21.12.2009
Diving, nothing but diving in Marsa Alam
After seven months of excruciating job hunting, I finally had a new contract in my pocket with Konica Minolta. With one month free before I would start working again, I decided to grab the moment and treat myself to some serious scuba-diving in southern Egypt. Since it was still off season, prices were incredibly low, so I ended up in one of those mega tourist ghettos in the middle of the desert.
Marsa Alam? It basically does not exist… Just an ultra modern airport, surrounded by resorts in the middle of the desert, about 200 kilometers from the Sudanese borders! “No risk” of getting in touch with the local population. There is a kind of settlement 30 minutes from the resort to accommodate the employees. During this week, I actually never touch the local currency: everything there is paid in Euros.
There were a few other troubling observations. More and more of those half empty resorts are being built every single day, along the shores of the Red Sea, in the middle of nowhere. Nothing is big enough: “smaller” resorts count no less than 200 rooms (!), bigger ones have 500 to 800 rooms. Since everything soon seems to be too small, extensions are permanently added. Sustainability? Water is brought in by trucks. Sewage water is “roughly cleaned” if at all, quote by a dive master, and then sent into the sea.
So why go there? Well, it is the best scuba-diving within easy reach from Europe, prices are low and there are and now many direct flights to those places (Sharm El Shekh, Urghada, Marsa Alam…). There are quite a few kite surfers, but otherwise there is no reason to travel there!
As always, the German run Extra Divers diving center was extremely professional, its staff very friendly, highly motivated, extremely safety orientated and good fun as well. And even though the diving center is huge, with a capacity for catering to 250 divers, I never had the feeling of being just part of a big crowd.
So I just did what I came here for: scuba-diving, scuba-diving, scuba-diving! Not less than 14 dives in one week, half of which were part of a course that awarded me with three new certificates: SSI Advance Adventure Diver, SSI Specialty Underwater Digital Photography and Nitrox Diving. Does it sound weird if I say I came back exhausted and partly broke from one week vacation?
Scuba-diving in Marsa Alam is good, the typical underwater scenery of the Red Sea: a lot of small, colorful fish, many corals and a few wrecks. But forget about “the big ones”! Manta rays and other Hammerhead sharks are not to be seen. So, all in all a great place to get a few extra qualifications, or refresh your diving skills.
