Sharm El Sheikh ~ Diving Wrap Up

Good morning! This post is the sixth in a series of posts about our incredible trip to Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt in 2012! To start over at the beginning, click here!

Camel ride on the beach (as seen from our dive boat) - such a quintessential Egypt photo!

Last time we were heading for the third and final dive of the day, being escorted by a school of dolphins! (Yes, that does sound like a fairy tale, but I promise it happened - we have video evidence!) The journal entries pick up at that point in the story, so without further ado:

Tuesday 3 July 2012

9:27

When we reached the Naama Bay marina, we left with Chris, who walks every night from the marina to his hotel, and we hit the Starbucks! We picked up our Sharm el Sheikh mug - the MOST expensive mug we've ever purchased, ringing up at a whopping 125 £. E. ($24!!!)

Last night we met a cute couple from Hungary while we were attempting to use the Internet in the lobby. They are very friendly, and although I do not remember their names, we may be spending our off day with them tomorrow.

18:31

Today was our last day of diving, and we finished our trip on the Shorouk again (really a very nice boat captained by a man named Nasser) with Roger and Ryan as our guides. No one was taking courses on our boat today, so all of the dives were pleasure dives.

Ryan briefing us on Gordon Reef

We were back in Tiran, and our first dive of the morning was on Gordon Reef. We jumped in the second group with Ryan as our guide. Unfortunately for us, the first group jumped right over a group of eagle rays that stayed with them for about ten minutes. Even though we didn't see that, we still had a lovely dive. There were tons of anthias again, parrotfish chomping on coral, and loads of blue-green, red-toothed trigger fish. Over one section of reef, I saw one of those things that look like muppet lips that close when you wave your hand over them like a clam...I'm not sure what they're called, but they're super cool, and this one was huge! There was a wreck on Gordon Reef in 1981 that dropped a bunch of barrels of tar. They are mostly empty, but a few of them still leak from time to time. It's interesting to look inside the barrels to see what's taken up residence inside them. At the end of the dive, we were over a beautiful coral garden. We saw a crocodile fish resting under a large table coral, and Austin spotted a black-tipped grouper tucked up under a little outcropping.

trigger fish, crocodile fish, "muppet lips"

There was a gentleman who lives in Switzerland whose name is Stephan on the boat today, and he helped us find the names of most of these fishes in his fish book. I really want a fish book, but I think I'm going to order one off the Internet which should be considerably cheaper. We found out later in the day that he lives between Lausanne and Geneva.

image credit

Our second dive, and our last dive of this trip, was on Woodhouse Reef (we were hoping to get to the north side of Jackson Reef where the hammerheads have been spotted recently, but conditions weren't favorable). However, Woodhouse was a GREAT last dive. For this dive, we jumped as one big group. It was full drift, so we didn't have to fin hardly at all, and about ten minutes into the dive a huge green sea turtle swam right through the middle of our group! We also saw several of the baby spotted rays. Chris, who has been with us for all five dive days, took a picture of us underwater together, and he's promised to e-mail it to us!

Underwater family picture ;) - courtesy of our new friend Chris!

After that dive we packed up our crates, and basically lazed around the boat for the rest of the day. Austin's back was really hurting, so while everyone else was on their third dive I gave him a short massage.

21:00

When we got back to Naama Bay, Chris made a point to say goodbye to us before he walked to his hotel to meet his daughter.

We checked out and packed up our equipment at the center, then hopped our transfer back to the hotel. We were very satisfied with our Emperor Divers experience, and happy to be done with our first five-day dive trip ever! We're tired, but we had a good time, and we feel more and more comfortable every time we dive! We're also very pleased with how our equipment performed! Everything works like a charm. My BCD is a little smidge big, but it does the job.

23:01

Dinner was just like normal. We had ice cream for the second night in a row!

After dinner we came back to the room and hung up all of our scuba equipment. Now everything will (hopefully) be clean and dry to pack for our flight home.

A view of our hotel from the dive boat!

Entertainment started around 21:00. It was pretty lame. They had a dude that ate fire and laid on broken glass and balanced on the sharp end of swords and stuff. Then at the end they tried to get everyone to dance, and it just ended up being really awkward. The guy with the microphone said "Yo, yo, yo, yo!" and "Sexy!" a lot. Not as a part of a sentence, just "Sexy!"

