Open Water Dive Course in Dahab

My first day of the dive course I almost drowned. OK, that may be a little bit of an exaggeration, since the entire dive I was accompanied by a certified and experienced dive instructor, but read on to find out more.

After my introduction to diving yesterday, I decided to go ahead and spend a week in Dahab, Egypt. It’s somewhere off the Red Sea between Israel, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia …go look at your atlas, I’ll wait.

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Dahab is an awesome tourist town, a lot smaller and friendlier than the resort-style city of Sharm el-Sheikh, just my kind of place. There are only 2 main roads in the town, and plenty of souvenir shops selling their wares. Hostels/hotels and other accommodation may not be prevalent online, but you can just get a taxi or private transfer from the airport or bus station and walk through the town until you find one with a view you like, and for the right price.

Like I said in my last post, everything is a bit on the quiet side, seeing as though its off season, and the whole revolution going on in Cairo and Suez. A couple of girls got kidnapped in Mt Sinai today actually, the day after I was there. News reports mention guns, but the locals assure me it wasn’t so violent… from their guys on the ground. Everyone is talking about the football riots too, its damaging tourism, and making big news internationally.

I’d never intended to do a dive course in Dahab, but it is item #26 on my bucket list, so why not? The sun is shining, I have 20 days in Egypt, and the people here are friendly.

As it turns out, I am in one of the most sought after locations in the world for divers. Everyone knows about Thistlegorm, Blue Hole, and Canyon dives. Thistlegorm is closer to Sharm el-Sheikh and requires an advanced divers certification; which I might still get.

My first day of the course started at 9am, my dive instructor is a young but experienced deep sea/rescue diver and instructor. He’s missing a thumb. I haven’t asked why yet. But curiosity is getting the better of me. Shark attack? Snapping turtle? Or something non-diving related? He tells me he did the 50m Blue Hole dive once, the one where tourists die. 50m if you don’t know is stupid-silly depth. Its not advised to go below 30m, or 40m if you are very experienced.

I would like to see the blue hole, dive it, or snorkel it (if I don’t get the right certification), but I have no ambition of diving down to 50m to swim through the hole in the reef.

My first day in the open water course involves an enclosed dive, and an open water dive. I get taught 4 skills that I will have to demonstrate. There’s also a DVD to watch, and a chapter in a book to read, with a quiz. At the end of the course I get a multiple choice test, so I have to pay attention. That, and diving can be extremely hazardous to your health if done irresponsibly.

The enclosed dive was relatively simple. I learnt how to breathe, how to clear the regulator, how to clear my mask underwater, how to find my regulator when displaced.

We didn’t go much deeper than a few metres for the whole experience. Enclosed dives are commonly done in a swimming pool environment, but here in Dahab the beach is so wonderful and calm, it’s a swimming pool – like environment.

After 40 minutes of diving we returned to the dive shop where I got out of the gear, and went for some lunch. The food here is really good, and cheap, if you stay away from the touristy restaurants.

For the second dive, the open water dive, the instructor lead the way and had me follow; demonstrating all the skills I learnt in the enclosed dive.

I had a lot of trouble equalizing my left ear, it gets a bit funny sometimes, I’ve noticed even when I fly. I let the instructor know with the appropriate signals, and we ascended, equalized, descended; and continued until it stopped hurting. It never did clear properly.

A few times when he had me demonstrate my awesome underwater swimming ability (swim around obstacles without touching the reef or kicking up dust), I started to ascend, and before I knew it I was at the surface. Turns out my body wasn’t quite horizontal, so I was kicking upwards. It’s so hard to tell which way you’re going when you’re 19m deep.

“Just watch your bubbles to figure out which way is up”

Of course. Makes complete sense right? But if you are twisting and turning down quite deep it is easy to get disorientated, I can see how divers end up drowning.

At one stage after doing a simple 180 degree turn at the reef I managed to get dizzy and disorientated. It took 30-40 seconds before I regained equilibrium and figured out where I was. Luckily I had the instructor there.

The reefs in Dahab are really something else. I can’t compare them of course, because I’ve never dived any other reefs before. But they team with fish and aquatic life, and its only a few metres from the beach. There are dozens of dive sites along the coast too. I can’t wait to get certified so I can explore some of the more advanced dives, like the Blue Hole.

* flickr header image credit Moon Fish. Other images 1, 3, 4, 5