September 2005
Hurghada, Egypt
From 17 to 24 September we went to Hurghada in Egypt to dive. We made two dives a day for five days with Colona Divers and saw giant morays, a sea turtle, stingrays and millions of colorful reef fish and corals.
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1/30 On Sunday we arrived in Hurghada and took a walk into town. This is our hotel, Les Rois, in the background.
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2/30 There is a lot of construction going on in Hurghada. In fact there seemed to be more unfinished hotels, resorts and apartment buildings than finished ones.
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3/30 On Monday, 19 September we made our first two dives with Colona Divers. These were our first dives since completing our PADI Open Water Diver certification in July. The first dive was at Gotha Abu Ramada East, also known as "The Aquarium". The second dive was at El Aruk "Gigi", where this photo of two Red Sea Bannerfish was taken.
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4/30 This picture of two Masked Butterflyfish was also taken on the second dive on 19 September. It was on this dive that Amy first used her underwater camera, a Canon A70 in the Canon WP-DC700 housing.
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5/30 Our guide, Yvonne, took this picture of us midway through the second dive at El Aruk "Gigi".
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6/30 This picture of a group of Lyretail Anthias was also taken at El Aruk "Gigi". Anthias are abundant in the Red Sea.
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7/30 More Anthias at El Aruk "Gigi", swimming around one of the 11 coral pinnacles found at the site.
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8/30 On the way back to the dive shop, we spotted a pod of about six dolphins swimming around our boat, the Queen Samira.
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9/30 After our first day of diving we had a look at the pool on the roof of our hotel. From here we had a view over the surrounding area, which was not very exciting. The Les Rois hotel is located between New Hurghada (resorts and nightclubs) and Sekala (older part of town), which is about a 15 minute walk in the direction shown in this picture.
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10/30 On Tuesday, 20 September our first dive was at El Desha. Here's Amy just after entering the water, before descent.
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11/30 And here's Amy a few minutes later, at depth.
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12/30 Already Arthur was feeling at home in the water...
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13/30 Here are some Lunar Fusiliers swimming in the coral garden of El Desha.
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14/30 Also at El Desha, Anthias and Chocolate-Dip Chromis swim above a large coral outcrop.
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15/30 Although sometimes there were up to 10 dive boats moored at a site, it rarely felt crowded underwater. Here another group of divers approaches.
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16/30 The second dive on 20 September was at El Helous. Here, if you look very closely, you can see a small starfish in the middle of the coral.
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17/30 Notice the Spanish Dancer in the upper right quadrant of this photo. The delicate movements of this nudibranch are reminiscent of a flamenco dancer.
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18/30 Roger helped us bring our gear from the dive shop to the boats every day.
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19/30 On Wednesday 21 September our first dive was at South Point. Here Amy gets ready to enter the water.
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20/30 We saw this group of Black-Spotted Grunts shortly after descending.
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21/30 Here are other dive boats moored by South Point shortly after lunchtime. We did not bring the camera on the second dive of the day, which was a drift dive made at Gotha Abu Ramada West.
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22/30 On 22 September we visited Abu Hashish and Malag El Disha. On the second dive we saw a sea turtle. Unfortunately Amy was playing with the camera settings and none of the photos from these two dives came out. Here is the daily boat schedule for Friday, 23 September.
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23/30 The first dive on 23 September was at Fanadir North. Here a friendly Scissortail Sergeant boldly swims by the camera. In the background you can see our guide for this dive, Waldek.
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24/30 On most of our dives we were lucky to see at least one Blue-Spotted Stingray, like this one at Fanadir North.
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25/30 Also at Fanadir North, we saw this White-Spotted Pufferfish. We also saw many Masked Pufferfish during our dives in Hurghada.
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26/30 Here are Anthias and a Damselfish (?) by some coral at Fanadir North.
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27/30 More Anthias at Fanaidr North.
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28/30 The second dive on 23 September was at Fanous East, where we began the dive by swimming over a coral garden. In this picture a Red Sea Anemonefish patrols her home.
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29/30 As we swam back to the boat, we were followed by this school of Blue-Spine Unicornfish.
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30/30 On Saturday 24 September we had a few hours to shop in the morning before our flight. We took a cab to El Dahar, which is the very old part of town. We saw this poster of Egyptian President Mubarek in a square in the old town.
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