We checked out of the hotel by six thirty. Loading our gear at Nesima went pretty quickly and before seven we were on our way to Ras Mohammed National Park (at the southern tip of the Sinai Peninsula). The ride south was smooth until just outside Sharm el-Sheikh when the main road was closed for security - there is a meeting of Arab leaders to discuss the Palestine Israel situation in Sharm. We managed to get around several closed roads by taking dirt roads through the desert until we got stuck at a road block just outside Shark Bay (where we were supposed to be catching our dive boat - southwest of Na'am Bay and Sharm el-Sheikh). We were held up about half an hour but were finally permitted to go through, at Shark Bay Stacy and I dumped our packs at reception while the gear was quickly loaded on to the boat. We ended up leaving the dock about an hour late.
The trip out to Ras Mohammed took two hours. The first dive was a drift dive from Shark Reef to the wreck of the Yolanda on Yolanda Reef. The drift was pretty good along the drop-off outside of the reefs: big walls, big blue, and a big Napoleon, and unfortunately big crowds. The coral was nice, there were quite a lot of fish, and the water visibility was good. However, there were a dozen other boats and well over a hundred divers in the water. It was by far the most crowded dive I've ever done. The highlights were a largish Napoleon (4-5 feet long and about 3 feet high) fish that swam out of the blue to investigate us and the wreck. The Yolanda was and Israeli cargo ship sunk in the early seventies by the Egyptian military. She had been suspected of carrying munitions but was really only carrying bathroom fixtures. The over all effect is surreal and almost comic. A somber, brooding wreck slowly disappearing, but surrounded by mountains of toilets! and bath tubs and sinks. There must be close to a thousand toilets and except for a slight coat of algae they look brand new (you can easily read the "Standard Ideal" brand name). The coral and fish were beautiful (but not spectacularly more so than Dahab) and the wreck was fascinating - overall it should have been a great dive, but it was just to crowded to enjoy properly.
After an hour surface interval spent wandering around the reed we returned to the same starting place. The second dive was another drift dive, again from Shark Reef to the wreck of the Yolanda, but along the much shallower route inside the reefs. The scenery wasn't nearly as dramatic - no drop-offs or big blue - but there were a lot less people and a lot more fish. Even the second time the wreck was completely surreal. The highlights were a small Napoleon fish and a couple big Morray eels.
After the second dive we had a huge lunch while the boat headed back towards Sharm. The final dive was back near port along shore and right under a huge condominium complex - I didn't have high hopes. It started out along a fairly barren wall, but soon we started passing some excellent pinnacles - slender towers of coral swarming with fish and coral. The highlight was some very large trigger fish and several large Morrays. One of the Morray eels was by far the largest I've ever seen - its head was nearly a foot in diameter! The dive was pretty shallow so my air could have lasted forever. When I realized that this was my last dive in the Red Sea for a while - I was very reluctant to come up when Jamal called the end of the dive. The dive wasn't in the national park, it was a highly developed area, and we even went by a couple of dive classes doing their drills, yet the lack of crowds, the nice topography and the giant eels made it my favorite dive of the day.
Overall I found the diving a little disappointing. I would have rather had the extra day of diving in Dahab. It was, however, nice to be reassured that we made the right choice in picking Dahab to do our dive master course. Back at Shark Bay we looked around and realized that not only is Dahab less crowded with a much nicer atmosphere, but it's almost half the cost - for everything: diving, lodging, food, etc. all seem to cost twice as much (and sometimes more) in Shark Bay / Na'am Bay / Sharm el-Sheikh. We hung out and had dinner at the resort restaurant before sharing a taxi to the bus station. We had no trouble catching the eleven o'clock bus and it even left on time. The bus was fairly empty so it was possible to grab a couple seats and I actually managed to fall asleep through most of it.
