ScubaBrucie

3 Days day diving with Emperor. (OK, good guide-Brian)
3 Days liveaboard with Tempest (absolutely excellent). For a total of 18 dives. Met very nice people on both bits of the holiday (I was on my own).
The new Water Proof 5mm wetsuit was really good, the best 5mm I have ever used so I was nice and warm. Also the new fin springs worked well as did the new neoprene/velcro mask strap.
Water temperature was 25 ish on the Sharm side and 22 to 24 ish on the Gulf of Suez side so I wore a hood throughout. Did most of the usual reefs and wrecks which were much quieter with the time of year but still very busy.
It was (IIRC)my 13th Red Sea dive trip so not a lot was new. Saw mating Spanish Dancers at Ras Katy on a night dive which was a bit of a winner.
Emperor’s tech people were very busy teaching Yellow Box Of Death courses. All the students seemed to be 50ish, overweight, balding men (like me, except for the balding bit). Obviously the people who can afford this technology and who need the latest toy to boast about at the golf club.
Sharm is becoming to the Russians what Benidorm was to us Brits in the 60s. Somewhere warm and cheap to holiday. Their numbers can only increase. At the moment they mainly snorkel and they stand on the reef a lot. Only a small number SCUBA dive and they seem to be not very good at it. It’s not a part of their culture yet. One interesting thing is that about 3 Russian girls seem to come to Sharm on holiday for every Russian bloke so there is a lot of stunning spare totty floating around.
Development continues apace with continuous hotels up the coast and building spreading out towards the mountains. It is pretty inevitable that sooner or later they go high rise in the key areas like Naama Bay. It is really nice that the Egyptians have made all shark fishing illegal. My current eco scourge on this trip was the insulating tape operators use to signify a full cylinder, it doesn’t bio degrade and every dive site is littered with it. Once again you wonder about the brain power of the people who are throwing these in the water. If it is divers they are destroying what they come to see. If it is the boat crews they are risking their livelihoods. Why can’t they just use rubber caps over the valves of full cylinders, that way there is nothing to throw away?
When President Mubarak comes to play golf he flies down from Cairo in his personal 747. They close all the roads he uses to everyone else and they close the divesites for a few miles around him. Egypt must be a rich country to afford that.