El Gouna 2007

Caves 'n' Corals

All photography on this site by Estelle Sandford

A week in El Gouna, Egypt

5th January

After a few problems at Bristol Airport with the runway being closed, we were soon on a bus to Gatwick instead and then on our flight to Hurghada, where we were met by Regal Dive representative and taken by taxi to the Mövenpick Hotel in El Gouna, where being 5 hours later than we should have been, we settled down pretty quick for the night as diving tomorrow is an early start!

6th January

After breakfast, it was off to the dive centre (Dive Tribe), which was about 50yds from our room, to sign in and get on the boat to go diving. Our first dive was a site called Dolphin House and of course, because I was using a new camera and housing, I had to take the housing down sans camera for first dive and we saw loads of dolphins! The second dive was Poseidon, again a very pleasant dive. Water temperature was 22 degrees centigrade and we were comfortable in dry suits. It was quite windy once you got out to sea so it wasn't really ideal for lying on the sundeck sunbathing between dives.

7th January

Second days diving consisted of Siul Kebira and El Gilwa and both were pleasant dives with the second one giving us some really close up experiences with the dolphins.

8th January

Today's diving was Umm Gamar and Abu Nujar North. Both nice dives and Abu Nujar was particularly interesting for different types of coral.

9th January

A very early start and a very long boat ride. We tried to get to the Thistlegorm, but the channel was too rough and windy so we opted for the Rosalie Moller instead. We did two brilliant dives on this very interesting wreck.

10th January

Back closer to El Gouna for today's diving. We dived Shabrur Umm Gamar and Shabaha. The first dive had a small wreck at just over 30m.

11th January

The final days diving was the icing on the cake with a fabulous dive on the Ghiannis 'D' followed by El Gilwa as a drift dive. The wreck was amazing visibility and plenty of life on it and the drift was something a bit different for us as usually the boat is anchored.

12th January

The half day was spent shopping and exploring El Gouna before being collected and taken back to the airport. At least we landed at Bristol! All in all a great holiday with lots of quality diving.