Diving The

Red Sea

Nancy McQuade
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Diving The
Red Sea
Nancy McQuade

2
 © Nancy McQuade

Nancy McQuade
91 Beechtree Crescent
Winnipeg, MB
Canada R2M 5K9
nancymcquade@me.com
“Be fearless in the pursuit of what sets your soul on fire.” –
Jennifer Lee
 Prologue

Throughout my diving life, there have been places that I

wanted to visit and specific ways that I wanted to do it. This
trip was to dive the Red Sea and do it from a liveaboard
dedicated dive boat. This checked two adventures off of my
bucket list! However the bucket is turning out to be
bottomless.
Last year was Bali, this year the Red Sea. This was
supposed to be my last solo trip but don’t quote me on that.
Maybe another adventure and another book to come.
 Chapter 1

“Traveling – it leaves you speechless, then turns you into a

storyteller.” – Ibn Battuta

November 14-15, 2019

All great adventures begin with a day of travel, sometimes

longer, sometimes shorter..this was a longer one!

Travelling to Egypt is an adventure in itself, since there is an

eight hour time loss. However, I think I am a really good
traveller when I am by myself - no worries, go with the flow -
as long as I have something to keep me busy! My biggest
worry on this trip was losing the power on my Kindle. I came
very close and was reading on fumes by the time I reached
the hotel!

Flights were great...or I should say the EgyptAir flights were

great. I left Winnipeg for Toronto at 5:15...am ): but at least
it was on time. EgyptAir to Cairo was a 10 hour flight. The
meals were even better than I remembered from our last
year’s trip but still no beer or wine. I survived again. From
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Cairo, after a 4 hour layover, I boarded my flight to
Hurghada... 2 hours late but delicious cookies and coffee
served on this flight so they made up for the delay in
spades. It seems in Egypt food is served on every flight - no
matter how short, they find time to feed us.

The next leg of the journey was a four hour drive from
Hurghada to Port Ghalib where I will catch the boat
tomorrow. Yes, I will be spending the next week on a
liveaboard dive boat. That is the adventure! I am picked up
by zodiac tomorrow at 4pm. I am excited but a bit nervous.
Funny coincidence - when I was waiting to board the Cairo
flight I as talking to a person in line about going on a dive
boat and the fellow behind me said “So am I. What boat are
you on?” It turned out that out of about 12 people going on
this boat, he is one of them - Jessie from Toronto. Weird and
creepy...no?
The last leg was a drive to Port Ghalib which was long and
not very scenic - desert on one side and water on the other.
However, out a ways in the desert there was a range of very
large hills or very small mountains that extended virtually
the whole stretch. The driver was not chatty either but
probably I was too tired to talk anyways - believe it or not.

I am staying at an all inclusive resort, Marina Lodge at Port

Ghalib, which is very classically Arabic. Here was my
second and last faux pas of the trip arrangements. I had
booked for the wrong night. Fortunately, they had a
vacancy for me.

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I had a short nap and woke feeling refreshed, thirsty and
hungry.

I have had a beer, which was wonderful, and a glass of wine

that was terrible, but it was better than no wine. Guess I
should have had another beer. The food on the buffet was
less than stellar except for the amazing fresh dates and
desserts.

So, I just had one of the resort staff unlock my door

because I couldn’t get my door opened. Most embarrassing
since he got it in one try. Now I am off to bed and hoping
that I sleep well. I will be back tomorrow with my next
chapter.

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 Chapter 2

”Adventure may hurt you but monotony will kill you.”

November 16, 2019

I am very happy. I slept like a log. The alarm woke me at 7

and I even had time to push the snooze button a couple of
times and a shower. I find that the water here is very soft so
my hair feels really soft too.

Breakfast was amazing and completely made up for dinner

last night. More fresh dates, yogurt, fresh fruit, toast with
black honey, croissants with apricot jelly and fig jelly,
delicious cheese, both creamed and sliced. There were
omelettes and crepes, which I didn’t take, and “beef
sausage” which tasted like wieners to me. The coffee was
delicious.

