GuernseyBoy
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Hi all,
Just got back from a week's diving in Dahab - my first time in Egypt, or anywhere in the Red Sea for that matter.
Thought I'd write a little report about my experiences, hopefully someone will find useful...
General
If you have a non-diving partner, there is very little for them to do.
Mine laid by the pool most days and came along on a couple of the dive trips to do some snorkelling.
There are day/part-day trips that are run by MAX (in hotel reception). We had wanted to go to Cairo to see the pyramids, but to do that trip, you leave at 3am and return at 11pm including a 6 hour drive each way... No thanks!
You obviously need to drink a lot of water - its HOT!
The night life around the hotel is virtually non-existent - most of the guests are divers and so are in bed early because theyre going diving early next morning.
The Hotel - Dahab Hilton
Don't need to say much about the hotel, other than it's superb.
The staff are friendly and can't do enough for you, room was first class, facilities likewise.
There are three restaurants, serving a variety of cuisines. Every night was a buffet in all the restaurants, which to be honest I found a little annoying - its nice to have the option to look at a menu and be brought stuff!
There is also a windsurfing centre (Mistral/North) - I sailed on one day and it was ok, but I wouldnt rave about the sailing there, its mostly flat water. They do tell you that you can sail around the edge of the lagoon to the waves, but these are just rolling swell, its not pumping down the line!!
A word about the water - even though you are in a posh hotel, you are still connected to the same water supply as everyone else... This means doing your teeth with bottled water, which is a pain in the ***, but better that than get a pain in the *** for other reasons!
The Dive Shop - Sinai Divers
This dive shop is part of the Hilton hotel complex.
Firstly, I was impressed by their professionalism - fairly organised, they have forms for you to fill in, and they actually file them and refer back to them for stuff!
The staff were all pretty friendly and the tuition was excellent (I was doing PADI AOW).
You get allocated gear at the start of your stay and get a box and a locker to keep it all in. At the end of each dive you can wash stuff out in the fresh water pools provided and hang wetsuits/BCDs up to dry on hangers numbered the same as your box and locker - all very organised!
The gear was decent quality (I needed all but a mask), and they had plenty of different sizes of everything.
There is a white board in the shop that gives info about dives happening the following day, so you just go in and write your name on the appropriate list before 5pm for dives the next day.
If you havent dived for 6 months or more, they require you to do a check dive, where you run through all the basic skills to prove youre competent. I think that was only for PADI AOW or less though.
They will only take you to about 30m. I think they did a tech diving course, which I assume will take you deeper, but I guess this is for the more experienced.
The Diving
I did about 8 dives, not including the check dive and a navigation dive which we did in the lagoon.
Of these, Ill comment on a few here:
Gabr el Bint
Boat Dive - Slow drift dive along a wall of coral. Because theres a bit of a current, its teeming with life - very nice.
Coral Garden
Boat Dive - Its literally like walking through a garden, with a sandy bottom (like the garden path) and coral on both sides - again, a really nice dive.
Islands
Shore Dive - 5 minutes jeep ride from the hotel, you enter through a crack in the reef and descend a metre, then out through a coral tunnel into the blue. The entry was good fun and the rest of the dive was a relaxing trundle around large coral reef islands. Snorkelling is good here for the non-divers. Saw a massive Moray Eel in its hole - I reckon it was a good 1.5 - 2m long.
Bells/Blue Hole
Hugely overrated for the average diver. The entry is similar to Islands, but deeper - you can either exit the crack immediately, or descend in a coral chute (open to the blue), then under an arch and out to the blue at about 30m.
Mostly a wall dive, until you reach the Blue Hole, where you cross over a saddle of coral into the hole.
The hole itself is bottomless for our purposes, and the much talked about archway out to the blue is at about 80m, so you wont see it unless youre a tech diver (which Im not). So really not the incredible dive its made out to be (for me at least).
Canyon
This was the dive that made the holiday - absolutely without question the best dive Ive ever done.
You enter in a small lagoon and make your way along the reef until you see the entrance to the canyon, it looks like it just disappears into the darkness at first, until you get closer. You go down through a crack in the reef to about 30m, where you can sit/stand on the bottom and look around - you are surrounded on all sides by reef - looking up through the crack is incredible, you can just about see the surface glinting in the sun. The canyon goes off in one direction for a bit, which you can explore (bring a torch) but you exit in the opposite direction, up through a tunnel.
We also saw a Manta Ray (Sinai Divers logo) on this dive.
Overall
With my limited diving experience, I havent got a massive amount to compare this to, but I found the diving excellent, particularly, as I said above, the Canyon is unmissable.
The hotel was excellent and overall a very enjoyable holiday, just a shame it was only a week!
