Escaping the line dancers!

A trip to Marsa Alam, Red Sea
22/06/2009

Imagine the scene – the departure gate for the flight to Marsa Alam overrun with 100 noisy line dancers from Merseyside called Chay’s Stompers. That is what faced the New Horizons group on our flight to Egypt, and it was a bit much considering it was only 9.30 in the morning! However, we were pleased to find out that they weren’t staying at our hotel – a lucky escape.

There were 16 of us who travelled to Marsa Alam for the week-long trip. We visited dive sites at Marsa Shouni Kebir, Marsa Morena and Ras El Torfa, and there were additional trips to Elphinstone and Sha’ab Samadai (Dolphin House). Most days were sunny with clear blue skies, even though towards the end of the week it became more overcast and windy. Visibility was good and so we had the opportunity to see a good assortment of fish including clown fish, parrot fish, puffer fish, blue spotted rays, lion fish and butterfly fish, to name but a few. There was also a large green turtle which nudged Roger out of the way so that it could carry on munching through some sea grass! During the week, there were many achievements amongst the group, including completing Open Water and Advanced Open Water qualifications, and celebrating 40, 200 and 300 dives.

Evenings were mainly spent at The Marina Lodge Hotel which put on belly dancing, Whirling Dervishes and other local dancing on a couple of nights. Some of us got forced into joining in the dancing, whilst others decided that it was a perfect time to go to the bar to get a round of drinks! We also had a couple of trips to the strangely deserted town of Port Ghalib. The lack of customers didn’t stop the local shopkeepers demanding outrageous prices for things, despite our best efforts at haggling.

Thankfully the flight home was much quieter without the line dancers which gave us all time to reflect on what a good week it had been. Thanks go to Roger for leading an enjoyable and memorable trip.