Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt

We were fortunate enough to be able to spend Thanksgiving week in sunny, warm Egypt. We traveled to the southern tip of the Sinai Peninsula and spent a week diving and enjoying the sunshine. We arrived on Sunday morning November 23rd at about 3:30am. The hotel welcomed us with fresh fruit juices and wanted us to relax in the lobby - all we wanted to do was go to sleep. It was such a late night. We ended up getting to sleep around 4 or 4:30am.

Here is the entrance to The Grand Hotel - our resort for the week.

This is a picture of the resort looking toward the sea. If you look carefully you can see Tiran Island on the horizon - which is part of Saudi Arabia

The resort by night


Sunday we slept in and then hit the beach for a day of relaxation in the sunshine. Our resort was beautiful and the beach was great for our first day. It was about 80 degrees F and sunny the whole week.
This is the beach at the resort


Monday through Wednesday we went diving to get open water dive certified. We are now officially hooked on diving. The first day was a little touch and go because I had never been swimming in salt water and had never worn a wet suit, fins, or gone snorkeling before. Our confined water sessions (where we learned and demonstrated skills) were actually done in the sea so it was a little more difficult than being in a pool. We also got to see some fantastic tropical fish during our confined water dives too. We did a total of four open water dives and got to go down to 18 meters. The last two were done at the Hilton Sharks Bay off of a jetti (pictured below) and the reef was incredible. We saw lion fish, clown fish, a blue spotted sting ray, clown fish, angel fish, trumpeter fish, and many, many more.
Our dive shop for the week - Sinai Dive Club

Getting ready for open water dive 2

Prepping BCDs

Stapping on the BCDs

All ready to go, minus fins and masks

Dive site for our confined water dives and open water dives 1 and 2

Dive shop at Hilton Sharks bay - our dive shop for the final day

Dive site for open water dives 3 and 4

When we got back to our room on a couple of the days, Ahmed, our housekeeper had made these cool things for us on our bed.


The view from our balcony


We went to visit the Old Market area of Sharm the day after we got dive certified. It was a crazy area with all of the shop-keepers trying to talk to us and convince us to come into their shops. It is actually pretty overwhelming. The highlights of the trip included Phil haggling with a 12 year old for a scuba mask and seeing a camel.
Entrance to the Old Market

A view from the top

"The Gauntlet" as we called it... a narrow walkway between shops which we did not brave for fear of being cornered into looking at every shop. The shop on the right is where Phil's bargaining skills shined when he bought a scuba mask for 35 Egyptian pounds (about $5)

Camel!

More shops - most of them had the same things - hookahs, scarves, women's clothing, souveniers


Here are some neat things we saw while in Egypt - and some familiar sites as well

An owl perched on a building across from us while we were having dinner

American products with Arabic writing

McDelivery scooters

Starbucks in English and Arabic

Gas pump. The large van shuttle filled up with 43 liters and the driver paid 50 Egyptian pounds or about $9!

Fish on ice outside a seaside restaurant - doesn't look appetizing to me

They had Mountain Dew in Egypt, much to our surprise. Phil was very happy!

Outside the resort area, there is basically just desert and mountains. Peace Road is the main road in the Na'ama Bay area.

Here is what it looks like outside the resorts. The area only gets about 4 days of rain per year, and it is more like a drizzle, so nothing grows beyond the heavily watered areas around the tourist streets, resorts, and some residential areas.


Our second to last day we spent the day on the beach again relaxing. Phil went snorkeling as well. The last day was pretty uneventful because he got the Pharoh's revenge and spent the day in bed recovering.

Phil getting ready to snorkel off the beach at the resort

Phil in the water riding the waves and checking out the fish

It was really windy this day - check out the waves!


Our vacation was fantastic and we are looking forward to the next opportunity we will have to go diving. Phil's busy season is starting up next week so we will have to wait a few months to travel again. Thankfully we were able to enjoy the perfect weather for seven days.

Here are the links to all of our pictures on Facebook if you want to see more.
Album 1
Album 2

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