let me through (and indeed, three years earlier, I went on the same Ras Mohammad route, with the same company, carrying the same camera, and no one bothered me), but since I was heading to Hurghada after Sharm, and I explicitly told them to stamp the visa in my passport, the combination of Israeli passport + big camera + mainland Egypt put them into 'no way no how' mode.
And yes, I did open the housing and take out the camera inside. Didn't matter one iota.
I've written off Egypt as a potential destination for the foreseeable future. Southeast Asia is much easier, friendlier, and more convenient.
 
IMO that's a bit unfair, considering precisely your past trip to Ras Mo etc.

Btw, when and how did you got the 25$ full Egyptian visa? Was it before arriving to Eilat/Taba or at the border?
 
Btw, when and how did you got the 25$ full Egyptian visa? Was it before arriving to Eilat/Taba or at the border?
Applied at the embassy in Tel Aviv, handled via a travel agent. Took damn near two months to process. Apparently I was lucky to even get it, lots of people get their applications rejected, not that it did me any good.
 
My guess is that it was the combination between a full visa and the Taba entry point which triggered them. Probably 99.99% of the Israelis coming trough Taba get the free stamp on arrival without any hassle so you looked suspicious from the start. Add the fancy camera rig and they felt the need to look like they're doing their job.

Btw, I said it's a bit unfair to put things that way considering that for Egyptians (even for Coptic Christians looking to do the pilgrimage to Jerusalem, Bethlehem etc) it is virtually impossible to get the Israeli visa.
 
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