Diving holidays in Egypt A travel diary of the best dives

Thursday 30 June

At 18.30 in the evening we took off for Egypt with a stopover in Turkey. We were three friends who decided almost a year ago that it was time to use our diving licences. So we planned a trip to Egypt to dive and at the same time see and experience the Egyptian culture. Therefore, our programme was put together by Bering Travel to be 5 days of diving followed by 5 days of touring different Egyptian cities with a guide.

Friday 1 July

Today we arrived at the hotel in Hurghada. We were overwhelmed by how beautiful the hotel is, but also by the fact that the hotel is in the middle of nowhere. We drove for about 30 minutes from the airport before we got to the hotel and everything was deserted.
The day was spent touring the expensive part of Hurghada. The tour was led by our main guide for the tour, Haytham.
The hotel had a large pool, which unfortunately closes at 6pm - on the other hand, there was a dance show in the hotel disco in the evening, so there was plenty to see.

Saturday 2 July

Today was the first day of diving. The dive was by boat and despite the slightly slow start, where we had to wait for the tanks to be approved at the dive centre, it ended up being a day with two great dives. Initially we thought there was only one dive, which was supposed to be a test dive, but we just got the equipment and were thrown into the water. The guides were very competent and very helpful. At the same time, they were also able to have a bit of fun and that made the day flow a little better.
The two dives took place on a reef called ‘Gota Abu Ramada’
The evening was spent driving to Marsa Alam - a trip of about 4 hours.

Sunday 3 July

Today was our first shore dive. We were assigned the guide Jimmy Essa, who turned out to be an insanely good guide. He told us that there was a small chance of seeing small sharks, a small chance of seeing a manatee, but a very high chance of seeing turtles. And F**K we saw a lot of turtles, very big turtles even, we also saw a single guitarfish, but no manatee. The area we dived in was called ‘Abu Dabab’.
An hour after the first dive, we went on the second dive. Here we were taken by a small speedboat to a reef called ‘Garden Reef’. The reef consists of three pools, which are a system of caves and 1-3 metre wide valleys. The area didn't have big fish, but if you concentrated a little you could find many small colours all around. The greatest experience of the area, however, was swimming between the walls and sometimes struggling through what felt like a very small crevice to avoid hitting the bottle.

After the dive, we agreed with the guide to organise a night dive and the afternoon was spent relaxing. At half past seven in the evening we went into the water with torches. It was a whole new world with lots of life from lionfish, rays and a single octopus.

Monday 4 July

Today was the day for boat dives at Marsa Alam.
We had the same guide as the day before. Which made it a lot easier to feel safe because you have met the staff before.
We had two dives, one in an area called ‘Marsa Suni’ and one in ‘Marsa Mubarak’.
The dives consisted of partial wall dives and there was lots of life. Especially large cones with many small schooling fish.
At the second stop we were told that the manatee had been spotted and we all put on masks and snorkels and were put out on a small rubber boat that sailed around the area to find the manatee, unfortunately it was not spotted again.
After the dive here, we travelled by bus to Hamata, which was further south.

Tuesday 5 July

We were told from the start that today there would be a free amount of dives, however, the dives were on our own, with the option to buy a guide.
We chose to do a single dive in the morning alone. And when one of us got sick, the others chose to do a single guided night dive in the evening.
The area was exciting, but unfortunately there were not many coloured corals. Here we also saw an octopus. And this was also the first place we had the opportunity to use Nitrox.

Wednesday 6 July

Today was the first day of boat dives.
The boat trip was long, but it was worth it.
Along the way we had three stops, two of them were the planned dives and the last was the opportunity to swim with dolphins.
The dolphins were the first stop on the trip and it was very exciting to get so close to such a large animal. Unfortunately, there were already a number of boats in the area, so the dolphins weren't so playful as they had already spent their energy on the other boats.

The first dive site was at a 70 metre deep wall. As we were all diving with Nitrox, the maximum depth was set at 30 metres. At this wall there were many beautiful corals and a large moray eel was also spotted.
The second stop was at a labyrinth of walls. The area consisted of 9-10 large cones, 3-4 metres apart and with cave systems in between. This was a super cool area to swim around and there were many colours - especially outside the cones.
This dive also marked the end of diving for the holiday

Thursday 7 July

Today was our first day of relaxation before travelling by bus to Aswan.
The bus journey was six hours long and the longest we would drive.
Along the way, in the town of Edfu, our guide Ahmed was picked up. He told us a lot about Egypt and the temples we would see in the coming days. We also learnt a lot about ancient Egypt and why both Egypt and the rest of the world is the way it is today.
Once we arrived at our hotel, which was a boat on the Nile, we took a trip into Aswan with our guide where we were offered sugar cane juice and a cup of tea. The city was packed with people as Ramadan had just ended and people were partying.

Friday 8 July

Today was our first tour of Aswan, where we started by seeing the High Dam and then the Unfinished Obelisk and the Temple of Philae.
Despite the heat, it was a good day where we learnt a lot about the Egyptian gods, which our guide was very good at explaining.
The afternoon was spent in the bus as we travelled to Luxor.

Saturday 9 July

In Luxor we slept again on a boat on the Nile.
Here we went to see the ‘Valley of the kings’ and some of the ancient collapsed temples on the way. The guide had warned us that there were many things to see and the car journey would be a lot of ‘Look right, look left, look right’, back and forth all the time. And so it was! And you almost broke your neck trying to keep up with everything that was being shown. On the way back, we stopped at an alabaster stone carving centre where we had the opportunity to see how the stone was worked by hand and where we also had the opportunity to buy souvenirs to take home.

The afternoon was spent in the Karnak Temple, which is a huge temple. The temple also has a ‘Sound and light show’, which we of course chose to see. However, nothing was said in this show that we had not already been told by our guide.

The evening was again spent on the boat, where we had to leave early the next day to fly to Cairo.

Sunday 10 July

We had to get up at 4am to fly to Cairo. The flight had been moved to an hour earlier, which meant we had a little more time in Cairo.
In Cairo we were met by an Egyptian guide who spoke Danish. It was an unusual feeling that there were suddenly others around us who spoke Danish.
The tour started directly from the airport to the museum, where we were shown around by the guide before we were allowed to walk around ourselves.
Afterwards we went to the pyramids and the sphinx with a small food stop on the way.
After seeing the pyramids and taking the obligatory pictures where you ‘hold’ the pyramids between your hands, we said goodbye to the guide and took the long trip back to Hurghada by bus.
Here we met our original guide Haytham.

Monday 11 July

We headed home, at 1.30am the clock rang, and then it was off to the minibus and out to the airport. It turned into a 7-hour wait in Istanbul, which was spent sleeping and playing cards.

All in all, it was 11 great days. Some really great dives, where we especially liked the beach dive in Marsa Alam and the boat dive in Hamata.
The staff at the hotels were friendly and smiling. And the guides were good and spoke good English. Haytham, together with Daniel in Denmark, had worked hard to make the trip work and it must be said that they succeeded!!!