Suspension of all diving and watersports activities in Sharm el Sheikh

[Red Sea Shadow]

BTW, it's even in the daily Egyptian newspapers. here's a link: ???? ????? ?????? ???? ????? ???? ????? ???? ????? ??? ????? - ????? ??????

It says that the decree has been taken all of a sudden. One more piece of info is that snorkeling from boats is allowed in Tiran only.

That's only FYI. Personally, I don't rely on newspapers.

 

[Crowley]

How can you do an 18 metre open water training dive in a pool? Most hotels have pools. Not all of those pools even meet the requirement for confined training. Not all are heated - it's winter and those pools are freezing.

And no - I doubt anybody in sharm knows where nakhlet el tal is...

C

 

[Red Sea Shadow]

I believe you guys in Sharm should come up with something (sort of solution) and present it to CDWS.

 

[Crowley]

The problem is that these decrees come from the governor, not the CDWS, and the two are at odds.

Here's what happened today. As I mentioned earlier, two fat policemen came to our diving centre and told us we could not carry out training dives. So - Asser very kindly translated the Arabic for SB and we have a decree that is still a bit nuts, but actually makes some kind of sense. It quite clearly states that training dives are allowed in Na'ama bay (along with Um El Sid, Ghamila and Sharm El Maya).

Today, the police tried to stop us diving. We ignored them, as did all the other centres in Na'ama bay. We continued ignoring them, because they are, ya know, WRONG, until lunchtime when we are told that one of the top 2 biggest centres in Sharm was threatened with the decree's one month closure if they continued. We re-located our courses after that.

The thing is, the CDWS is closed today. Benjamin Netanyahu and Hosni Mubarak are in town for some sort of political chat. The governor and the bigwigs are off bigwigging, some of them on a boat for the day, and so nobody can be raised. After all the palava, normal business resumes tomorrow and the reason that was given for the new ban?

Certain important members of the Chamber asked - why can we dive the sites by boat and not from the shore? And they were told: "if a shark is in the area, it will take longer to get back to the beach than the boat". I mean - what kind of male cow poop is that?

The decree was wrong, no reason was given, there has not been another attack, the decree was mistranslated and the original was misinterpreted by the police. Nobody could be contacted because they are hob-nobbing with important people, and everybody's just a wee bit annoyed by the whole thing. It's not a defensible error this time, it's moronic.

Normal business resumes tomorrow. What a waste of a day.

Yours, decompressing with my good friend Sakara,

Crowley

 

[Red Sea Shadow]

The problem is that these decrees come from the governor, not the CDWS, and the two are at odds.

I know. It's pretty obvious to any Egyptian

However, CDWS is your only channel. Don't try to approach the governor by yourself

 

[divebunnie]

Yep, we too are based in Naama Bay and have had to drag all our students up to Shark's Bay today... OK I guess that is better than having to bus them through the desert to Dahab (much as I like Dahab), but as Crowley says, it quite clearly states that it is OK to dive in Naama Bay. Confused?? You will be...

 

[Crowley]

And today the beaches were closed again this afternoon...

... nobody knows why ...

Well, actually, I did ask and my boss just laughed - this policeman knew the ban was lifted but he forgot to tell that policeman so that policeman banned the shore diving, then got told it was fine, then lifted the ban (but kept it in place all afternoon) so everything is okay for tomorrow...

good grief!

 

[divebunnie]

Oh the fun n games... still no rescue courses allowed, in case it scares the tourists... so I have a feeling I will be heading up to Dahab for scenario day on Monday...

 

[vladimir]

This has probably been covered elsewhere, but my quick search didn't turn it up. The latest issue of Undercurrent has a discussion of shark attacks and shark feeding, including the conclusions of the scientists that studied the Red Sea attacks. It makes for interesting, if unsurprising, reading:

Then someone brought them a video clip of divers finning at 20 feet at Five Mile Reef. Ralph S. Collier, president of the Shark Research Committee and one of the three American researchers, explains what they saw: “One diver away from the group, probably the divemaster, had his arm extended. He was holding a fish. As the shark approached, the diver let loose of the fish. The shark chomped down on the bait and started circling the diver. With his right hand, the diver reached behind him. On his butt was a fanny pack, from which he pulled another dead fish. The shark knew where the fish was, because he could smell it, so he reached for this area. Now we could see why it did what it did. One of the Red Sea shark victims was a female diver. When the shark swam to her, she extended her hand to ward off the shark. But the shark bit her hand, then swam behind her and took a massive bite out of her butt, so much that the spinal column was visible.

 

[Christian]

This has probably been covered elsewhere, but my quick search didn't turn it up. The latest issue of Undercurrent has a discussion of shark attacks and shark feeding, including the conclusions of the scientists that studied the Red Sea attacks. It makes for interesting, if unsurprising, reading:

Five Mile Reef? That's in Sodwana, South Africa. Do they suggest that the shark learned the behavior there and then went to Sharm, or that fanny packs are widely used for carrying bait in Sharm? Is it? I have never seen it practiced in any where else the Red Sea.