The "Animation Team" was also plugging a big beach party down at the Melia Sharm, so we walked all the way down there only to discover that it cost $12/person to buy a ticket to the beach party (something the animation folks had forgotten to mention). More lameness.

That's it for the dive logs! The rest of the story is pretty much a polar opposite from diving, but still pretty exciting! You won't want to miss it!

His,

To see a list of ALL of our travel stories, in chronological order, click here!

Holiday Weekend Spontaneity

Hello and Happy Tuesday! Hope you all are doing well!

We've had several posts about our Sharm el-Sheikh trip recently, and there's some more to that story to come; however, I wanted to fill you in on our most recent adventure! We had a really fun, spontaneous getaway over Fourth of July weekend!

For the week or so leading up to the Fourth, we had talked about going somewhere, done some research, and looked into different places to stay within driving distance, but we hadn't finalized any plans. We went down to our neighbors' for some sparklers and fireworks on Thursday night and were there pretty late! So we slept in on Friday, not really thinking that we were going to be doing anything too elaborate for the weekend.

A realtor had scheduled a showing for Friday afternoon, so we spent the morning prepping the house and skedaddled out of there with the dog shortly before her scheduled appointment. Unfortunately, the realtor ended up canceling . . . an HOUR after her scheduled appointment time . . . so needless to say, we were frustrated about having to unnecessarily waste so much of the first day of our long weekend.

Since it was our first Independence Day in Florida, we didn't really know where we wanted to go for a fireworks celebration. After a little Internet research, we decided to take advantage of our Sea World season passes and go down there for their Fourth of July festivities!

We got down to Sea World around 6pm and enjoyed a couple of rides that we hadn't yet experienced. The big event that we were excited for was the last Shamu show of the night: Shamu's Celebration: Light Up The Night! So we made our way over to Shamu Stadium at around 6:45 (the show didn't start until 8:15). It was good that we went so early because the line was already rather substantial.

They started letting us in around 7:30, and we were able to score some pretty sweet seats dead center in the splash zone!

The show was very good, I always really enjoy seeing the animals and trainers interact! The grand finale was incredible with all five humongous whales moving in beautiful synchronicity along with fireworks exploding behind them! I was fortunate enough to get some fun video:

After the final Shamu Show, they put on a big concert after which they had their huge fireworks, but we decided to beat the crowd out of the park and left while the fireworks were going on. We made it home rather late and slept in again on Saturday!

Saturday morning we were just bumming around the house when Austin said, "Let's go to the Keys!"

So we quickly packed for a potential overnight (including everything we would need to "car camp" just in case we couldn't find a hotel), got Hallie and her stuff loaded, and headed out! From the time Austin had the idea to the time we were on the road was about an hour!

Since we had never been down to the Keys before, we decided to go for broke and go all the way down to Key West, which is about six hours from home for us. We weren't in a hurry, and it was a beautiful day! We had packed snacks so we ate those for our lunch, and we stopped a little bit before Miami at a Chick-fil-A to take advantage of our July calendar-card freebie: a free hand-spun shake! (We bought four calendars in December, so we each have two cards, which means we each enjoy the freebie twice a month.)

We thoroughly enjoyed the scenic drive south, and arrived at the southernmost point of the United States around 5pm. The point is marked with a large monument, and it is apparently a very popular spot! So popular, in fact, that there was a very long line to get your picture taken in front of the monument. Rather than wait in that line, we sat on a little bench a little bit to the side of the monument and got a selfie that way, so please pay no attention to the Indian family that is photobombing our southernmost point photo! :P

Austin & Katy at the Southernmost Point in the United States!

After seeing the southernmost point of the US, we made our way to the Higgs Beach Dog Park for Hallie to run off some steam and use the bathroom. There were a few other dogs there playing, so she had a great time! The park is a great size and has a water station and shaded tables for humans. There's a small dogs only section, and an area for the larger dogs to rough house! The only frustrating thing about this park is that the beach that is adjacent to the dog park is not open to dogs!

