travels with janne

I find myself challenged. Learning the niceties of snorkelling, swimming with fins on my feet, finding my way around the reef, not crashing into the corals, being gobsmacked at the utter beauty of it all, keeping an eye out for my guide’s signalled instructions and trying to figure out my brand new underwater camera all at once is just too much. So, much to my chagrin, I drop the underwater photography and concentrate on enjoying the sights. The underwater pictures in this blog article are therefore the ones taken by my excellent guide, Khaled Said.

Words cannot really describe the myriad colours, patterns, shapes and sizes of the fish and the corals I see. A large school of small, deep purple fish move in an iridescent ballet. Stingrays glide by sleekly along the shallow sea bottom. I see a couple of them mating, the large male covering the small female before dashing off after completed business. Psychedelic blue and orange stripes on one kind of fish, interwoven black and yellow stripes on another, and giant clams with wavy, sky blue lips; Mother Nature has a good artisitc sense we can only hope to emulate.

I see huge sea turtles munching greenery on the sea bottom. From time to time they take a break and make a beeline for the surface to get a gulp of air. However, the biggest highlight for me is meeting the spinner dolphins. On my first dolphin swim, Khaled takes my hand and guides me among 60 dolphins. We have them all to ourselves – no other tourists. It is magical! I make eye contact with them and some of them swim over to greet me. Otherwise they just hang around and let me swim alongside them. They play with eachother, twisting and turning, sometimes swimming belly to belly.

During my week in the area I have a few more swims with the dolphins. Many times they just swim away. But one morning, at 6:30 am, we take the zodiac out to a group of about 30-40 of these sleek animals and slide into the water with them. What a great way to start the day! They let us hang around with them for quite a while before they decide to leave. In my next life I want to be a mermaid.

An imam calls out in the darkness, beckoning to prayer at 4:30 am. I lie in the bed in my tent and listen to the waves of the Red Sea brush the shore in front of my door. An hour later the sun rises. The sky blushes a faint pink, then lights up in a rosy glow in celebration of a new day in Egypt.

I am in the area of Marsa Alam, three hours drive south of touristy Hurghada. Here is quiet, just people intent on swimming, snorkelling, diving, meeting dolphins, sea turtles, corals and fish. No loud music, no partygoers. Not much of anything on land, really, except endless desert. The attractions are submerged in the clear, aquamarine water.

Driving on the main road is like driving though a quarry. We meet several trucks with camels gazing serenely at the landscape, ignorant of the fact that they are on their way to Cairo to become dinner for somebody. My driver takes me to a boat that will sail me out to the star attraction: the spinner dolphins. Another day we go looking for sea turtles and dugongs. The time in between is spent snorkelling along the coral reefs.

Then the sun goes down with a flourish in a shameless burst of colour, turning the clouds as red as cotton on fire. Shortly thereafter the full moon rises from behind pastel-coloured clouds. When the sun is completely gone the moon casts its silvery light on the water and the sand.