Met our scuba guide this morning, Ali, he was quite insistent that we needed to do a check-out dive, since we had no log book to prove we had dived in the last 6 months, (it has been two years),
Both Gloria and I have been diving for more than 30 years with around a hundred dives each under out belts, but he wasn't going to be talked out of it.
It was a bit laborious, but we satisfied him in our skill and knowledge, and had a relatively good dive. Didn't go real deep, which was just as well since this was the only cloudy day since we have been in Egypt.
We did return at 4PM for our afternoon dive with a French guide. It was fun just listening to her! Felt like we were in "Ratatouille". (Thank you spell checker!). Another shallow dive, around 50 feet, but some rather incredible coral gardens. A good dive. Now we can say that we have dived the Red Sea.
I have already talked about the economy a bit. With the world economy in the dumper and the Iraq War, people are traveling a lot less, especially in the Middle East. Gloria and I guessed that about one third of the buildings in town are either abandoned or they are partially built.
When we eat out once a day, if it is a "fancier" restaurant, and for every breakfast at our hotel, we are the only people eating. ALL of the shops selling souvenirs are empty, some off the main track never see a shopper, I don't know how these people can even stay in business. And, this is the high season, I can't imagine what it is like in the summer when it hits 120 degrees! Dinner was at a fancier restaurant, about $13 for the two of us. It included, a large Greek salad, (their feta is almost as good as you find in Greece, spreads like butter!), lentil soup, a medium vege pizza, and one fanta. And sure enough we were the only ones there except for the dog.
Almost 100% of the people here are from Europe, primarily southern Europe, (Italians are huge here) and eastern Europe, (numerous restaurants, and dive shops with only Russian signs).
