scuba diving in egypt

we arrived in egypt about a week ago. we flew into cairo, met jenny (yay!), and stayed in cairo for one night before we hopped on a bus and headed to hurgadah, where annette and i signed up for scuba diving classes. hurgadah is a town along the red sea where there is supposed to be some of the best diving in egypt. a couple of months ago annette and i decided to get scuba certified in egypt so we would have a chance to scuba dive in some other places that we were going, like australia and south africa. the class we signed up for was a 4 day open water course that would allow us to dive down to 18 meters.

the first day we had to watch a few dvds and learn the theory before going into a closed session, which basically meant that we were going to dive in shallow water close to shore before being thrown out into the treacherous open water. the theory was pretty interesting, but they teach you a lot of worst-case scenarios, like what to do if you are out of air, which is not really what you want to hear before you go into the water. but i guess that it is best to be prepared for the worst.

when it was finally time to go into the closed sessions, i was excited and felt ready, but a little of that excitement was dampened after having to put on a wet suit. i really, really, really hate wet suits. this was the first time that i had worn one and it felt like i was toothpaste being squeezed back into its bottle. not the most pleasant feeling. after stuffing myself into the wet suit, it was time to learn how to put the equipment together and check it, which is not very hard, but you have to be very thorough to avoid any potential underwater disasters. then it was time to go underwater and practice the exercises.

annette and me getting the scuba equipment ready.



my frustration at not being able to get my water shoes on

just getting out of the water...now it is time to put away and rinse all the equipment, which includes the weight belt




it is quite an unreal feeling releasing the air from the bcd (basically the vest that the oxygen tank is attached to) and sinking underwater without having to hold your breath. you breathe through the regulator and it feels like you might not be able to catch your breath, but you do and it begins to feel quite natural. while we were underwater we had to do a few exercises, like take the regulator out of our mouth and replace it, as well as flood and clear the mask. the mask clearing was hard for me because for some reason once there was water in my mask, i just couldn't blow out of my nose and lift my head up to release the water. each time i did, i would lift the mask off my face and flood the mask even more. i had to keep coming up to the surface to ask questions about it, but finally i kind of got it and was able to clear at least some of the water out of my mask.

another one of the exercises that i couldn't do was swimming in flippers so one night annette showed me how to kick my legs with flippers (sadly, it continued to be a struggle for me)


after 2 days of theory and doing the closed water exercises, we were able to go out on the boat and into the open water. this was definitely my favorite part. even though we had to do some exercises, we mostly got to dive and see all the underwater attractions. i had a hard time at first maintaining neutral buoyancy, so kept rising to the top without meaning to, but eventually i was able to hover a little and actually pay attention to the underwater world around me. the water in the red sea was startlingly blue and clear and we were in an area that had some of the most colorful coral reefs and fish. we say a monstrous sting ray, barracuda fish, brain coral, lion fish, puffer fish, needlefish, moray eels, just to name a few.


annette, me, and our diving instructor hilde after completing our 4th open water dive and becoming PADI certified


getting ready to go under the red sea

my 1st jump off our boat, named pegasus, into the open water...definitely not the model of grace, but at least i made it in

after the 4 days we both got our padi certification and that was quite a feeling of accomplishment because you feel as if you have really worked for it. whenever you watch somene scuba dive on tv it looks so easy and natural, but it really is a lot of work and quite exhausting. annette went on another dive our 5th day here in hurgadah, but i chose to sleep in. i just needed the break. but i look forward to all the diving that awaits us elsewhere.