Dive like an Egyptian (part 2)

Second dive of the holiday, today to Marsa Mubarak, a site that needed a 15 minute trip by mini-bus to the port at Al Ghrahib. From there a hard boat (with a RIB in tow) guided us out twenty minutes into the Red Sea and curled along the coast to the south and the reef. The boat was double decked - the upper deck strewn with comfortable cushions - and we took our shoes off as we boarded.

I was buddied with Barbara from Germany today, our compliment of 8 divers split into 2 groups of four: David, Stephen, Barbara and me led by our wonderful Karim. The dive site itself was cluttered with pillars of coral and decorated with beautiful fronds of fire coral; one, at about 15 metres, was swarming with tiny orange and silver fishes all the way up its height and into the sun above like a still from a big screen film. A great highlight of today was seeing a huge sea turtle, swimming fast high above our heads, and an enormous Lion Fish hovering over the reef oblivious to the fact it just looks impossibly constructed - like a cartoon come to life.

From a 'diving practice' point of view, today's dive - my 7th open water dive so far - was both good and bad. Good, in that I managed the 20 metre (well, 20.4m to be exact) depth that is the maximum allowed with my BSAC Ocean Diver qualification card, and that the dive was 50 minutes long and quite a distance too. Bad, in that once again I needed to share Karim's tank via his octopus (alternative air source) for a short while to get me back safely, even though this time I'd taken the precaution of requesting a 15 litre tank. I'm still clearly using too much air - this will get better with experience I know, but for now perhaps I need to stick to shorter, quicker dives. Or just breathe less.