Port Ghalib is a resort town and dive boat port. Dozens of

dive boats and dozens of resorts are pretty much what the
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town caters to. It appears that Port Ghalib is perhaps just a
short distance from Marsa Alam, which is where the airport
is. This was one of my faux pas in organizing my trip. My
old brain tried to book my flight to Port Ghalib. Guess what!
No airport in Port Ghalib! No wonder Egypt Air didn’t show
flights!
I suspect that the population is extremely transient which
made it impossible to find out what the population actually
might be.  I did find out that it covers 18km of desert
coastline and 8 million square metres of desert. To me that
seems immense!

At this point, I had too much time on my hands! I went to

the shops attached to the hotel where I bought a large
piece of lapis lazuli. When we were in Cairo last year, our
guide gave me a ceramic scarab amulet which I have worn
almost every day since then. However, the design is wearing
off and I thought that replacing it with one made of lapis
lazuli would be easy in Egypt...maybe in Cairo but not here.
The shopkeeper said that he could have it carved for me if I
was here in Port Ghalib for a week - he is from Luxor and his
family are artists - but not in a day, so it will come back to
Winnipeg with me. If anyone knows anyone who carves in
stone, please let me know. Otherwise, it will have to wait
until I return to Egypt in 2 years. I probably paid way too
much for the stone but he also “gave” me the scarab in the
photo as well as the beaded bracelet in the second photo.

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 Here I am entering an addendum:
The piece of “lapis lazuli” that I was so very excited about
purchasing in Egypt has turned out to be a worthless piece
of glass🤬 🤬 . I took it in to a stone carver in Winnipeg and
with one look with his jeweller’s loupe he dropped that bomb
on me. I paid 80 Euros ($150Cdn) for it. I have contacted the
manager at the resort, since the shops were recommended
and essentially attached to the resort. After several emails
back and forth, he has very graciously agreed to send me a
full refund.
“In for a penny, in for a pound”, I purchased a piece lapis
from the carver who will creating my scarab. Should you
have need of a jeweller to create a custom piece, I highly
recommend Redd Line Fine Jewellery on St. Mary’s Road.

I spent the afternoon in the lobby at the resort, crocheting,

reading and writing and the time passed very quickly. The
boat crew picked me up almost on time and it was a short,
scenic ride over to the dive boat, M/Y Amelia. She was built

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in 2005 but has been re-outfitted twice, the last time in
2017.

Fly Deck

Bar and Outside Lounge

Dining and Briefing Lounge

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 Dive deck and tank/gear area

The first order of business was to set up my equipment.

Sadly, because I didn’t anticipate a diving trip this year, I left
all of my equipment in Hawaii. However, the rental
equipment seems to be decent quality. We will see when I
use it tomorrow.
Before dinner, we had our boat briefing with the other
guests and we have turned out to be a very international
group. Interestingly, other than Jessie and I and one British
fellow, they are all expats living in the U.K.

I am the senior member of the group, as I expected but not

the most experienced diver, as I also expected, although
well ahead of the others except for Mark, the Brit, with over
500 logged dives (I have about 300) and also next in line
age wise. Next is Jessie. He has almost 200 dives and is
quite a character. The last three who were on board were all
at less than 100 dives. Jacob is from Denmark and his
partner, Therese, is from Sweden but she also speaks
Danish. Loucas is from Cyprus - also very interesting. It is

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wonderful that everyone is fluent in English. We have two
more divers arriving late tonight.

My cabin is somewhat spartan but comfortable and clean

and I have a room to myself. I had signed on for sharing a
cabin but there are very few on our boat - 8 instead of the
20 person maximum. The boat is well appointed and well
maintained.

Dinner was tasty but not gourmet fare.

The “free wifi” is only free because it doesn’t work so I will
be pretty much “off the grid” for the next week.
This is a power point slide giving all of the information we would
ever need about the virtually non-existent wifi!