Just got back from a week's diving in Dahab - my first time in Egypt, or anywhere in the Red Sea for that matter.
Thought I'd write a little report about my experiences, hopefully someone will find useful...
General
If you have a non-diving partner, there is very little for them to do.
Mine laid by the pool most days and came along on a couple of the dive trips to do some snorkelling.
There are day/part-day trips that are run by MAX (in hotel reception). We had wanted to go to Cairo to see the pyramids, but to do that trip, you leave at 3am and return at 11pm including a 6 hour drive each way... No thanks!
You obviously need to drink a lot of water - its HOT!
The night life around the hotel is virtually non-existent - most of the guests are divers and so are in bed early because theyre going diving early next morning.
The Hotel - Dahab Hilton
Don't need to say much about the hotel, other than it's superb.
The staff are friendly and can't do enough for you, room was first class, facilities likewise.
There are three restaurants, serving a variety of cuisines. Every night was a buffet in all the restaurants, which to be honest I found a little annoying - its nice to have the option to look at a menu and be brought stuff!
There is also a windsurfing centre (Mistral/North) - I sailed on one day and it was ok, but I wouldnt rave about the sailing there, its mostly flat water. They do tell you that you can sail around the edge of the lagoon to the waves, but these are just rolling swell, its not pumping down the line!!
A word about the water - even though you are in a posh hotel, you are still connected to the same water supply as everyone else... This means doing your teeth with bottled water, which is a pain in the ***, but better that than get a pain in the *** for other reasons!
The Dive Shop - Sinai Divers
This dive shop is part of the Hilton hotel complex.
Firstly, I was impressed by their professionalism - fairly organised, they have forms for you to fill in, and they actually file them and refer back to them for stuff!
The staff were all pretty friendly and the tuition was excellent (I was doing PADI AOW).
You get allocated gear at the start of your stay and get a box and a locker to keep it all in. At the end of each dive you can wash stuff out in the fresh water pools provided and hang wetsuits/BCDs up to dry on hangers numbered the same as your box and locker - all very organised!
The gear was decent quality (I needed all but a mask), and they had plenty of different sizes of everything.
There is a white board in the shop that gives info about dives happening the following day, so you just go in and write your name on the appropriate list before 5pm for dives the next day.
If you havent dived for 6 months or more, they require you to do a check dive, where you run through all the basic skills to prove youre competent. I think that was only for PADI AOW or less though.
They will only take you to about 30m. I think they did a tech diving course, which I assume will take you deeper, but I guess this is for the more experienced.
The Diving
I did about 8 dives, not including the check dive and a navigation dive which we did in the lagoon.
Of these, Ill comment on a few here:
Gabr el Bint
Boat Dive - Slow drift dive along a wall of coral. Because theres a bit of a current, its teeming with life - very nice.
Coral Garden
Boat Dive - Its literally like walking through a garden, with a sandy bottom (like the garden path) and coral on both sides - again, a really nice dive.
Islands
Shore Dive - 5 minutes jeep ride from the hotel, you enter through a crack in the reef and descend a metre, then out through a coral tunnel into the blue. The entry was good fun and the rest of the dive was a relaxing trundle around large coral reef islands. Snorkelling is good here for the non-divers. Saw a massive Moray Eel in its hole - I reckon it was a good 1.5 - 2m long.
Bells/Blue Hole
Hugely overrated for the average diver. The entry is similar to Islands, but deeper - you can either exit the crack immediately, or descend in a coral chute (open to the blue), then under an arch and out to the blue at about 30m.
Mostly a wall dive, until you reach the Blue Hole, where you cross over a saddle of coral into the hole.
The hole itself is bottomless for our purposes, and the much talked about archway out to the blue is at about 80m, so you wont see it unless youre a tech diver (which Im not). So really not the incredible dive its made out to be (for me at least).
Canyon
This was the dive that made the holiday - absolutely without question the best dive Ive ever done.
You enter in a small lagoon and make your way along the reef until you see the entrance to the canyon, it looks like it just disappears into the darkness at first, until you get closer. You go down through a crack in the reef to about 30m, where you can sit/stand on the bottom and look around - you are surrounded on all sides by reef - looking up through the crack is incredible, you can just about see the surface glinting in the sun. The canyon goes off in one direction for a bit, which you can explore (bring a torch) but you exit in the opposite direction, up through a tunnel.
We also saw a Manta Ray (Sinai Divers logo) on this dive.
Overall
With my limited diving experience, I havent got a massive amount to compare this to, but I found the diving excellent, particularly, as I said above, the Canyon is unmissable.
The hotel was excellent and overall a very enjoyable holiday, just a shame it was only a week!
I've also seen a couple of big morays at the Islands, though we usually snorkle there on our last (non-diving) day.
