Day 104 to 108 - 11th to 15th February - Red Sea Scuba Diving

Point of departure : Sharm el Sheikh

Point of arrival : Red Sea

Accommodation: King Snefro Liveaboard

Km travelled today N/A

Countries so far: 9/16

Where to next? Sharm el Sheikh

No of photos: 310 (cum 4 982))

Another early wake-up call (we know, don't ask) for our trip to St Catherine's Monastery - 230km from Sharm el Sheikh in the Sinai Desert.

St Catherine's is a Greek Orthodox Monastery set in the shadows of two mountains - Gebel Musa (Mount Sinai) at 2285m, where the Bible says Moses received the Ten Commandments and Gebel el-Deir (Mount St Catherines) at 2 642m. It's a place of pilgrimage and is the oldest continuously inhabited monastery in the world. (Only Greek and Russian orthodox masses) It started its life as a chapel, built in 337, on the orders of Empress Helena, on the site of the Burning Bush. In the 6th century Emperor Justinian added a fortress monastery to protect the monks and pilgrims from raiders. The monastery was later dedicated to St Catherine, a beautiful Alexandrian (4th century) who converted to Christianity. When she refused to deny her faith she was martyred. According to legend, 5 centuries later, monks found her lost body glowing on top of Gebel Katerina (Mount St Katherine), apparently transported there by angels - in fact one of the monks had this dream. The monks then renamed the monastery in her name.

The monastery is in very good condition with lush gardens of olive and almond trees. It's also the only monastery in the world that houses a Christian chapel and a mosque with minaret. The Burning Bush is still evergreen (but was moved from its original place to accommodate the chapel) and transplanted next to the chapel. The library has the largest collection of religious manuscripts after the Vatican - over 1400.

We did not get to climb Mount Moses as we ran out of time - left it for our next visit to Egypt.

In the evening we were collected from the hotel and transferred to the liveabord - King Snefro 6 (length 20m and beam 6m) - for our Red Sea safari. We met Tarek our skipper, Khaled our dive guide and the rest of the crew as well as fellow divers: Stephen and Carrey from Canada and Pertti and Riitta from Finland. The boat accommodates 12 people (6 cabins all en suite) and we were lucky as we were only six. Very comfortable with excellent diving facilities.

Day 105 - after port marine formalities we sailed through to our first dive spot - Ras Katy - quite close to Sharm el Sheikh and an opportunity to acclimatise to the Red Sea water density and aluminium cylinders, which combined made quite a big difference in buoyancy and weight required. Another three dives followed including a night dive.

Despite it being the winter season, the water temperature was still a pleasant 24 degrees and visibility was generally excellent. The dive sites are varied, including beautiful coral gardens at 8 to 15 metres, immense drop offs that dive down to 750 metres and more and a variety of shipwrecks each with their particular stories and special points of interest.The fish life is also fantastic with many of the usual tropical fish and a number of species endemic to the Red Sea. It's a beautiful environment and a real pleasure to dive, especially with the laid on facilities of our floating "home".

Our dive sites included Tiran island, Ras Mohamed and the Thistlegorm and Dunraven wrecks.

Day 106 - the highlight for us (especially for Marina who specifically did her advance diving course to be able to dive this site - thank you Ryan for convincing her)… the wreck of the SS the Thistlegorm (SS stands for steamship). This British freighter was built in 1940 in England. The Germans controlled the Mediterranean from the island of Crete and as a result, all allied vessels had to sail via Cape Town and up through the Red Sea. The Thistlegorm anchored just north west of Ras Mohamed while waiting transit through the Suez canal. Two German aircraft out looking for the Queen Mary (carrying Australian troops) saw the Thilstlegorm and it came under attack in the early hours of 6 October 1941. She was carrying war material and supplies for the British army in north Africa (Alexandria) and came under German air attack from a squadron based in Crete, was struck in hold number 4 and sank after a considerable explosion fuelled in part by the shells and ammunition on board in hold number 4. The wreck is just over 126m long with a tonnage of 4 898 tonnes, the cargo included: Bedford trucks, armoured vehicles, Norton and BSA motor cycles, Bren guns, Bren carriers, tracked Bren carrier tanks, cases of ammunition and rifles, boots, aircraft parts and two steam locomotives. The vessel sank pretty quickly landing on its keel (at a depth of 30 metres) and although 9 crew members sadly lost their lives, it is probably surprising, when you see the damage, that not more lives were lost. Although it's now nearly 70 years on since the attack, the wreck is still amazing to visit.Sadly, there has been some vandalisation since its discovery in the mid 1950's by Jacques Cousteau and its opening up in the 1990's to recreational divers - small items like radiator caps, bath taps, boots, motor cycle speedometers and lights etc have long since joined the private collections of the early divers. Nevertheless, the undamaged holes, precision packed with the trucks centimetres apart, motorbikes neatly stacked within each one give some sense of what a loss this cargo must have been to the British troops. In stark contrast, the devastation around hold number 4 where the bomb struck is extensive - the two locomotives hurled 30 metres from the main wreck, miraculously unexploded ammunition boxes cascading through the ripped hull, sheet metal pealed back like an apple from the force of the explosion. And all this still clearly visible under the layers of dirt and sediment and the accumulated marine growth and now providing a unique marine habitat for the multitude of fish species that call this unique habitat home.

Two or even three dives on this wreck are not enough as there is just so much to see. Penetrating the hull and getting into the holds, almost transports you back in time to World War II… an underwater time machine. Even a couple of hours (and we did not even have that much) would not be enough and provides us with the excuse to come back.

Day 107- the plan today was to dive the wreck of the Dunraven and the adjacent reefs. John had already sat out the third and fourth dives the previous day as he was not feeling too well and it became clear diving today was also not on for him, nor for Marina whose throat and ears were not right… yet another excuse to come back and dive the Dunraven - a freighter that sank in the late 19th century.

We were back in harbour by 15h00, disembarked and back in the hotel by 17h00, a little disappointed and not feeling great, but still a great experience for the dives we did do and the liveaboard itself.

In view of the way we were feeling, we decided to cancel our three day trip to Dahab (it was unlikely we would be able to dive) and re-organised our itinerary to give an extra day in each of Sharm, Cairo and Alexandria, giving ourselves to recover and reduce the travel pressure. Thank you Dani at Hartleys Travel in Johannesburg, for your assistance in this.

Day 108 - the day spent very much at leisure in Sharm el Sheikh with late breakfast, catching up on English newspaper news, visit to local chemist and generally resting.