I don’t know how well I will sleep because we are docked

next to a disco with a live band, which is actually very good.
The music is all pop from the last few decades so it is my
kind of music.

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See you in the morning.

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 Chapter 3

“STOP WORRYING ABOUT THE POTHOLES IN THE ROAD AND

ENJOY THE JOURNEY” ~ BABS HOFFMAN

November 17, 2019

The knock on the door (the boat’s wake up call) was at 7am
today. In spite of the disco, I slept not too badly. We then all
gathered for breakfast which was even better than last
night’s dinner. But no fresh dates! Wonderful cream cheese
again though but it comes in blocks, like Philadelphia
cream cheese but way better. It tastes very fresh and very
salty which suits me.

Our last two divers had arrived late the previous evening -
Elmar from Germany and Justina from Poland - also a young
couple and very sweet. We never had a chance to discuss
their dive history but they, too, are expats living in the U.K.

After breakfast we continued waiting at the dock until the

captain had clearance to depart the harbour. This definitely

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cut in to our dive time today. We were supposed to do 4
dives but it turned out that we only had time for 2😠 .

Eventually, we got our clearance and left port. As per the

Egyptian government the guests on the boat cannot leave
the boat until our scheduled day of departure from Egypt.
There are very strict rules to control even the slightest
chance of terrorism, which is fine by me.
These photos were taken as we left Port Ghalib. This is a
small section of the 18Km of desert coast line that the city
occupies. There is resort after resort, and coral reefs along
the entire coast. The beautiful building, which caught my
eye, is the administration and management offices of the
international marina.

Those of us who were diving solo were assigned a dive

buddy. Loucas and I were paired up. It turned out that, in
spite of not have done a lot of dives, he was an excellent
diver and very attentive as a dive buddy ,and most
important an “attention to detail “ guy.

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 I have tried to make this map readable. All of the dive sites are
shown and includes a map of the coastline for orientation of our
route

The first dive was at a dive site called Ras Torombi close to
where we were moored. Access was off of the boat and
essentially just to get a weight check and familiar with our
equipment. It is a shallow reef, which is my favourite kind of
dive site. That first dive, when not having been diving for a
while, with different equipment and in an unfamiliar
environment is always a bit (well, more than a bit) of anxiety.
It felt good, though to be back in the water! The visibility
was terrible but this was simply the intro dive to make sure

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our equipment was functioning properly. Then back for
lunch and a rest.

Our next dive which was a late afternoon, extending in to

the night dive at the same dive site. It had been a long time
since I did a night dive and I had forgotten how much I
enjoyed them. The visibility wasn’t great but it was still
wonderful. The water was calm and there was lots to see, in
spite of the lack of visibility..
We then headed out on very rough seas for our next anchor
site.

Then dinner, a beer and off to bed. With the beautifully

prepared food being served, I am going to have to do a
whole lot of diving to burn it off.

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 Chapter 4

“IT IS NOT THE DESTINATION WHERE YOU END UP

BUT THE MISHAPS AND MEMORIES YOU CREATE
ALONG THE WAY.” ~ PENELOPE RILEY

November 18, 2019

Wake up call today was at 5:30. This is apparently what time

we will be getting up for the rest of the week. Sunrise is at
about 6:00 so we were scheduled to be in the water at
about that time.

It was a very rough night, to the point that some of the folks
hardly slept. I did sleep but fitfully. I think that the crew was
up the entire night working to keep the boat safe.
Woke up to a spectacular view. The Brothers (El Ikhwa
Islands) is famous in diving circles. It consists of 2 pinnacles,
Little Brother and Big Brother.

There are two prominent features on Big Brother - a

lighthouse built by the British in 1883 and a military base.

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The Brothers were closed to liveaboards December 2018
until March 2019, following a series of non-fatal incidents
involving scuba divers and oceanic white tip sharks.
The closure was imposed to allow experts time to study
what had changed the sharks’ behaviour, and they
determined this to be the dumping of organic waste in the
sea, either through routine disposal or as a deliberate way
of attracting sharks. Oh, surprise!

