Scuba Diving in the shark infested Red Sea!

It was a swealtering morning, the temperature was rising slowly as the sun appeared higher in the vast blue sky, me and my brother Karl slowly approached the Red Sea on our way to a scubba diving session, a slight cool breeze was travelling up the Red sea but wasn't enough to stop the running sweat rolling down my face, the dive was in a hotel which sits on the rugged cliffs next to the sea, "are you Marcus and Karl" a tall bulky Egyptian man asked whilst presenting me with his hand in mid air, "yes we are, my name is Marcus and this is Karl" I replied with a firm hand shake and an overly excited smile, "great, are you ready to start?".

The gear was somewhat heavy and looked confusing with all the different watches you had to wear, one watch was for the amount of oxygen you have remaining in your tank and the second watch was to tell you what depth you are at once in the sea, the instructer was giving us a quick lecture about the different signs and signals we have to keep an eye out for before we were allowed to put the gear on, once the lecture finished my eyes were fixed on the gear me and Karl would have to wear, it is amazing to think that we would not sink to the bottom of the sea bed with all the weight of the gear, the large metal tanks alone were heavy enough causing your back to straighten to attention.

We made our first steps into the water but of course not the sea it was the smaller swimming pool of the hotel, we had to get used to the different hand signals from the instructor, the signals were quite intriguing, there were different signals for asking someone how much oxygen they have left as well as making sure that you are still stable, it took a while for me and Karl to get used to the signals as they all seemed similar, but once we got the hand of it we were ready we were both itching to get into the warm Red sea.

We walked along the top of a flimsy blue pontoon which was held afloat by barrels placed underneath, one my one we lowered ourselves into the water trying to stay above the waters edge, I looked into the goggles of Karl and could see the excitement through his eyes and then we were under, I was blinded by a blanket of air bubbles as we lowered our heads below the water away from the bright African sun light to the darker, quieter and tranqil water deep.

We slowly followed the edges of the rugged cliff moving our legs in slow motion, just as if we were in space with no gravity what so ever, we could see a wide viarity of plant life dotting the rocky crevesis of the land; white, pink, red, orange and green plant life were swaying to the gentle currents of the sea, it was truly a splendid sight to see.

The sun light beams into the sea bouncing off the rugged brown cliff face, but as I slowly turned around the water slowly became darker, when I turned completely around it was like looking towards complete blackbess which was spine chilling scary, my mind started to wonder about what fascinating and unnearving creatures that could be learking out in the darkness; about two weeks before I came to Egypt a British tourist was casually swimming out in these same very waters, only a few miles down the coast, he was unfortunately killed by a shark which took large chunks out of his body, similar stories happened in the weeks before him and now here I was swimming in those same waters, I don't know if it was me and my brother trying to be brave or if we had totally shrugged it off our sholders and thought it wouldn't happen to us but I am sure those other people would of thought the same thing.

A different array of fish swam past me as if we weren't there, some of the fish were stripped and others were spotted, it's strange that we share our world with the world of other animals, whilst we live in our big cities and tranquil villages the fishes of the Red sea have their own world, amongst the seaweed and coral, just as if it was their own cities.

Our oxygen tanks were now running low so it was time to leave this alien world and go back to ours, we pressed on our buttons which created bubbles to slowly push us up towards the surface, the water rushed passed us as if we were racing towards the light and all for a sudden I was looking up at the blue sky with birds gliding over head, it was as if I had come from one world and looking into another.

I wiped the water from my goggles and pulled myself up onto the plantoon, it felt weird to be able to move my limbs around freely again, as if the weight of the world had been lifted from my body, I looked back onto the open sea and wondered what other fascinating creatures are yet to be seen in that crystal blue water, one day I would come back and visit where I could get a true feeling for the world that lays underneath the waters of Egypt.