Hallie playing at the Higgs Beach Dog Park

Hallie is a great little traveler, and she always does great in the car! This trip was no exception! She's also crazy popular everywhere we go! I find that few people have ever seen a dog that looks exactly like her - she's a Basenji/Golden Retriever mix, and she's this gorgeous copper color with a fluffy tail that curls over her back when she's excited, and her face often looks like she's smiling!

Me & the Hallie girl

After the dog park it was about sunset hour, so we made our way over to Mallory Square Dock to take it in! Mallory Square Dock is in the heart of old Key West. It's surrounded by old shops and museums and restaurants, and it hosts Sunset Celebration, "Key West's premier nightly arts festival!". Sunset is the key time of day for this attraction, and the square is very busy! Street food vendors, fortune tellers, and souvenir sellers set up all along the edge of the sidewalk, and the whole place takes on a celebratory air! Even though it was pretty crowded, Austin was able to get this gorgeous shot of the sunset!

The last stop of the night was a late dinner at Outback Steakhouse! Austin had received a gift card, and he had also figured out how to leave the Prius on but lock it at the same time so that Hallie would be in a comfortable, climate-controlled environment while we enjoyed our dinner! (He's so smart!)

After dinner, we decided to make our way back north. We wanted to get back to the mainland so as not to get caught in the wave of holiday travelers that would be making their way back in the morning, so as Austin drove, I looked for a hotel that would welcome the three of us (including the dog) -- which is harder than you would initially imagine! Thankfully we found a nice La Quinta Inn & Suites just outside of Miami! Not only do La Quintas welcome pets, they also do not charge a fee to have one in the room! (Some of the hotels we called were charging up to $75 fees to "accommodate" a dog in the room! That's stinking highway robbery! The dog should get their own room for that price! Sorry, rant ended.)

We made it to the hotel a little bit after 2am, checked in, and settled in for the short night. We enjoyed the complimentary breakfast in the morning, and set off for our next adventure!

Hallie loved the hotel!

Side note: Hallie loved staying in the hotel! It was her first time - and we didn't bring the kennel, so we were a little nervous, but she did great! She did hide between the chair and the mirror while we were at breakfast, but she ate and drank and didn't get into anything or make any messes! She is such a good dog!

Our plan for Sunday morning was to drive through the Everglades -- another quintessential Florida adventure that we hadn't yet experienced! (Which was a big part of why we decided to stay just south of Miami, near Homestead where the entrance to the main road through the park is.)

There is a fee of $10 to enter the park, and from the moment you arrive they start warning you about the mosquitos. Seriously. There's a blinky sign on the front of the pay-station point that says, "Mosquito Risk: High." The first stop inside the park was the visitor's center to have a quick look around and grab a map. In the parking lot we saw a mother and son applying bug repellent, and they asked if we had been attacked yet. This did not bode well. Once inside we picked up our map and asked the helpful guide for some basic highlights and information. She gave us some pointers on the map and she too was quick to advise bug repellent!

We got back in the car and started down the road that leads through the park. Unlike some of the other national parks that we have been to, the road doesn't go all the way through the park and come out on the other side; it ends at the ocean, and to leave the park you have to turn around and drive all the way back the way you came. (It's approximately 45 miles one way.)

Gator!

We did drive the whole road from Ernest F. Coe Visitor Center to Flamingo where the other visitor center/museum is located. We got out of the car a total of three times for a combined time of no more than fifteen minutes. The first stop was Royal Palm where the guide had told us we would be most likely to see alligators. We were not disappointed as there was one chilling in the water just feet from the boardwalk! The second place we stopped was Long Pine Key. They had a little picnic area, and Hallie was allowed to get out there, so we leashed her and sat and looked at the lake for a minute. Literally, about a minute was all it took for the mosquitos to swarm, so we hightailed it back into the car. Our third and final stop was at the Flamingo Visitors' Center. This spot was reportedly the best for seeing crocodiles and manatees, though we didn't see either. There was a small, rather bizarre museum that looked like it hadn't been updated since the seventies. There also used to be a restaurant at Flamingo, but it apparently sustained some damage during a hurricane in 2010 and has yet to be repaired and reopened. The whole visitors' center had a deserted feel to it that was a little bit creepy. When we got back to the car we had to go on a killing spree and smash the nearly twenty mosquitos that had weaseled their way into the vehicle when we opened the doors.

