More War and Dahab

The war goes on, last my mother decided to take a risk and go to work, some missles fell too close for comfort and she stayed at home for the rest of the week, one missle fell near in the open fields near my town, about 2km from here. We got fed up with just staying at home all the time, and we decided to take a break for a few days, and we went on a vecation, me, my brother Ahmad and my brother in law Sobhi.

We decided to go to Dahab, far enought south to be out of the missles reach, it is also a cheap place with great diving sites. Dahab lies in the Sina peninsula in Egypet, a barren desert , with scorched landscapes, the only bearable place there is the sea side, , Dahab is one of them. We took the night bus from Haifa to Eilat, four buses left at midnight, apparently we are not the only people eager to flee south, but when we arrived to Eilat, we were of the few that continued to the border crossing in Taba, the others being a couple Arab guys as well, apparently Jewish people are not welcome at the moment in Sina, it was not always like this, the sea resort of Dahab used to be crowded with Israeli tourists, looking for a cheap beach vecation, world class diving sites or just to smoke some marijuana.


We stayed in a cheap place, close to the beach promenade, and booked some dives for the next day, Ahmad and Sobhi opted for the Advanced Open Water course, since I already did that course, I just decided to join them for the interesting dives. My first dive was a simple and not so interesting one, a good reintroduction to diving, as I had not dived since March, the next one was a night dive which was very interesting dive, but for all the wrong reasons. We were a group of seven Bob the instructor, the three of us, a Spanish couple, and Nicolas who came to help Bob, anyway the plan was that Bob my brother be diving mates, me and sobhi, and the Spanish couple, Nicolas watching our rare, and making sure no body stayes behind. Things started on the wrong foot, my brother had an larger air tank, because of his high air consumption, but the tank was cumbersome and awkward, and he was not comfortable with it. After a few excersises for the students in the group, we headed for our route, Bob lead the group, but my brother was not next to him, but Bob was moving on, urging the group to follow, I followed him, not understanding why he is not looking for my brother who is his dive mate, but I looked around every once in a while to see, that My Brother and Sobhi are following, so in practice I was diving with Bob, and Ahmad and Sobhi together, but it was difficult to keep track of where everybody all the time, and often I was not aware that i was hitting the reef, at some point Bob turned around, and urged us to follow, I hesitated, since I did not see my brother and Sobhi, but Bob was knocking on his tank to get people attention, and in order to get them to follow him, anyway in the end Nicolas came to me, and asked me to follow Bob, I did, but could not stop worrying about my brother, Bob was supposed to be watching over him but he was not, after following Bob for a while, the explenaion dawned on me, the missing peace of the puzzle fell in place, finally I understood what was going on, Bob thought I was my brother, and that is why he moved on unworried, I can't blame him either, I had trouble figuring out who was who in the darkness of the night, anyway the second I grasped this fact, I decided this was going to stop, my brother is out there alone, and so was Sobhi who I was supposed to be his mate, I doubled back, they only thing I could see in the dark , was a light from far away, as I got closer it turned out to be the Spanish couple, I continued past them, signaling to them to continue, a while later I met my brother, I asked him with signals if everything was ok, he signaled that it was, but immediatly signaled that he was going up to the surfice, apparently he was out of air, and was just waiting for someone to tell him he was ending the dive, ok my brother was going up, what was I going to do ? well I could not see anybody around , so basicly I was lost in diving terms, and we had decided that in the dive briefing that the dive ends when one diver goes to the surfice, the two facts pointed to the same course of action, to go up to the surfice as well, I did, and shortly after everbody else came up as well.


It was not a dive I enjoyed, I was just stressed and worried the whole time, especially for my brother, I am still wondering whether I should have taken action earlier in the dive, Bob said afterward, that it was one of the most chaotic dives he ever had, anyway I think the key to the whole chaos, was the inability to see who was who in the dark, paying more attention to the gear of the other people before the dive, could have helped, and maybe the use of some kind of clear identifying tags. There was also a good reason why my brother was struggling in the dive, when using a larger tanks, one needs to carry less weights, and Bob overlooked that fact. Anyway the next day we went to two more dives, the Canyon and the Blue hole, considered two of the top diving sites in the red sea, and indeed they were spectacular, with colored coral reefs, and diverse fish, the water is so clear there, that at a depth of 28 meters you can turn your face up, and clearly see the surfice of the water and the sun in the sky. Despite the events of the night dive, we were pleased and happy with Bob, he is great instructor and great guy, and mishaps can always happen, especialy if your a big group doing a night dive. Later we had a dinner with Bob, it turnes out that he bought the dive center, Octupos, a few months ago, and he is going to bring his family from the Netherlands to live there with him, Bob himself is Canadian.


While in Dahab, we made a promise to ourselves : No news, we he held true to it, and it was a good decision, taking the depressing events from back home off our minds. The town was not so crowded with tourists, before the terroist bombing of a supermarket last year (see the photo above), the city was bussling with tourists, from Italy ,England, Australia and other countries, the tourists are coming back but the numbers are not what they used to be. Dahab has many restaurants, and they serve delicious fresh sea food, at reasonable prices, and when we did not feel like eating sea food, there are dirt cheap popular restaurants, selling traditional vegetarian egyptian dishes. There was one interesting incident going to the blue whole, we were asked to fill some forms for the police, and we were told to write we were Palestenians, not Israelis, Bob told us, that the police gives a hard to time to Israelis and Americans, the police decided to stop us anyway, but for only a minute, our native Arabic tongue probably helped.

All in all a good vecation, but eventually we are back to the not so pleasant situation here in the north of Israel, I hope this war ends soon.