Egypt, El Gouna

Egypt, El Gouna
September 1998

What can you expect from a town in the middle of nowhere, with lots and lots of sand and mountains on one side and water on the other side? You would be surprised! We were.

El Gouna is a resort town some 25 kilometers north of Hurghada on the Red Sea. A relatively new "town" (perhaps some four years old), although it doesn’t show, because El Gouna is made to look like an old Egyptian desert town with all the comforts of today. No high rise buildings, just a friendly little village. There is a choice in hotels for everyone and every budget, but our hotel "Dawar el Omda" (the "mayors house") was exactly right for us. Not too big (only 64 rooms), with a good restaurant, a nice swimming pool and a beautiful view of the lagune. A friendly staff completed the picture of "thousand and one night".

Opposite the Dawar el Omda is the TGI Diving Center Clubhouse. Here you’ll be picked up and transported to the marina, where good, solid and big boats are waiting to take you to the wonders under water. They have recently added a Pro 48 boat with three jetstream engines of some 375 PK each. This one will take you to the remotest (and unspoilt) divesites in no-time. And back, of course. The dive crew is great: all friendly, young, funloving and very enthousiastic people, who know what they are doing. They know how to make even more fun out of diving.

Although the sun was hot, the wind was refreshing, so you hardly noticed the 35 degrees Celcius. Water temperatures were excellent: some 29 degrees, with little or no current, good visibility and the waves didn’t spoil the fun. Despite the other wonders of Egypt (pyramids, sphinxes etc) we came here for one thing: diving. And the diving is good in Egypt. Very good. We saw.... no, we’re not going to give it away right away. Read on and you’ll find out soon enough.

Our first diving day started out at El Fanadir, a reef near Hurghada. Visibility was good and if this dive was going to be a forecast for the rest of the diving, we were in for some real treats.

We were greeted by a beautiful blue spotted stingray, just waiting to pose for a picture. Of course there were plenty of anthias around, as well as parrotfish and triggerfish. Suddenly everyone was getting very excited and pointed at a rock. There had to be something special there. But no matter how well I looked, I didn’t see what they were getting all excited about. It was just a rock or... no, just a rock. I thought. But I didn’t quite trust my own eyes and remained near the rock, just to be sure that it was a rock. Which, of course, it wasn’t. It happened to be a big, ugly stonefish (I know all creatures are supposed to be beautiful, but that doesn’t mean that everyone is fit to be a model). And I mean really big! How could it be that I completely overlooked it?!? Our second dive was at Erg Abunugar, somewhat back towards El Gouna. This time visibility was even better and this time I spotted another member of the family of scorpionidae, a small scorpionfish, "walking" along on the sand. Which was, of course, why I spotted it right away, for his (or her) camouflage didn’t work as well in the sand as it would have on the reef. And you know morays, always breathing with a wide open mouth? Right, until Ruud comes along with his camera to take a picture of a yellowmouth moray. Then it closes its mouth and refuses to open it again. But determination and patience, a lot of it, finally paid off.

The next day we dived at Siyul Kebira and Siyul Soraya. Beautiful spots with lots and lots and lots of glass fish, anthias, red sea bannerfish, several beautiful two bar anemonefish. At these sites we encountered the magnificent napoleonfish, two of them. They really look like submarines (with a little bit of imagination they do), the way they seem to "glide" silently and motionless through the waters with those impressive bodies. And here we saw our very first carpet flathead, better known as crocodile fish. They really do look like crocodiles!

On our third diving day we were taken to Gubal Island, to the sites of Gubal Kebira and Gubal Soraya. Here, at our first dive at Gubal Kebira, we witnessed a wedding proposal! Our dear friend Cees decided that, after being together for ten years, it was time to make a respectable man out of himself and he proposed to Alice, at a depth of 15.8 meters. Alice was startled of course, and almost made an unvoluntary emergency ascend! But of course she said YES wholeheartedly.
Wedding proposal

At Gubal Soraya the visibility was not good (about 12-15 meters), but it was a great dive anyway: a big Napoleon, a big humpbacked scorpionfish, crocodile fish, several lionfish (Indian and clearfin, in various sizes), thousands of glassfish, nudibranches, you name it, we saw it.

The next day there wouldn’t be any diving. We had planned a day of rest anyway, but the other divers came back due to weather circumstances: the wind was strong with big waves and on land there was a sand storm going on. They would have been game for seasickness and bad visibility. We found a spot in the sun where we wouldn’t be tortured too much by the sand, ate and drank to our heart’s content and just enjoyed a relaxed day.

Luckily for us the weather had improved the next day. This was going to be a memorable day for us, for today we would make our 100th dive! At El Fanadir. Although it wasn’t easy getting in (the boat moared in the lagune and we had to swim through the surge over the very shallow water across the reef to get to the wall-side) it was worth it. We encountered two octopusses and witnessed the various colorchanges while they were "cruising" the terrain.
Octopus

What a remarkable sight! One moment they were nearly black with whitish spots, the next moment they were greyish, greenish, brownish, all in an eyewink! And it’s always interesting to see fish go to the "carwash"; this time it were bright yellow goatfish being cleaned by cleaner wrasses. And seeing a bluespotted stingray have dinner is exciting too, not to mention being "chased" away by a twobar anemonefish while coming too close to their homestead. But nothing exceeded our 101st dive. The location: Ras Abu Gawala. A place we’ll never forget. Suddenly, out of the blue, came a big grey shadow, right behind me. Ruud was taking pictures below, Cees and Alice were way in front of me and I was nervously trying to get everyone’s attention. The big grey shadow was a big bottlenosed dolphin, at no more than eight meters distance!!

It didn’t seem scared, it swam right towards the rest of our group. Luckily it caught the attention of the others too (can you image otherwise, getting back on board, telling about the dolphin you saw and everyone with looks of disbelief and contempt?!?). But it got better: the dolphin swam away, just to return a few moments later with mother and child!!! I wonder how much air you would have consumed at that particular time! The bigger dolphin escorted the mother and child, slowly and unafraid. We thougth that was it and we were absolutely satisfied. But we were in for a surprise. Just a few moments later the bigger one returned and starting swimming with us, checking out each buddy pair at a time. It stayed with us for at least eight to ten minutes, giving all of us the opportunity to check out how beautiful he (or she) was and to enjoy its "smiling" face and then finally swam away. A moment we will always remember and cherish.

Although we knew nothing could top this dive, we decided to dive again next day. At Poseidon Reef, a beautiful reef with a very old and impressive coral garden. Not too many fish around, but lots and lots of scallops and giant clams in various sizes and with colors varying from light blue to deep purple. Plenty of nudibranches, christmas tree worms and even a wonderful fan worm. Our last dive was to take place at Shaab El Erg, nicknamed Dolphin’s House, but although the name would give the impression of dolphins being around, we didn’t see them. We did see a big turtle, though, and some jellyfish and I must admit that, although I’m not a big fan of jellyfish, they look magnificent and serene.

In short: El Gouna is a great place to be, quiet and peaceful and without the "hassle" of Hurghada. The diving is great. El Gouna is a big "do" on our list and we will surely return.

All pictures on this page are made by Ruud Koster with a Nikonos V camera, 35 mm standardobjective, Sunpak 3200 flash, Ikelite 5002 vieuwfinder and Fuji 200 ASA film.

1999 Barbados, Holetown/St. James

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