Day 40, 13 August 2012, Dahab, Dinner, Diving the Red Sea - Dahab is Arabic for gold as it is thought when the sun sets behind the mountains then the ocean around Dahab turn golden. We had dinner in downtown Dahab last night and a brief look at the local market - we felt like we were no longer in Egypt! Apparently many local men have married western girls and have had it explained in no uncertain terms that westerners adore shopping and will actually spend more without the pester-power of shop owners. All quite different. The restaurant Al Capone by the harbour served a very reasonable representation of a pizza and a great seafood pasta - that's right, eventually one can have too much baba ganouche and Egyptian bread. We ventured to the dive shop after dinner to sort out gear for our 2 day, 6 dive mega-adventure and finally made it back to the hotel by 11 pm. There aren't enough hours in a day, but it's a nice problem to have. This morning we set out at 7.30 am. Our adventure began immediately in the jeep with our Drivemaster Ehab (our dive master and driver) - We had three fabulous dives scheduled for the day, the first off Lighthouse Reef (the "let's see if they can actually dive, dive"). When we finished with more air than the guide after one hour he accepted we knew what we were doing. Diving the Red Sea is an absolute pleasure. As you all know boats and I do not agree with each other and it sometimes ends in tears. And lots of fish. However shore diving via a jeep involves chucking the gear in the back, driving to fabulous sites, gearing up in the shade of a Bedouin tent with showers and toilets near by, strolling into the water and just diving. Heaven. The second dive at The Caves was also superb and being in a cave and looking out to the blue of the ocean with fish and bubbles rising up in front of us backlit by filtered sunlight was indescribable. Particularly since James's underwater camera met with a watery end and could not assist with pictures. R.I.P. camera. As is usually the case, as soon as a camera dies, good stuff demands to photographed, in this case a friendly turtle who swam up to check us out and a black octopus poked several legs out from under a rock and waved. Would have been wrong to order calamari for lunch after that - so it was back to our old favourites - falafel, tahina and fresh strawberry juice at one of the tent- restaurants. The final dive was The Islands. This was fish & coral diving at it's finest. Easily 25m visibility - the water was so clear it looked like air with fish flying through it instead of swimming in it. Back to the dive centre for a swim at the Rocketa Hotel Dahab and then into the jeep for the run down south to our hotel, The Mercure Bay View. Whilst other members of the group went downtown for dinner and a change of scenery, actually being at the hotel was change enough for us and we enjoyed a grand buffet at the super price of 75 Egyptian pounds each - about $23 in total for two. Cheaper than downtown too! It's school/summer holidays in Egypt at the moment, so it's quite possible the average 7 year old was still up when we went to bed at 8.30 pm. But it's been a long time between sleeps and we were both tired little vegemites. Tomorrow will be "Same Same, but Different" (just like the name of a bar downtown and much of the tourist wares), 3 dives down today and 3 to go tomorrow.