There are many lessons to learn for your life. Especially when spending the holiday with random people. Note to self then: “Never, I repeat, never party with Germans again!” At least for this very day :-). Monday evening started as usual in Funny Mummy with dinner, beer and shisha (in that order). And just because one bottle of Egyptian Rumo (the 30 % one) costs the same as a bottle of beer with same amount of liquid but definitely lower on alcohol, it’s still the best choice (for a budget drinking). This time I decided the level of Bacardi inside bottle of my own is awfully high and shared my wealth. English girls came during early evening with two German-speaking guys (well one is from Switzerland and one of the girls is definitely Scottish and they are extremely easy to get offended if you mess it) and soon parts of the night got blurred. Local liqueur shop (# 1) is close, Rumo Masr easy to obtain and we call those refilling trips a “Rum Run” (it sounds really cool). During one rum run we were coming back with the refill and suddenly… Just hard to believe your own eyes… a huge camel in middle of the street getting his/hers dinner from a big trash-can. 
Now that clearly is not an every day experience! Especially when drunk :-) The camel was really pissed off and scared same time. And you just don’t wanna mess with 4-legged animal which standing on all four is still much higher then you (not speaking with its weight) and the drunk part does not helping at all. BUT… we had lot of fun chasing a camel through Dahab’s main street and taking some pictures.
I really can’t tell what we decided to do after midnight but because we left downtown, I think the general idea was to visit some of many clubs in Dahab. Nevertheless ended up in a house rented by those German guys. 
There’s both, a bright and a not so bright (or even dark) side of the fact there’s a time-stamp attached to every picture taken by a digital camera. So it helped me next day with a time I came back to BishBishi. And, hell, it was 5 am!
Anyways… way before that I woke up. Half past 11 :-) With a really bad hangover and after much less sleep than I usually need. The feeling actually helped me with the idea that I want to get into water finally today.
Tuesday then:
Tuesday started long before that with the camel chasing experience. But the original plan was some snorkeling so let’s do it.
Snorkeling is only way I know to actually experience the feeling of flying without taking a free fall at the same time :-) Except the awesome view on a very different kind of landscape if you know some nice and good reefs, the flying itself already is worth doing it. And on my Why-to-Visit-Dahab-Over-and-Over Chart snorkeling has second position.
There are quite a few diving/snorkeling spots worth visiting both north and south from Dahab City and some of them even right at it. You can borrow a snorkeling set almost anywhere throughout Dahab if you happen not to have one of your own, in BishBishi now there’s a serf-yourself rack with a sign saying “10LE” so I spared me the trouble of bargaining with someone about that.
Personally my favourite side is The Islands. Only 1,5 km walk along the shore from BishBishi and reef itself is really multicolored with lot of life around. I visited it all my 3 times in Egypt (that is 2006 at the very start of April, 2008 like mid-may and now just before the Xmas) and it was different each time.
First time I was just stunned by the view. I mean… everything looks awesome on TV so your general expectation is it’s not so awesome in reality. This was. Looking back on it with a perspective now, there wasn’t that many fish on the reef that time but we managed to see almost all the “must-to-see” ones. It is like if you’re on a safari trip in Africa and you wanna see all the Africa’s Big Seven. There are all those famous species all people know from “Finding Nemo” movie, of course a Lion Fish, Eel, Parrot Fish, Blowfish etc. (try to avoid sharks if possible).
Second time I visited both The Islands and The Lighthouse sides. Lighthouse was really overcrowded because of season already kicking off (and many local children were playing there) so I stack to Islands again. Not such a blow anymore and all the experience was spiced by huge number of plastic bags flowing all around me. First of all when touched by those it’s hart to make a difference between a plastic bag and a jellyfish which might freak you out a bit over and over again… and last but not least… it’s nothing pleasant about swimming covered by plastic bags, not to mentioning them getting into your view.
I think considering the number of fish I saw (not taking their biodiversity in account) this time is way the best visit. On a second thought, it might be even the highest number of species seen for me, I’m just keep missing those famous ones. After a long search I saw a Lionfish (at the very same spot as in 2006) but no hope for Nemo (Clownfish) or Blowfish (which is a pity).
Anyway… it is not the last day here for me and I still might get myself cheered up with another Rum Run this evening.
Then there is the weird tide-thing. I mean… I know the theory, right? I’m an astronomer too.
Here you go: Tides are the rise and fall of sea levels caused by the combined effects of the gravitational forces exerted by the Moon and the Sun and the rotation of the Earth. Most coastal areas experience two high and two low tides per day. The gravitational effect of the Moon on the surface of the Earth is the same when it is directly overhead as when it is directly underfoot. There’s more to find in any pedia but this enough for theory. The thing in Dahab is high tide just does not listen to Moon at all! The was a total Moon’s eclipse on 21st early morning (unfortunately too late to be seen from here), which means full moon and which also means for Moon to be on his highest point sometime around midnight. One would thing the high tide would just listen to Moon and to happen both around midnight and next noon. Totally NOT!
Why would I even bother myself with all those tides? The thing is I think it’s much better to go snorkel during high tide rather than the low one. Much of the reefs here are pretty much shallow and you can barely swim upon them during low tide. First thing I’m trying to find out is when the hell the high tide is happening just by checking out the shore few times during my first day here. Apparently the tide is working quite the opposite way around here. My best guess these days for the high one is like at 6 give or take. Totally wrong! Well considering the Moon’s position in the sky. More theory: we are quite deep inside the thin Gulf of Aqaba between Sinai Peninsula and Saudi Arabia so it just might take a while for all the water to flow in and out each time from the Red See. You can completely forget the Moon in that case and you’re stuck with pure observation again :-) No tide will just listen your needs!
Next part: Finding Nemo
You can refer to more pictures we took around Dahab in 2006 here
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