Needless to say, we probably won't be returning to the Everglades any time soon. We love national and state parks (in fact, our third anniversary trip was an incredible road trip through Yosemite, Grand Tetons, Mount Rushmore, etc.), but this one seemed somewhat repetitive as far as terrain was concerned, and the facilities were all rather run down and outdated. But it's one thing that can be checked off of our "Florida Bucket List!"

In summary, we LOVED the Keys and will definitely be making a return trip, but next time we'll skip the Everglades! ;)

The rest of the drive home was rather uneventful. We listened to The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (the Focus on the Family Radio Theatre version), I read out loud from one of our sailing books, and we enjoyed a fabulous lunch at Chipotle at about the halfway point!

All in all, it was a great weekend filled with spontaneous and unexpected adventure! That's one of my favorite things about sharing life with Austin -- he's always up for anything, and he often has some pretty incredible ideas and the determination to make them happen!

How did you celebrate Independence Day this year?

Thanks for stopping by!

To see a list of ALL of our travel stories, in chronological order, click here!

Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt ~ Tiran & Dolphins

Good morning! This post is the fifth in a series of posts about our incredible trip to Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt in 2012! To start over at the beginning, click here!

Part four ended with us learning about the Thistlegorm wreck. Although we didn't get to dive there on this trip to Sharm, the rest of our diving adventures were pretty exciting, so let's get back to them!

My journal entries pick up again the next morning!

Sunday 1 July 2012

8:54

It's a good thing we were looking forward to showers and dinner, because that was really all we did last night before going to bed! :) We were in bed "watching TV" by 19:45!

This morning was the same pattern: up at 6:30, packed and ready for the day, breakfast by 7:00, lunches picked up and waiting for the bus by 7:30.

The huge school of silver fish yesterday were definitely snappers, and the brightly colored, stripey fish are trigger fish. I think I've been getting those confused with parrotfish, although we have seen some parrotfish, too.

Today we're on a boat called the Empress Shorouk. According to our guide, Kirstie again today, the boat is named after the captain's daughter Shorouk.

image credit

We're going to Tiran today, and it's about an hour and a half boat ride to get there. From our first day of diving we've been in the same group with four British folks. Three of them are traveling together: Mick, John & Michelle. John & Michelle are married, and Mick seems to be their long-time friend. Mick's wife passed away two years ago. He and Austin had a nice long talk one day, and "swapped stories." The other British gentleman is called Chris.

13:45

Everybody's eating lunch and resting now. We've had our two morning dives in Tiran.

The first dive was on Gordon Reef. There are four pinnacle reefs in Tiran named after the four original British cartographers who first mapped the area. Gordon Reef was supposed to be a semi-drift dive, but it ended up being a moored dive for us because I went through my air so quickly. We did see a huge eagle ray, a manta ray, and lots of brightly colored wrasses. Along with butterfly fish and the smaller angel fish. While we were doing our safety stop, we saw more of the small white fish with three vertical dark gray stripes (sergeant fish), and some beautiful turquoise-colored fish with very frilly fins and tails. We finished our ascent and came up, both of us over 60 bar. We were both pretty frustrated at such a short dive (only 34 minutes), so we ordered 15 liter tanks for tomorrow's dives.

eagle ray, fairy wrasse, clown fish

After a nice surface interval we steamed up to Jackson Reef. On our way there were a few dolphins riding our wake - maybe four or five. We hopped in over Jackson and made our descent. It was another beautiful coral wall and there were huge schools of the fish that look like goldfish and among them were some more purple/orange fish. Again lots of the wrasses. The current was very strong, and we ended up flipping around at one point and letting it drift us along the wall. During the drift we saw one of those long, skinny silver fish with a pointy nose (I've got to find out what those are called, too) and a brilliant green anemone with clown fish darting in and out of it. The current was REALLY strong, and we had to fight against it to get back to the mooring line. We were still the first ones up, but only by about three minutes, and or air consumption was about equal (however, to be fair, Austin did push me for a little way to conserve my air, and he had about 4 bar more than I did when we came out).

