Wednesday, 7 November 2012

Dives 14 & 15 – Gota Abu Ramada

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.

Hurghada 304 Hurghada 350Hurghada 349  Hurghada 351 Hurghada 352 Hurghada 353 Hurghada 354 Hurghada 355 Hurghada 356 Hurghada 357 Hurghada 358 Hurghada 359

and to finish off (apart from fruit) was

Hurghada 360

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

AbuRamadaGota

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

GAR Fish

GAR Sweetlips

there were large shoals of sweetlips

GAR Sand Goby

lots of sand gobies were

GAR Sand Goby-001

seeking to hide from us

GAR Potatoe Coda very well camouflaged potato grouper was sitting on rocks of the same colour

GAR Moary

an enormous Moray had its head out of a coral

GAR Moray

coral block – all 2 metres of it were later seen swimming around looking for somewhere quiet and away from divers.

GAR Masked Butterfly

Many Masked Butterfly fish were simply hanging around over the coral

GAR Lionfish

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).

GAR Sponge

Jelly fish were out hunting

GAR Shrimp

Shrimps were hiding in hard coral heads

GAR Sea Urchin
and numerous sea urchins were out seeking food.

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