Marsa Alam 24th Sept 2006
Day 3
Dive 1- 14m for 114mins - Abu Dabab from back of MV Tala
The next morning all the effects from the sting had resided and I did a dive with Rob & Marianne on the reef again. This time we headed in the opposite direction and found a really nice pinnacle with an abundance of fish life including blue spotted rays and clown fish.
Clown Fish
Dive 2- 24m for 80 mins – Shuna from back of MV Tala
After breakfast we steamed back to Shuna to have a look at the sea grass bay where there was a good chance to spot Dugon’s and turtles. I did this dive with Andy Bryson and for the best part of an hour we saw nothing but grass. We followed a search pattern east to west and varied the depth up the bay by 5m at a time, but no sign of the sea cows!
Movie clip of “where’s the dugong”? Here
I spotted a huge rock that appeared to move!!! We both shot off in that direction to discover a big old turtle (100yrs+). Two resident remora were on his back although he seemed quite happy to munch away on the sea grass. We spent a good 10mins watching until we were joined by another 2 teams and another turtle with 2 more remora in tow. We hit our agreed bottom time and made our way back to the boat. Once back on the boat a group of us decided to snorkel along the reef and one or two started free diving; with Andy Bryson holding the record of 22m!!!
(Awaiting pic of turtles)
For this dive both myself and Andy booked the X-Scooters to have a look further up the reef. The X-Scooter really is a tidy piece of kit and perfect for this type of diving. We scooted for 20mins or so up the reef before we turned the dive and made our way back along the reef at a shallower depth. We passed by the other teams and AG with his cam. Once back on the boat we prepared our tins for filling and settled into some serious food and sun bathing.
Andy foreground, me rear