It is not an easy dive, at least getting in the water was not

easy. From the boat, we had to, in very rough seas, climb in
to a zodiac which would then take us to the point where we
would enter the water. Four of us found our way in to the
first zodiac and cast off from the big boat. I am the only
diver who has to have all of their gear passed in to the
zodiac before I get in and then have the crew dress me
there. I really feel old.

A few minutes later we were called back to the boat. From

the way everyone on the boat was looking we all knew there
was an emergency. The second zodiac had been loading its
divers and Elmar caught his finger in a rope and pulled off
the end. Wahid, our dive master, did an excellent job of
getting it bandaged and getting him settled for the trip to
hospital. Of course the closest hospital (in Safaga) was
seven hours away by boat. Jacob and Therese, who both
had first aid training, took control along with Wahid. They
all did so well. My only contribution was checking his pulse
and heart rate a couple of times.
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However, other than being a bit shocky, everything
appeared to be in order. Someone had the presence of
mind to retrieve the bit off the end of his finger and put it in
ice. During the trip to hospital, on very rough seas, Jessie
decided this was too much for him, almost passed out and
had a bout of sea sickness.
The chef managed to serve breakfast but there were a few
missing from the table - a very sombre group. Not only that,
everything kept sliding off of the table. So far, I have
managed to only fall down once though. Fortunately, it was
in my cabin and my duvet had slipped on to the floor so it
was a very soft landing. Obviously, I have not gotten my sea
legs at all yet. I do hope that will come.
I had a lovely 2 hour nap during the trip to port and actually
slept soundly, considering the rocking and rolling.

After we saw Elmar and Justina safely on shore, we sailed

out a short way from the harbour for another late afternoon/
evening dive, but not before we had a group discussion on
our change of itinerary. We had lost a day of diving and
had to decide what to leave out of our scheduled dive sites.
We all voted to go back to Brothers, leave off Elphinstone
and Daedalus and carry on from there to the previously
scheduled itinerary. The decision was unanimous because
apparently, we would have experienced long sails in very
rough seas otherwise.

Our dive site for today’s dive, Middle Reef, was completely
calm because we were anchored still within the shelter of
the harbour. We were close enough to the reef that once
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again were able to access it directly from the boat. The reef
was quite shallow (about 15 meters) and the visibility
amazing - exactly my favourite kind of dive. In spite of the
excellent visibility, there weren’t a lot of critters to see, but
enough to make it a perfect dive.

Once we were on the boat again, we started our long trek

back to The Brothers. Again the sea was rough but not as
rough as the trip in to harbour. Once again, the chef
managed to serve us dinner. It was a challenge once again
keeping everything on the table and not launching the food
in to the air or onto another person from the buffet to the
table.

Once dinner was over, we all lurched up to the lounge for a

beer and to bed. I can see another pattern forming here - I
go to bed and everyone else stays up and chats.

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 Chapter 5

“LIVE WITH NO EXCUSES AND TRAVEL WITH

NO REGRETS” ~ OSCAR WILDE

November 19, 2019

We travelled overnight back to The Brothers and what a

smooth sail it turned out to be! No pitching, no rolling, and
a sound sleep.

Our 5:30 wake up call is now fixed in stone but with early to
bed it really isn’t that bad. Today we dove The Little Brother.

Little Brother Pinnacle

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The first dive at 6am was just okay. The sea was a bit rough
and there was a significant current. I had to spend much of
my time paying attention to the tech part of the dive which
left no time to enjoy the dive.

Here I will enter another addendum:

The rented dive equipment has turned out to be not at all
satisfactory. Virtually everyone who has rented gear will,
over the course of the trip have at least one issue with it. I
had the dive master fix my problem but, it continued
throughout the trip. And this is why taking one’s own gear is
worth the effort.