Kirstie briefing us on Jackson Reef

John and Michelle were close behind us, and the rest of the crew not long after them. We decided to forego he third dive, another local dive on the way back to Naama Bay, and packed our kit back into our boxes. We will be on this same boat tomorrow to go back to Ras Mohammed. Hopefully we will have favorable currents, and we'll get longer dives with the larger tanks.

As we were steaming away from Tiran, the captain started sounding his horn and hollering that there were dolphins around. We went downstairs and ran to the sun deck in the bow. Directly in front of us on the right hand side was a mama dolphin with her little baby! They swam alongside us for 5-10 minutes, and after a bit the big daddy dolphin joined them! When they swam off, the captain announced that lunch was ready. In the time it took everyone to load their plates there was a whole school of dolphins congregating out in front of us. We got up to them and counted between 15 and 20. Some off the port side, five or six off the bow and about eleven behind! It was pretty incredible!

Mama dolphin with her baby!

Now we're lazily motoring towards the local dive site Kirstie has chosen for the final dive of the day, and Austin and I are planning for a nice, long nap while the others dive (Austin has already started his ;D).

17:34

The fishes that look like goldfish are called anthias. The purpley ones that school with them are actually anthias, too! Crazy!

Well, there you have it! Four of our five diving days are behind us! Still to come: sharks, camels, and bedouins, oh my! Be sure to come back for the rest of the story!

His,

To see a list of ALL of our travel stories, in chronological order, click here!

Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt ~ Deep Blue Adventures

Hello again! You've landed on the third post in a series about our 2012 trip to Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt! To start back at the beginning, click here!

At the end of the second post, we had caught the dive company's shuttle to our first day of diving! The reason we had come to Sharm El Sheikh at all was to go SCUBA diving in the Red Sea. A gentleman that we met at Disneyland Paris had told us that one of the most amazing places to dive in the world was Sharm El Sheikh, and from that point Austin had been doing a ton of research about it and had "liked" Emperor Divers on Facebook.

Then, one day while surfing Facebook, Austin saw that they were having a buy one get one free dive trip sale, which is an incredible deal! Without much hesitation, he booked a five-day, ten-dive package (and thus got one free), so we built our vacation around diving with Emperor!

image credit

Saturday 30 June 2012

10:03

Our first day of diving went fairly well. We were on the boat called the Delphinus, and our guides were Elise and Saad with Jonathan teaching an AOWD class.

image credit

We did what they call "local" dives. Our first dive site was called Ras Katy (which is so cool!). I went through my air really fast and that dive was only about 35 minutes for us. The boat was doing three dives, but our package only covered two (the third would have been an extra 20€ per person), so we skipped the second dive which was on a site called Temple and snorkeled instead.

There was a Swedish family on the boat whose six-year-old came along for the ride. His parents took turns watching him and alternated so they both got to dive throughout the day. The mother, Susanna, and the little boy, Kasper, were on the boat while we were as well as a family from the Netherlands. We snorkeled for about 30 minutes and ate our sack lunches that the hotel had packed for us.

When the rest of the crew came in, they ate their lunch and we waited while they completed their surface interval. Then we moved on to our final dive site of the day, Ras Umm Sid. R.U.S. was a gentle drift dive and we saw some really fun fish against a coral reef wall. Lion fish, angel fish, zebra fish, sergeant fish, parrot fish, the huge schools of these tiny little silvery/turquoise fish and lots of fish that look like gold fish. Austin also saw a big Moray eel and a huge manta ray. Air consumption went much better that time, and my dive was exactly 45 minutes.

image credit

Following that third and final dive, we packed up our gear into the crates provided by Emperor and labeled with our names while the boat chugged back to Naama Bay.

Since we were to be diving on the same boat, the Delphinus, the next day, all of our gear remained on board and we just took the small backpack back to the center with us. Back at the dive center we waited for about half an hour for the transfers to start back to the hotels.

On the dock in Naama Bay!

Susanna was an underwater photographer, and in the bus on the way back she mentioned that they may have gotten some good pictures of us! She gave us her husband's business card so that we could get in touch via e-mail. I'm really excited to see how they turned out!

