Dahab, Egypt

It was nearly midnight by the time we reached Dahab. We checked into our hotel, exhausted from the plane trip and subsequent taxi ride that had brought us here. Though we were tired we felt the coastline calling to us, and figured a quiet cup of tea and a leisurely stroll would help us relax before bedtime.

Walking out towards the water I felt an immediate sense of relief. After two and a half weeks in the hot desert sun, it felt so good to be by the water again. The darkness of the night was punctured by the dim and colorful lights of the restaurants that lined the stone pedestrian pathway. A cool, relaxing breeze drifted in from the water and the mellow sounds of jazzy flutes lilted out from nearby speakers to massage the last remnants of stress and over stimulation from my brain.

Scrap everything I've said about Egypt when it comes to this place. Dahab is different. There are no ruins here, no great architectural masterpieces. The closest thing to a historical monument this area has is the mighty Mt. Sinai where Moses was given the Ten Commandments. And though there are some hucksters here trying to hustle you into their restaurant or souvenir shop, for the most part everyone in Dahab is too busy relaxing and enjoying life to be all that aggressive.

The tourism industry in this area has evolved around scuba diving, which is of course why we came here. Clear back when I took my first PADI Open Water course in Honduras my instructor Joel had entertained us all with his stories about the diving in the Red Sea. My exotic fantasy about Egypt combined with the beautiful undersea pictures he painted with his words made this a place I had to visit.

The most infamous dive site in Dahab is the Blue Hole, which has the dubious honor of having the most fatalities of any dive site in the world. This tunnel of water descends an astonishing 130 meters deep into the sea, and the endless blue that surrounds one when immersed in it makes it hard to get your bearings, much less know which way is up.

One look at the Wikipedia article on the Blue Hole is enough to scare anyone out of the water and onto the nearest patch of dry desert. But the truth of the matter is most of these fatalities are from Tech-Divers, a special breed of undersea adventurer who use mixed gasses to descend to levels that make most recreational divers shudder at the very thought.

For recreational divers, the Blue Hole is just an exit point from a long drift dive along a nearby reef shelf called El Bells. This dive, though rather deep, is slow and easy with a beautiful wall of coral which serves the double purpose of helping with orientation, and give you something interesting to look at while you're diving.

Other nearby sites include the fantastic Ras Abu Gulum, a much less busy area which is only reachable by an hour long camel ride from Dahab. Besides the wide expanse of the sea, the only thing out there are a few Bedouin tents and couple of squat toilets. An afternoon in Ras Abu Gulum is enough to make Dahab seem noisy and bustling. The diving is pristine at these sites, and though there are not as many fish, turtles, or other large sea creatures, the corals are among some of the most diverse and beautiful I've ever seen.

Dahab also allows easy access to the marine park of Ras Mohammed, where hammerhead sharks are often spotted, and the wreck of the SS Thistlegorm. Though I didn't get to see any sharks, I took the opportunity to make a once in a lifetime wreck dive.

The Thistlegorm is a WWII boat that lies 30 meters below the water's surface on a sandy bottom. It was discovered by undersea explorer Jacques Costeau in the 1950's, but he kept the location a secret and it was only re-discovered again recently in the mid 1990's. Since then it has become one of the Red Sea's most popular dive site due to the length of the ship and the diversity of it's intact cargo. Rotting away inside the enormous belly of it's hull are British BSA motorcycles, army jeeps, and dozens of rifles. I don't normally enjoy wreck dives all that much, as these kinds of sites are normally silty with poor visibility. But if one is an experienced enough diver, exploring the SS Thistlegorm is well worth the time and money.

As inevitably happens when we visit diving meccas, we stayed longer than we had anticipated. A full three weeks in fact. These three weeks represent the single longest amount of time we've spent in any single place on our entire journey. We probably would have stayed longer if we hadn't already overstayed our visas. Coming to Dahab saved Egypt from being a complete let down for us. And actually gave us a reason to want to come back.