Taba-Dahab Liveaboard, October 2009

Taba-Dahab Liveaboard, October 2009

(a short summary from Hebrew)

After about four years of not diving in Sinai, a three days liveaboard was an excellent way to visit some familiar dive sites and some new ones along the shore of north Sinai from Taba to Dahab. A relaxing long weekend with nice weather and warm water (27°), even at the end of October. I'd like to thank Dany Weinberg and WP's Digital SLRs/Housings forum members for helping me with my new uw photo gear (Ikelite's 8" dome port & port body with D80 housing)

Near the Canyon, Dahab

Logbook
The north Sinai area offers some easy diving sites with varied topographic scenery, some sites still have healthy reefs and some already showing signs of over diving activity. We've started out trip with a check dive in uncharted dive site where we spotted three turtles, two of them were quite large, about 1.5 meter. This dive was without my camera.

Ras Mamlach
This site is a nice dive spot. The wall of this site is somewhat boring but the top of the rees is very beautiful with nice coral formations. At the sandy area of this site lives Nana - a cute female turtle which is quite used to the company of fellow divers.

Ras Mamlach

The Canyon
A 30 meters deep dive to a big crack in the reef which has a small exit opening at about 25 meters. The site itself is quite famous but to me it's an ok site. It's nice but not more than that. You can enjoy the sight of other divers descending to the hall and see the bubbles emerging from the top of it. After the canyon itself the dive continuous along the reef.

The Canyon

Gaber El-Bint
Probably one of the most pristine dive spots around Dahab. Due to the fact that's it's not easy to get there on land, this site still remains less visited than others. Beautiful and healthy reef with big fan colas which are the hallmark of this site. When we dived here the sun was obscured by dark clouds.

Gaber El-Bint

Gaber El-Bint

The Bells+Blue Hole
Another famous dive site of Dahab which has unique topographic features. The dive starts with a descent to 30 meters through a narrow hole in the reef, partly open to the blue water. At the exit point a nice drift dive begins along to wall towards the saddle of the blue hole. The wall is not at all like I saw it few years ago: less soft corals, less lettuce corals and less fish. Very sad to see.

The wall of the Blue Hole at 2003 and 2009: the damage is evident

But on the bright side: the corals around the blue hole are still stunning. A massive amount of corals in a very healthy reef.

The saddle of the Blue Hole

On our way back to Taba we stop to dive at Ras Mamlach again for the last dive in this trip. We empty our tanks on the safety stop, few meters bellow our boat.

Safety stop at Ras Mamlach

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