We got a new key when we reached reception, requested a lunch box for the next day and tried to explain that we wanted more food. The man at reception recommended that we speak to guest relations, and the petite, blonde Russian woman who worked in guest relations told us that we needed to speak with the head of food and beverage, but he wasn't in yet.

16:17

At that point, we went back to the room, Austin showered and we went back to the restaurant for dinner. After dinner we met with the head of F&B and he was incredibly accommodating. He basically let us special order whatever we wanted and arranged to meet with us every evening after dinner to make sure the lunches were sufficient! Pretty amazing! With that sorted, we retired to our room (by way of the bar where we watched the bar tender make a fake beer for a little girl by creatively mixing several different sodas together). I showered and we washed out our salty swimming clothes and we went to bed around 21:00.

Our comfortable room!

Saturday morning, June 30th, we were up, packed and ready to go, and eating breakfast by 7:00! We refilled waters, grabbed our sack lunches (which one of the kitchen workers, Mohammed, proudly told us he had made personally at 6:00 :D) and waited for the bus to pick us up in front of the hotel.

While we were waiting, two other similar buses came to retrieve other people from our hotel. The first was obviously not going diving, and when I asked the driver of the second if we were on his list, he said, "I have one Russian, ma'am. You are English."

We had a pretty good chuckle over that, at which point I began exercising my Russian vocabulary to Austin. Many of the guards were apparently on break at the same time, and one of them came over and greeted us in Russian. Eventually we got around to the point that we are from Germany*. Obviously, the only topic of conversation to have with a German is EuroCup football. Around that point, the Emperor bus arrived and we were on our way back to the Dive center.

Being our second day, we knew the drill and checked in with our boat crew. We were on the Delphinus again but our guides had switched to Kirstie, and Jonathan had a couple of AOWD details to finish up, but he kind of doubled as the second guide.

Kirstie and another diver preparing to enter the water!

Our first dive of the day was on a site called Ras Burg. It was a full drift dive with a fairly swift current. We popped into the water, our group was led by Kirstie and we went in first. We made our descent (no ear problems at all! Praise the Lord!) and the very first thing we saw was a huge manta ray - like he was our welcoming committee :) We saw a lot more of those tiny silver fish in the big schools (which I did learn the name of today and then promptly forgot again), and some large parrot fish. The dive was next to a coral wall that dropped down 800 meters! There were also some bat fish, but I didn't see them.

lion fish, angel fish, zebra fish, sergeant fish, parrot fish, fusiliers, anthias, moray eel, manta ray
(from top to bottom, left to right)

We managed a 41 minute dive despite me sucking down air like someone three times my size, but we were the first divers back to the boat. We switched our kit while the deck was empty and headed upstairs to await the rest of the group. They came in and we had a significant surface interval (close to two hours). Lots of chatting and napping in the sunshine. Austin and I had lunch part one. About an hour into the interval the boat crew served everyone else their lunch, we napped a little more and them we got briefed on the second dive.

image credit

Our second and final dive of the day was on a site called Shark & Yolanda. We were with Jonathan's group for that dive, and jumped in second. The current was considerable, but we tucked in tight next to the reef wall and dropped down with the Shark reef on our right side. We descended into a HUGE school of medium-sized silver fish (snappers I think) and made our way along the reef wall at about 15m depth. We saw a lot of butterfly fish and the fish that look like goldfish and one big moray eel on that wall. When we got to the saddle, Jonathan tried to fin around and up it, but the current was too strong. After a couple of minutes, he turned us around and we headed to the back side of Shark which was a fairly shallow (about 8m) coral garden. We saw a TON of unicorn fish an a couple of big stone fish. When we got around the far side of Yolanda we met up with the first group an saw a bit of the wreck for which the reef is named. We didn't get to see very much of it before we were being led around the front of Yolanda reef. Another big school of snappers, lots of butterfly fish and our second big moray eel, and by that time I was out of air. I go through air considerably more quickly than Austin does, and that really frustrates him because it shortens his dives even though he isn't out of air.

butterfly fish, stone fish, snappers, unicorn fish

Now we're headed back to the Naama Bay Marina. Tomorrow we're going to be diving Tiran. Looking forward to showers and dinner :)

17:23

They're fusiliers! The ones we've seen have been the Lunar fusiliers (silver with the blue/turquoise sheen) the Suez fusiliers have a darker blue stripe between their dorsal fin and their tail. Interesting fact about the fusiliers: they always point into the current!

