Well, sod's law states that if you actually need to work and make up for lost time (too many weeks off over Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year), the dreaded lurgy will smite you down with a snotty cold. Hmmph. And, yes this happened to me last week. Not only was work a little thin on the ground, so I had been on standby (and then stood back down again) for a couple of days, when, I did get a day's work during the night, a sore throat built into sore nose, built into dreaded sinus blockage and cold. Boo... I was banished to land for a few days whilst the passages cleared.
But... finally, I was back in the water with a day's snorkelling... yay.
I actually had six guys to guide, and I must admit have not had such fun as a snorkel guide in quite some time. Every time my back was turned, all I could hear was giggling (and no, I didn't have my skirt stuck in my knickers or anything similar). They were a bunch of lads who all knew each other well, kind of didn't want to curb their bevvies at all, so hadn't wanted to learn to dive. They did later also admit to a slight fear of sharks, I didn't have the heart to tell them, that they would be better off under the water than on its surface as far as sharks go.
So... briefings done, wetsuits donned (at my suggestion as the water is a tad chilly, and with a bit of a howling wind, the wind chill was formidable), we all jumped in.
When I had asked whether anyone was a touch anxious, or had never snorkelled before, of course (being blokes) no one had owned up, well, in we jumped and within a couple of minutes, one of the chaps kind of ran on the surface back to the ladder! Seriously, I have never seen anyone swim so high out of the water, it was like he was wading through waist deep water, not fourteen metres! A combination of tight wetsuit, chilly water, the shock of jumping in and a load of water up the snorkel had slightly freaked him out for a minute. Of course his friends, it complete sympathy and support were completely doubled up laughing!!
I ignored them and made sure that my chap (now clinging to the ladder) was OK. Once settled down, breathing restored to normal, and mouth properly sealed around the snorkel, he was back in the water and getting himself used to it.
Off we swam to the reef, and a little pootle along by the reef wall.
Now this is where you are going to completely crack up at me, as I was in my drysuit... yes snorkel guiding in a drysuit. I know it sounds ridiculous, however the water is twenty two degrees, not bad I know... if you live in Siberia! The air temperature is around sixteen degrees at the moment (which is seriously cold for Sharm), but to top all of that, the aforementioned wind chill, was phenomenal. With twenty knot winds blasting down from the North, we were hunkered up on Fiddle Garden (the most sheltered of all the Garden dive sites), but even then, we weren't completely sheltered. I kept my hands firmly underwater for the whole snorkel, with the water feeling considerably warm n cosy compared with the air.
So, back to my drysuit. If you ever snorkel in a drysuit, believe me you need to add some serious weights. Even if you don't want to duck dive, just to keep your face in the water, you will need a few kilos. Now I was wearing six kilos and it was perfect. This allowed me to add a little air to my suit to prevent leakage (through a slight squeeze if the suit is entirely empty) and we were running on gas. It was fantastic. Barely a drip entered my suit, I was happily pottering along the reef with my snorkelers for an hour. Had I been wet, I would have been freezing after twenty minutes for sure.
Lunchtime saw the wind pick up even more, and we were soon joined by the Tiran boat that had bailed out. They hadn't even made it up to the Tiran Straits proper, so had dived on Ras Bob, then headed back South in search of shelter in the Gardens. Apparently some boats did actually try to get up there, which was quite a comedy moment watching them lurching, rocking and rolling in the swell determined to make it up there. Sometimes, it is not worth it... if you have a boat full of green guests, who is going to want to go diving in the end anyway.
So, for our second snorkel, we headed to Far Garden, but made sure that we stayed on the South side of the Reef, not venturing even too close to the corner, so that we didn't get slapped about by the chop. Again, every time my back was turned, more chuckles and guffaws of laughter erupted behind me, usually at each others' expense... someone had taken water into their snorkel, another's mask had flooded. Forget the fish, these guys were having far too much fun laughing at each other.
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