Yes, we are well and truly in the grips of a chilly, windy spot of weather here in Sharm. I know I keep going on about it, but it really feels so cold. It doesn't help that all our houses are designed to keep the heat out, and the only heating we do have is airconditioning, which isn't really very effective. It also doesn't help when the new airconditioning unit in your lounge doesn't actually do heat either!!! Hmmm that wasn't the best news to discover when things started turning cooler.
Anyway, less of the "hard life" story, I know it is still fabulously sunny, and whilst we have little whispy streaks of cloud being blown across the sky, it is still very much a pure blue sky, so I shall hush my mouth.
Today I was on the guiding schedule, however due to Sharm being extremely quiet, some of the dive centres have been gathering together to share boats. And even then, the boats have still been very quiet. There are quite a few of the main centres that generally work to very similar standards, so joining with them has not really changed our proceedures at all, although the schedules may vary from one centre to another.
For our local day, I was sharing a boat with some Colona guides, most of whom I already knew from T2 anyway, so it was really quite a fun day. I only had a couple of people to guide, so we were in for a most chilled out of days indeed. I was even more happy, when I read the crew list and realised that one of the guests was a regular diver with us... it would be like fun diving with a couple of mates. Excellent.
A gentle mooring dive was up first, so we tied on at Temple and hopped in for a dive. And right from the start things were looking good. We spotted a little peppered moray eel, there was quite a nice little hint of current, so all the other fish were out in force, swimming into the flow. The pinnacles were surrounded with huge gatherings of fusiliers. To cap off the whole dive, we saw the biggest, fattest barracuda I have ever seen. Fellow guide Kerry had pointed it out, and I admit to initially thinking it was a very large tuna to start with. However as we came side on to it, I could see that it was sporting a very barracuda like mouth full of nasty spiky teeth sticking out at all angles... most definitely a barracuda... just a very big one indeed. At the end of the dive, we also came across a giant moray teamed up with a napoleon wrasse snuggled in between the two main pinnacles. It was here we did our safety stop, enjoying the splattering of colours here in the sunshine and shallows.
That was us done for the morning, so we headed around the corner to Ras Katy where we settled down for a very tasty lunch cooked on board.
Our second dive was a semi drift, from our mooring on Ras Katy back towards Temple. The visibility was a little shady, but that didn't matter as the giant barracuda turned up again. It had to be the same one, as it had the same three dark spots on its left side, barely any stripes, and was exactly the same size. Very cool.
Feeling really quite chilly by the end of the second dive, I decided that the time had come to wear my hood... tomorrow we are booked in for Tiran, so I will certainly be needing that extra bit of neoprene. The air temperature is struggling to reach twenty degrees at the moment, which just feels so cold as you get out of the water. Throw in that pesky wind, and it is a recipe for the chills.
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