Breakfast was served almost right away. Soon after, we did

2 more dives that were stunning . The current was almost
nonexistent. I felt like I was floating. This is essentially a wall
of a multitude of species of soft coral, less hard coral and
many smaller fish but some bigger colourful ones as well.
This site is famous for the large variety of shark species in
pretty high numbers, including hammerheads. One showed
up, apparently, but not where I was looking! There were a
couple of other species but not super close. Our dive
master can identify all of them but white tips are the only
ones I recognize.
We had a late lunch as soon as we got back from the dive,
then rested; then back in the water for the final dive of the
day. Because we were at the same site, everything was
pretty much a repeat. I make that sound like a bad thing but
really, it was gorgeous.
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Back to the boat for a shower and then dinner. Before we
ate, the sharks entertained off of the back of the boat. By
that time it was dark and the lights on the boat attract fish
which in turn attract the sharks and some of them were
quite large. There seemed to be an awful lot of them but it
may have been the same ones coming back to visit multiple
times for all I know.

We are slowly decreasing in numbers for dinner and post-

dinner conversation. Mark wasn’t at dinner at all and Jessie
went to bed immediately. He has had a difficult week so far
with equipment malfunctions.

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 Chapter 6

“TO TRAVEL IS TO LIVE” ~ HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSON

November 20, 2019

Early morning again. I went to the dive briefing but
struggled with going diving or going back to bed. The latter
won and I was glad it did. I woke refreshed and ready for
the day.

This is Big Brother. It required a split photo.

Breakfast and then 2 dives. Today we dove Big Brother

where there are 2 wrecks, one large one nearest to the
surface and readily accessible and the second one which is
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very deep. The one we visited was broken into very large
bits and pieces. It was a Turkish commercial vessel that lost
its navigation and hit the reef. This was my first dive of the
day. The second was along the wall, as was the third dive.
Between the second and third we ate lunch and I had a nap.
Once again, the wall was beautiful corals and some
excellent fish, which I managed to chase and catch on
video. Overall, the fish have been very cooperative.
I realize that I haven’t commented on the weather during
the trip, I guess because it has been wonderful. Sunny and
warm but the wind can be a bit over the top.
We left The Brothers right after our last dive sailing for
Safaga. As I write this we have been going for about 5 hours
and should reach our mooring site within a couple of hours,
anticipating a quiet night. I am now finishing my evening
beer and am heading to bed.

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 Chapter 7

“The gladdest moment in human life is a departure into unknown

lands.” – Sir Richard Burton

November 21, 2019

This morning was a sleep late day - 6am. It appears that I

am a 3 dives a day diver and, as it turns out, I am not the
only one. So far, only Loucas has completed every dive.
Loucas is a very quiet fellow and a much better than
average diver.

Once again today I did not do the first dive which was to a
very solemn wreck dive that has a very sad story attached to
it. The wreck is the “Salem Express”. The Salem Express was
a Roll on/Roll off car and passenger ferry that operated
between the ports of Safaga and Jeddah (Saudi Arabia).
When she sank, she was returning with pilgrims from the
Hajj in Mecca with an unknown number of passengers. The

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official figure was 490 but it is estimated that as many as
1800 passengers were lost. Only 180 survived.

The impact with the reef holed the bows and forced open
the bow visor. The ship very quickly took on water and sank,
on her starboard side within minutes. After a period of
time, and recovery of many bodies, the ship was welded
closed and many bodies remain within.
The wreck is in good condition and coral covers much of
the ship. At the stern of the ship, divers can enter the large
car door. The wreck still contains cars and luggage.
The second dive, which I did do, was also to the wreck. We
were able to go into the cargo hold. It was quite a strange
experience. All of the suitcases and belongings were still in
the hold. There was a brightly coloured large piece of cloth
floating out from a suitcase. It appeared to be completely
intact and the colours appeared to have not faded much at
all. I do wonder if that had been placed there by a diver.
Bicycles and cars were still visible in the debris. There were
many other parts of the wreck that we could enter and it
was all very eerie, knowing that there were bodies still
inside.

