Day 11: Dahab Snorkel Trip

We got an early start on the morning for a day long snorkel trip. We met our guide at 7am and drove out to the famous dive and snorkel site, the Blue Hole. Our guide was a young Egyptian guy from Alexandria. He was nice and enthusiastic – it was obvious he loved Dahab and his job – although he was a little too touchy, grabby for my liking as he tried to guide us in the water.

The Blue Hole was AMAZING (trust me, although it has been quite a common adjective in this blog, I try to reserve that word for the best of the best sites we see). If you can imagine a 300+ ft. deep circular swimming pool with walls of coral and big schools of brightly colored fish, that is the Blue Hole. We entered the water outside the Blue Hole at a little canyon in the coral where the water is over 600 ft. deep. We set out swimming along the outer edge of the Blue Hole’s circular coral wall and returned along the inner edge. The sun is so bright and the water is so clear, visibility is perfect! From the top of the water, we looked down at the beautiful and endless deep blue water. The water never got dark. It was infinitely blue. Fish floated beneath us. I felt like I was in an aquarium. Zebra fish swam right up to our masks and looked us in the eye as if to say, “Hi!” Big schools of little orange fish swam below us and big schools of tiny silver fish at the surface of the water reflected the sun so that it looked like we were swimming through a collection of sparkling silver jewelry. We saw big and brightly colored fish too! I loved the cobalt blue fish with yellow fins and the light blue fish with yellow and white stripes and the green and purple scaled fish. I even loved the ugly tan colored fish with brown speckled spots and bulbous eyes!
A view of the "Blue Hole."
Us standing in front of the Blue Hole after snorkeling.

After the Blue Hole we left for our next stop – the reefs in a nature preserve off the coast of a Bedouin village, reachable from Dahab only by camel. We saddled up the camels with all of our snorkel equipment, in addition to food and supplies from Dahab for the Bedouin. We had a little trouble getting past the police officer guarding the path to our destination, and during an argument between our guide and the police officer, I was loaded on to a camel who took off down the path! I wasn’t quite sure how to use the rope attached to his head so I just pulled and we spun in circles until our guide had finally resolved his issues with the police officer.

It was an hour to the Bedouin village. Our camels walked over the rocky narrow path while waves crashed onto the shore a few feet to our right and mountains loomed over us a few feet to our left. It was a beautiful ride.
A view of the path.
Paul on his slow, stubborn, and grumpy camel.
Paul and our guides on camels in the Bedouin village.

When we entered the Bedouin village, all of the Bedouin children were naked and jumping and diving and back-flipping off the rocks into the water. The Bedouin women swarmed us with jewelry and cotton head scarves, and after politely refusing several times, we were finally ready to get back in the water.
A view of the Bedouin village from the path.

Again, it was AMAZING. I had never been one to admire coral, but I loved it! I don’t know whether I suddenly acquired an appreciation for coral or it was particularly beautiful here. There were purples and blues and yellows and whites in the shape of fans and flowers. And it was everywhere. I barely saw sandy ocean floor. And the variety of big and small fish was overwhelming. One of the highlights was seeing a family of pipe fish (related to barracuda, according to our guide) swimming with us. Another highlight was the large clam with bright blue lips opening and closing on the ocean floor.
Me in front of the snorkel site.

After our snorkel, we had traditional Bedouin tea and a traditional Bedouin lunch of chicken, rice, potatoes with onions, and a salad of tomatoes and cucumbers. We ate lunch and relaxed under the shade of Bedouin tent (more like a straw shack). The Bedouin village was different from our Bedouin camp in Wadi Rum – straw shacks rather than real tents, no electricity, and a toilet that was nothing more than a hole in the ground with makeshift wooden walls for privacy. After lunch and a nap in the tent, we headed out for one last snorkel I was impressed that our second snorkel in the nature preserve was so different from and just as exciting as our first!
The "tent."
Our lunch and nap spot.


In the late afternoon, we reloaded the camels and headed back for our hotel. I knew I was sunburned after that third snorkel, despite reapplying sunscreen four times throughout the day. The extent of the burn hit me hard on the way back. And the worst of it was at the edges of my bum and the backs of my legs. Let me tell you, riding a camel with a sunburned behind is PAINFUL. Every muscle in my back was working to lessen the impact of the camel’s bouncy walk and the rubbing of the rough saddle blankets on the backs of my legs. On the back my face got hot and my mind was spinning in circles and my whole body ached. The camel ride back felt twice as long as the ride to the reef. Finally, we arrived back at the Blue Hole and hopped into the back of the rickety old Jeep that had driven us from the hotel in the morning. Between the bumpiness of the Jeep ride and the overwhelming smell of diesel, I thought I would never make it back to the hotel. I tried my best to stay strong, but eventually I had to ask the Jeep to pull over. I must have been suffering from severe dehydration in addition to my burn – I was so sick! I rode the rest of the way back in the front seat, stopping just once to get sick again. I must have done something to get on Ra’s bad side! (I think Ra is the Egyptian god of the sun…)

Paul was a great caretaker back at the hotel. I laid in bed like a mummy slathered in aloe, moving just to sip water and take a few Tylenol PMs. The next morning I felt great (except for the minor inconvenience of pain when sitting down, walking, or generally moving my legs at all…great, comparatively speaking, that is).