November 10th, 2019
Today we had an early 5am start at the dive shop to go out to the wreck dive, SS Thistlegorm. This is another top 10 dive site in the world and was quite expensive to do (an extra $100 per person on top of the regular diving price for today). It is quite far though in the middle of the sea, so I understood why. It was three hours out on a big fast boat and three hours back. We had breakfast and lunch on the boat and it was a really fun day. SS Thistlegorm was a British Navy ship in WWII. It was a big supply/cargo ship that was only on its third voyage when it got bombed by German aircraft and sank to the bottom of the Red Sea on October 6, 1941. It is an absolutely massive ship and all the cargo is still there that sank down with it. The cargo is what makes it such an interesting dive as you can swim through the ship and see army tanks, trucks, train cars, motorcycles, boxes of rifles, ammunition, bombs etc. I couldn’t believe all the motorcycles. Rows and rows of them. All the old guns and tanks were really cool too.
This was a deep dive going to 30 meters (almost 100 feet) which is the max depth we are certified for. There is another certification you can get that allows you to dive with “enriched air” or “nitrox”. This is basically a higher percentage of oxygen and less nitrogen than you have in “normal” air tanks. There are some advantages such as you can stay deeper longer, you have less nitrogen build up in your body which can make you feel tired, and your time intervals between deep dives are shorter. The dive shop tried to convince us to get this certification before the wreck dive so we could enjoy it better, but it was going to be another $400 for us to both do it. I told them we are out of money for our diving budget and can’t spend the extra for the certification. Since everyone in our group was certified to dive with Nitrox but us, our guide made a phone call the day before and set up an “intro to nitrox” course for us so we could dive with nitrox today at no extra charge. This made it easier for him to have everyone in the group diving with the same type of air. Although we did not have the official certification, we were able to dive with nitrox today for free to try it out, which was pretty cool (we watched a video and got the basic overview).
I am pretty low energy to begin with, so after two dives I am usually pretty darn tired. After our two dives at Thistlegorm today, I felt pretty good so I do think the enriched air makes a difference! Brendan isn’t normally tired and he said he could not tell a difference. We had two really great dives at the wreck and Brendan came up saying it was hands down the best dive he has ever done! I thought it was super cool but I get a little nervous in dark confined places, and still probably prefer shallower dives with really beautiful fish and coral, but the shipwreck was definitely an amazing lifetime experience.
Because I was not too tired, we both agreed to do the optional third dive at another really amazing site. Usually to do this dive it is an extra $70 per person because it is so far away, but when you do the dive coming from Thistlegorm, it is included at just the normal third dive price of $30. This became my favorite dive. It was another drift dive where you float along a massive wall with the most incredible coral and fish. It was pretty cool we both got our most favorite dive in one day.
Brendan (like most others) thought I was crazy for not thinking the wreck was the best. It was astoundingly awesome, don’t get me wrong. I am just a sucker for all the beautiful coral and fish and can’t quite get enough of it. Inside the wreck I was always a bit nervous something was going to collapse on me and trap me.
It was three dives and almost a full 12 hours on the boat before we got back to Sharm right before sunset. What a fantastic day. As we were coming into the harbor at sunset, I couldn’t help but be overwhelmed with how exotic this place felt. Every other dive site we have been to is always in a lush, tropical, green environment. Here, you have crystal clear turquoise waters backed up to the incredible desert mountains. They are completely bare but with beautiful shades of pink in the stone. It is so different than any place we have ever been, and I felt very thankful for the experience.
Our great day did not end there as another new dive friend Mustapha, invited us to come with him to “Old Sharm” for an authentic Egyptian dinner. He currently lives in Dubai but his Mom is Egyptian and his Dad Palestinian. When he goes for business to Cairo he always stops in Sharm for a couple days to dive and has over 1,000 dives logged. He was here this time with his Mom and it was so fun joining them for dinner. They knew all the best things to order and absolutely spoiled us the entire night. They ordered tons of food and his Mom was so motherly to us, she kept spooning more food on our plates even though we couldn’t eat another bite.
We learned more about Egypt and the history and culture of the Middle East, and it was fascinating. Mustapha spent years living in the United States working for Microsoft and lived in Texas (of all places) when 9/11 happened. He briefly touched on how hard it was in Texas being of Arab decent during that time.
After we were so stuffed from dinner, they took us to a juice shop and told us we must try the sugar cane juice that is “the peoples drink” in Egypt. We have seen this before in Asia but never tried it. It was different than I thought and very good, but we were so full we could not finish it. After that they said we should experience going to a traditional coffee shop as this is a huge part of Egyptian culture. Since they do not drink alcohol, going to bars isn’t a destination but coffee shops are the social places where you can drink tea/coffee and smoke shisha (flavored tobacco out of a big hookah).
Mustapha ordered us tea and each our own hookah. We told him Brendan and I could definitely share but he insisted there was no need to share and got us each our own so we could try different flavors. It was really enjoyable sitting and talking with them. Then his Mom left only to come back a few minutes later with literally whole trays of Egyptian sweets. It was so kind and she told us to take them home since we were way too full for even one more bite. At the end of the night the Mom (who spoke just a little English but understood it well) kept telling us to please visit her in Dubai and stay at her house not a hotel. I thought it was so cute and sweet how she kept saying “my house, no hotel”.
It was such a sweet experience to get to mingle with real people who are out of the whole tourist hustle realm. They were so generous it was very touching and told us we were their guests in this part of the world and treated us like such. I hope Mustapha and his family will one day visit us in the Northwest as his business occasionally takes him there and we can repay his kindness.