There is a belief among mariners that a sailing vessel

should never be renamed because it is bad luck. Is it a
coincidence only that the Salem Express had been
renamed, and on more than one occasion? Not according
to our dive master.

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Lunch was early and then we travelled to our next dive site.
It was good but not the horizontal reef that I had hoped for,
which is my favourite type of dive.
We had another sail to our final dive site for the day - a later
night dive this time and then a late dinner.

This night dive was not as good as the last two but still
enjoyable. I had written earlier that Loucas had done every
dive but I now have to take that back - he missed this dive.
However, he did have a good excuse. On the last dive, he
deployed his SMD and it pulled him too close to the surface
for his safety stop. I think he was concerned about being
able to equalize if he dove too soon after that.

Chef had roasted a turkey and dressed it up with fruit and

fresh vegetables. It was cooked to perfection. There were
baked potatoes with a very rich sauce and the usual
amazing vegetables and salads. Dessert was a delicious
cake. We even had a free beer with dinner!

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It was late by the time we finished dinner so I was off to bed.
With all of this fresh air and diving I am really tired by the
end of the day. I expect I will sleep well.

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 Chapter 8

“The world is a book and those who do not travel

read only one page.” -Agustine of Hippo

November 22, 2019

Today was 5:30 wake up call again. As soon as I woke up, I

thought to myself that I would not be doing the first dive. I
decided to go for the briefing and then back to bed.
However, we started the day with sailing to the first dive site
which meant no briefing until we got there. Then, the longer
I was up the more I wanted to dive so I did it and was glad I
did. It was exactly my kind of dive - a horizontal reef, no
current, entry from the boat instead of a zodiac and very
fishy. It was like a fish nursery there were so many baby fish.
The last two dives are this afternoon. We have to comply
with the 24 hour no fly rule. Some are flying tomorrow night
at 6pm so our dives will work with that timing. My flight
isn’t until late next night.

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So lunch and then 2 more dives - another shallow dive
along a reef and then a wreck, just outside the Hurghada
port. Both were great dives, of course, but not the best of
the week.

We docked in Hurghada and the rest of the afternoon was

on our own. This is another large resort city so also very
touristy. It is where all of the liveaboards dock and there are
dozens, as well as many large yachts. This Mosque is the
most beautiful view in the harbour.

Mosque El Mina Masjid

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We don’t leave the boat until tomorrow afternoon at about
2. I will be transferred to my hotel and late the following
day, I will catch my flight.
Dinner was at 6:30 and then an evening of socializing and
drinking for everyone else but as always, I was earliest to
bed.
Unfortunately, the manager of the company sat with us at
dinner. He wanted to discuss Elmar’s accident and the
discussion became very heated. Therese was especially
fiery and rightly so. His description at one point was that
women should be seen and not heard. That was enough to
inflame both of the women at the table (Therese and me)
and I suspect all of the men but Therese is the most
outspoken about women’s rights. She left the table with a
few well said words to the manager. He was extremely
obnoxious all around, not just about women. Eventually, he
went to speak to her and things settled down somewhat but
I would say it left a bad taste in everyone’s mouth. But it
meant free wine and beer all round!

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 Chapter 9

“The goal is to die with memories not dreams”

November 23, 2019

Woke early before the 8am alarm. My cabin is very bright
once the sun is up so I got some lie-in thinking time which
was very nice. Breakfast was our last meal - no lunch today -
so I ate lots, of course.

We had photos taken but sadly several of the crew had

gone home. My two “top side dive buddies” weren’t there.
They were the guys who helped me with my dive
equipment just about every day. Their English was pretty
much not existent but their sense of humour came through
in spades!

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We all go our separate ways today.
We all spent the morning resting and waiting.. I have
become so accustomed to three big meals a day that I was
starving by 1:00! I went for a walk around the marina and
in to the closest part of town to find some lunch but all I
ended up with was an ice cream bar. My first walk on shore
was interesting. Obviously I had gotten my sea legs
because I felt like the drunken sailor. Interestingly, this
lasted for several days!

