This is our last full day diving and as is tradition on a diving boat, it is Turkey for dinner tonight (although I am a vegetarian so I am not sure what I will get as my special meal).
True to tradition, the Chef and Eddy (in charge of the Dining Room, Bedrooms and many other things) have in the small kitchen, prepared a Turkey and many other dishes for dinner.
and to finish off (apart from fruit) was
the Sea Serpent Cake.
Everyday, the chef will produce three meals for 30 people plus something for an afternoon post dive snack and various other nibbles every day. It is perhaps to their advantage, that food is rarely served hot in Egypt.
Breakfast is usually your choice of freshly made omelette or fried eggs, pancakes, cereal, toast, salad etc
Lunch will be something hot plus a variety of salads with fruit for desert.
The evening meal always offers at least two hot dishes plus salads.
Unusually, this boat never really got to grips with the demands of a vegetarian diet and sometimes I had to make do with “leftovers” – i.e. anything they had on offer which was not meat / fish and hence I became concerned at some meals about a lack of protein. All other dive boats I have been on have done far better in catering for my hardly demanding diet.
Keeping up with fluids is essential for a diver and as is always the case on Sea Serpent fleet boats, soft drinks are available free of charge on a “help yourself basis” throughout the day, as is tea (fruit, herbal and normal) and coffee. Bottled water is also always available and hence one does not have to drink nor brush ones teeth with ship’s tap water (desalinated on board or from tanks) which might be a bit suspect.
Gota Abu Ramada
This dive site is within day boat reach of Safaga and we had two dives here – an afternoon and an evening dive.
We were moored roughly in the centre of the dive map and the dive plan was simple – off the rear platform, go 25 minutes to the right then back. The afternoon dive was quite late in the day and therefore we wanted to avoid any repetition of the last late afternoon dive!
The dive was easy with lots of fish about
there were large shoals of sweetlips
lots of sand gobies were
seeking to hide from us
a very well camouflaged potato grouper was sitting on rocks of the same colour
an enormous Moray had its head out of a coral
coral block – all 2 metres of it were later seen swimming around looking for somewhere quiet and away from divers.
Many Masked Butterfly fish were simply hanging around over the coral
Lion fish were on the prowl for food – this one was quite keen to check us out
The evening dive was our choice – either do the full afternoon one again or a shortened version of it (which I chose because there was a cold wind blowing).
Jelly fish were out hunting
Shrimps were hiding in hard coral heads
and numerous sea urchins were out seeking food.
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