I had three people who seemed pretty confident, one lady who really doesn't swim, but was up for giving it a go and another who had just dropped out of her Open Water course, so was also a tad nervous but wanting to see what it was all about. Challenging times potentially, but all seemed very friendly, happy people and the corals up in Tiran really are spectacular, so as long as the weather gods are on our side, we were onto a winner.
The wind this morning was actually howling in, however unusually it was coming in from the West (bad for diving in parts of Ras Mohammed and some local sites... but thankfully not too bad for Tiran at all). We had woken up to see our palm trees bent over in the wind, something we don't often see at home, as the prevailing wind tends to come from the North, from which we are very much sheltered. The cat was going nuts, freaking out at the fact that everything was moving! She didn't know what to chase and what to jump at.
Anyway, once at work and on the boat, all seemed cool and we were off up the gulf of Aquaba towards the straits of Tiran. Whilst it wasn't flat flat, it wasn't ridiculously lumpy either, so we were in for a good day. Check out the sat nav of us below:
Our first stop was to be Gordon Reef. Here the divers dropped in ahead of us, and we took the gentle route. Getting in armed with my floating ring, I took my newbies through their snorkel baby steps. Three were as I had expected, quite fish-like, so I had no need to worry about them at all, however two needed a little more TLC. The dive school drop out, had a few mask issues, but was dealing with it, so I focused on the non swimmer. Armed with a life jacket, there was no way in the world she was going to sink, however it is all very well knowing that, but when you are not comfortable in the water, it is a completely different ball game. She did really well, sealing her mouth around the snorkel properly, however every time she put her face in the water, she hated it. Well not everyone loves the water... so after a few good attempts, she chose to head back to the boat and a spot of sunbathing whilst I took the rest of our group a little further along the reef.
In all honesty the sea was not quite as crystal clear as usual due to the Westerly wind stirring things up a little, but this didn't deter my little fish, they were loving it, duck diving down to get a closer look. Finding that my other nervous lady was still struggling with her mask, I swapped with her and found that it was indeed sporting a little leak. As I swam along a tiny trickle would head in from the left side, possibly due to the positioning of the snorkel I am not sure. Anyway, for me it was fine, but I could imagine as a novice, it could be a little off-putting so kept her mask for the rest of the snorkel.
Quite early on we saw a very large napoleon wrasse, so that was a good start to the day. We even found Nemo a little further along the way, which was greeted with whoops of joy by the whole team. Gordon Reef was a great choice for the first snorkel too with its lovely big, shallow, sandy plateau adorned with corals, there was no scary drop off nor anything too challenging for my four snorkelers.
Forty five minutes later and we were back on the boat warming up in the sunshine. Once the final couple of divers were back too, we headed up to one of my favourite dive sites Jackson Reef.
There was a bit of a random swell coming in from the South meaning that no one could actually moor up on the fixed moorings as usual. They are attached to the top of the reef to ensure minimal damage (anchors and tying to the reef itself is thankfully illegal), but they rely on the prevailing Northerly winds to keep the boats from landing on the reef. With a slight southerly going on, this system would not have worked, so we hung around out in the blue for a while, as I chatted about the next snorkel we would be doing. Bizarrely though, with a small swell from the South, for some reason, there still seemed to be plenty of choppy, wavy stuff hitting the reef from the North... weird.
We were dropped right on Jackson Garden itself, which is a glorious mess of corals snuggled together on a sandy plateau. Unlike Gordon though, here you could hardly see the sand for the reef. There is a forest of fire coral where sometimes a turtle or two can be found, however sadly not today. I ventured out as far as I dared, however with surface currents usually running a little faster than underwater, I had to be very careful not to take the group too far, to a point where we could get pulled around to the rough side of the reef. So, just after checking out the gang of grumpy grey Big Eyed Emperor fish, we turned around and headed around the Southerly part of the reef. Here the reef drops away in a wall which is completely breathtaking. However it can also be a little daunting as novices realise just how deep the sea is here.
As we swam out from one of the sandy inlets, we had a proper "Finding Nemo" moment as we swam over the sand to find the drop off plunging away beneath us. Hordes of fiery orange anthias swam fiercely into the current showing me that we would have a nice little drift towards the other garden, as dense shoals of fusiliers shot past us out in the blue being chased by a quartet of blue fin trevallie... the bully boys of the reef. We even saw a very large tuna hanging out in the blue beyond, very cool indeed.
What a great snorkel. My floaters were all totally chuffed with this, the diver drop out had restored her confidence in water and vowed to do some more snorkelling before maybe trying the SCUBA again, and my three little fish were just buzzing with excitement.
Hmmm not bad for a day's work.
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