Coming Through!

The Red Sea, Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt

Touring Egypt 6: Whoa! What the heck was that!?!? I and my ubiquitous camera are cruising with my group at about 60 feet on a boat dive* at Woodhouse Reef in the Straits of Tiran (the Red Sea). I am drifting along taking photos (more will come in later posts) when suddenly something explodes out of the reef. Instinctively, I “pull the trigger” even as I duck and flinch way. A few seconds later, I am surrounded by bubbles as I laugh my air supply away. Another diver in my group had pointed at a seemingly random spot in the reef, so I drifted down and over to see what he was pointing out. Apparently, I was just one too many divers for the large pufferfish that had been trying to hide in a too-small hole in the reef. It suddenly made a break for it, sprinting out of its hole and flailing frantically down the reef, heading for the deep below us. Needless to say, I let the poor fish go. A diver quickly learns not to chase the fish. I was laughing too hard anyway.

(Canon Powershot G9 in an Ikelite case with two Ikelite DS-125 strobes set to TTL, integrated lens at 9.9mm, ISO 80, f/5.6, 1/60 sec.)

*In Sharm el-Sheikh I prefer to stay and dive at Camel Dive. Camel is a small and simple (but terrific) hotel in the center of Na’ama Bay, with one of Sharm’s premier dive operators right on the premises. It also has two great restaurants and the famous rooftop bar. The dive boats are great and crews and divemasters are terrific people: friendly, informative, entertaining, solicitous, and educational. Highly recommended.
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This entry was posted on Friday, August 28th, 2009 at 19:33 PM. It is filed under thePhotoTourist, Underwater and tagged with camel, Camel Dive, Egypt, fish, puffer fish, pufferfish, Red Sea, reef, Sharm, Sharm al-Shaykh, Sharm el-Sheikh, Straits of Tiran, Tiran, Tiran Straits, Underwater, Woodhouse, Woodhouse Reef. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.