Unguided diving in Egypt and 300bar tanks/compressors?

[S****N]

When I was there last year I was informed that you had to hire a local DM/Guide to do any diving in Dahab.

Informed by who? A dive center?

I mean, indulging fear for problems with the law is an easy way to bind customers to dive centers.

7 years ago we went diving in Lanzarote. We wanted do some guided dives to get to know the local way of diving and some good dive spots. On top of that we wanted to rent some tanks and weights to go diving on our own.

Beforehand I mailed like 15 local dive centers for a quote for 10 guided dives and 12 times renting tanks, weights and refills.
The replies ranged from: “By law, you are not allowed to dive on your own so you have to dive with our guides!” to: “ We’ll be happy to offer you two guided dives in the morning and how many tanks do you want for the afternoon?”

On Christmas the dive center was closed so the evening before they gave us 6 tanks to go diving on Christmas. The rented VW polo was loaded, lol! Best Christmas ever. Fak snow, jingle bells and sh1tty Christmas movies! Let’s dive!

 

[JustSurfaceInterval]

[...]
We did unguided dives in Dahab at the Happy life housereef.
[...]

So you were with Lagona Divers South, while we were with Lagona Divers North...
I'll have to research the up to data CDWS rules but may be you can find something relevant here
One other opton will be for you to contact some diver centre and ask them directly what the current regulation about diving without guide actually is.

 

[S****N]

So you were with Lagona Divers South, while we were with Lagona Divers North...
I'll have to research the up to data CDWS rules but may be you can find something relevant here
One other opton will be for you to contact some diver centre and ask them directly what the current regulation about diving without guide actually is.

Yep, exactly: Lagona divers! Still have the t-shirts I bought from them.
Thanks for the link. I have been looking into it but the site is quite extensive and a lot of the laws are in Arabic. Will have a look later on this week.

 

[Searcaigh]

Informed by who? A dive center?

Yes it was the Dive Centre.

All their guides had gone out already and they had to call around to find someone who was available to accompany me. Plus I had to wait until high tide to be able to swim over the reef.

 

[JustSurfaceInterval]

One thought: would they had called a guide if you had someone with you to dive with?
Can you name the dive ops and the dive site?

 

[Searcaigh]

Can you name the dive ops and the dive site?

Divers House and it was their house reef.

 

[JustSurfaceInterval]

Mmmhhh... i can only explain that with the requirement of not diving solo, unless you are certified as self reliant / solo diver.

 

[Searcaigh]

Mmmhhh... i can only explain that with the requirement of not diving solo, unless you are certified as self reliant / solo diver.

I have a self reliant card, but they did inform me that the local regulations state and Egyptian guide is required by all divers.

I can't remember how much they charged, but it wasn't expensive, although his air consumption was higher than mine.

 

[Adr1an]

In Dahab and Sharm no one will rent you cylinders to dive unguided. I specifically asked this quite a few times in Sharm and always got the same answer, with claims that this was the general rule, that only qualified DM's can dive unguided etc. In Marsa Alam however you can easily do it (30+ logged dives) but you won't make any economy as they will charge you extra as "house reef tax" or something similar. The only gain will be that you don't risk to find yourself in a group with very inexperienced divers etc.