Red Sea Holiday
As the Gulfs of the Suez and Aqabo join onto the main body of the Red Sea, there lies the town of Hurghada, Egypt.
Establishing itself as a diving resort many a hotel complex’s have been built, to which the Giftun Beach Resort is one.
Its location right on the beach, is ideally suited for the diving centre of James and Mac to whom took us with open arms
around some of the breathtaking sites around Hurghada.
The week started on the Thursday as we, 12 of us, journeyed up to Horley, near Gatwick. This was to get a bed and
breakfast, so as the 07:00 start to check in, on the Friday and subsequent 5hr flight would not be so daunting. The
flight took us over the Alps and the west coast of Greece and then onto the spectacular view of the Nile around Luxor
before touching down at Hurghada International Airport. A short 5 min. journey to the hotel was an eye opener, with a
lot of new buildings being built and only bamboo sticks as scaffolding around them.The Saturday bought us together with our guides for the week Anna and Jonny. With the paper work taken care of, we were taken to our dive boat the Abu Salama and the crew of four. Our first dive site was Shaab Quais. Shaab is Egyptian for island. There we established a check dive by performing mask clearing and alternative air source exercises. As we were with eleven divers we were split into two groups of five and six. We had ten divers from Tiverton and one from London. David joined us as a close family friend at the last minute.
The dive showed many a different kind of fish including blue spotted ray, moray eel and coral life. After a light lunch
provide by the crew we went to the second site Giftun Ham Ham.Here we saw turtles, parrot fish, cornite fish to name but a few. The spectacle of the day was to see dolphin at the beginning of each dive. The following day took us to El Fanadir Foc and Shaab Pinky. Here we saw scorpion fish, crocodile fish, moray eel, cornite fish, wart slug, puffer fish and another blue spotted ray playing hide and seek with us. All this and a lot of pretty coral and fish life.
With the winds scuppering our chances of heading north to The SS Thistlegorm, we went to the wreck of the El minja. Located half a mile off the harbour of Hurghada this minesweeping vessel was sunk in 1971 after the Six Day War between Egypt and Israel.
Some 190x27.6x9ft in dimension she lies in nearly 30m of water. One or two fish life were found including a lion fish on a mine. Our second or third dive of the day took us to the reef of Shaab Abu Pam diving to the east side of the island then on another wreck the Balina. The reef was a delight to swim around seeing many coral and fish life. With Wednesday the last day of diving taking pictures of sea life including some fish that could spell. In the evening we had booked a table with the dive guides and had a whale of a time eating and drinking. On the menu were various delights such as salads, soups, steaks, camel, ostrich etc. Most of us tried the camel in one dish or another. None of us got the hump over it!!
On the Thursday after thanking the guides and the dive centre for a wonderful week we went to the dessert to drive on quad bikes. We drove approx. six or seven miles along the Arabic Dessert to the foothills of the mountains. One or two opted for an air con 4x4 in which the air con was an open window and the ride the bumpiest they had ever endured! Once at the foothills we were watered and told of how the tribe came to be at the foothills. We were shown around to where a flock of camels were (Yes a flock I looked it up!) here we rode the camels around a mound. On our return quad ride we watched the sun setting in the mountains.
By the time Friday came none of us wanted to go we had enjoyed every minute of the week so much.