At 2:30 we were all chauffeured to our next destination. For

me this was the Solymar Ivory Suites. What a beautiful hotel
for $36.00U.S.! My suite had a full kitchen and would have
made a lovely small apartment. From what I could tell, the
hotel seemed to be practically empty.

I had dinner in the restaurant - seafood curry. It was a very

interesting meal. Soup and salad, French fries, rice, cooked
vegetables and seafood that didn’t seem to have any curry
at all. However the seafood itself was very odd but
delicious. There were large pieces of squid not breaded, a
portion of fish, and shrimp with all of the bits and pieces still
attached. The shrimp were, I think, overcooked but the
squid and fish delicious. Dessert was a large bowl of diced
fresh fruit in a light syrup.
Dinner was served late and I had 2 beer so I was ready for
bed.

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 Chapter 10

“No one realizes how beautiful it is to travel until he comes home and
rests his head on his old familiar pillow” -Lin Yutang

November 24-25, 2019

Checkout wasn’t until noon so I slept late. I forgot to

mention that the $36.00 U.S. included breakfast. It was
buffet, of course, and pretty basic but there was the cheese
I love, fresh fruit, fresh tomatoes and dried fruit but no fresh
dates. Now I will have to wait for my next trip to Egypt.

Once again, I spent my afternoon in the hotel lobby, this

time waiting for my 4:00 transfer to the Hurghada airport. I
had a 6 hour layover in Cairo, then overnight flight to
Toronto. I didn’t have too much time to wait for my flight to
Winnipeg and I was home! The Bombers had won the Grey
Cup the day before and by the time I arrived at the airport
at noon, the media were already gathering for the Bombers’
flight at 3pm. I made it out just in time!

33
 Reflections

What was unique about the Red Sea? For me, the vast
array of soft corals was spectacular. The fish and other
critters seemed to have no fear of humans. I was able to get
close up and personal with so many of them. The Red Sea is
connected to the Indian Ocean and is connected to the
Pacific Ocean. Many of the same species of fish are found
in Bali and in Hawaii and some are endemic to the Red Sea
only. Of course, in the short time that I was there I saw very
few of the endemic fish, if any. I will be sorting that out when
I go through my video clips. I have gone through the video a
little and am quite pleased with what I am seeing. In reflecting
back on diving in the Caribbean, I have seen fish there that I
have seen in the other distant places I have been diving. I
guess the oceans connect up more than I realize. How
profound!
The Egyptian government has taken on the role of
stewards of the Red Sea and fulfilling that role splendidly.
The coral is plentiful and there are lots of baby fish and the

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Red Sea does not appear to have been touched by global
warming - there was no sign of coral bleaching - yet!
The sunrises and sunsets were beautiful. Particularly the
sunsets because they seemed to last forever compared to
Hawaii.

I now know that, in spite of 300 dives in my dive logs, I

am not a very good diver. I just never felt good about my
buoyancy or coordination underwater. I was fighting with my
BCD that had a valve problem on every dive. Perhaps I will
change my mind when I dive in Hawaii this winter with my
own equipment.
I love Egypt. The people are, overall, very kind. They
recognize that tourism is a large part of their economy and
are anxious to please. Most of them do not speak more than
a few words of English but seem to always have another
person close by to help. It always makes me very
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uncomfortable when another tourist is rude and inconsiderate
to an Egyptian when they don’t speak excellent English.
As with our last trip to Egypt, I felt perfectly safe. Brian
and I already have plans to return in the fall of 2021 to see
the new museum, Alexandria and who knows what else.
I have been asked many times whether this was an
organized group tour or was I on my own? I arranged
everything myself. I did mess up a couple of details but
nothing that interfered with the pleasure of the trip. Would I
do it again? In a heartbeat!

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 About the Author

My husband, Brian Macri, and I have been diving for

almost 30 years. For the last few years, I have become a
“solo” diver. I now need lots of help from the crew, who are
more than eager to get me in and out of the water. They all
understand that as long as we are able we will always be
searching for that next rare fish.

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