I hope you enjoyed this installment in the Sharm El Sheikh series! I'd love to hear what you like, what you don't like, what you'd like to see more of, and what you're seeing too much of in these posts! Please let me know in the comments!

His,

*NOTE: At this time, we were living in Germany. It was also not a super-safe time to be an American in Egypt (the week after we were there an American man was kidnapped). The dive company listed us as "British" on all of their paperwork, and it was safer for us to be identified as either British or German in all public situations. Thankfully most people who do not speak English as their primary language don't immediately recognize the difference in accent between American English speakers and others.

Click here to read part 4!

To see a list of ALL of our travel stories, in chronological order, click here!

Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt ~ Relocation and True Beginning

Welcome back! This post is the second in a series of posts about our 2012 trip to Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt! To start back at the beginning, click here!

At the end of the last journal entry, Austin was on the phone with hotels.com. Again. And I had just discovered ants in our hotel room! I didn't get a chance to update the journal again until the next evening:

Friday 29 June 2012

17:46

Wow! Long break between journaling on a day when A LOT happened! Let me explain, no there is too much. Let me sum up:

image credit>

We spent about an hour and a half looking for a different hotel, and ended up finding an amazing deal on a Melia! (You'll remember we stayed at a Melia in Cozumel in 2009) Unfortunately that deal was on hotels4you.com and was more than a thousand dollars less than Hotels.com's price. We were afraid that Hotels.com wouldn't back us up with our cancellation at Sol Y Mar if we booked through someone else, so we booked on Hotels.com hoping they would do a price match. Hotels.com really didn't like the idea of a price match in excess of $1,000, but they let us cancel that booking, honored their cancellation assistance, and gave us $250 for our trouble, and we booked the Melia through the other site.

Throughout this whole process we spent a considerable amount of time on the phone with Hotels.com - always calling their international collect number. This is important later in the story.

We headed to reception to check out (probably one of the shortest recorded hotel stays in history!), and the desk manager looked at our charges (we knew we would have to pay for Internet time), and his eyebrows shot up to about his hairline.

"You made many International calls?" He asked us.

We explained that we had called an international collect number, but apparently they registered in the hotel's system as international calls - running up a bill of more than $450 in international phone charges!

image credit

I sat on those ^^^ steps and cried while Austin attempted to Skype Hotels.com from the iPad. He managed to connect long enough to ask someone to call the hotel, then he explained the problem and e-mailed them a picture of the bill (which thankfully detailed the number proving that it wasn't our error). They promised to reimburse us in full. We paid the bill and walked out to the street (past the guard shack) to hail a taxi.

The guard helped us flag down a taxi and we got into the cab of the first driver who would accept 30 E.£ to take us to our new hotel, the Melia Sinai.

At one point the driver got a phone call, then a short time later we were pulling over in a more residential area next to three of his Bedouin buddies. (I don't know if they were actually Bedouin, I just like the alliteration.) He stopped the taxi, handed one of the three - who were peering into the back seat at us through the open passenger-side window and smiling creepily at us - a plastic grocery sack. At that point he suggested that we switch from his marked blue and white taxi to a large white van that was parked there. Austin said an unequivocal, "No!", and, in spite of the driver's best persuasion attempts, insisted that we move on to the hotel right away.

20:32

Notwithstanding that frightening episode, we made it to our new hotel safely (holding the door locks locked the whole way)! And in time for dinner!

A welcome oasis!
image credit

We checked in, called the dive center to inform them of our hotel change, met the very friendly reception staff, and were shown to our beautiful room. We dropped off our stuff and hurried to dinner, which was light years away from the lunch we experienced at Sol Y Mar.

Unpacking and getting settled in went very well, and we thoroughly enjoyed our evening - even though we had a few engineering hiccups (this is Egypt). We visited the bar and caught part of the EuroCup game - Germany played very poorly and ended up losing, we found out in the morning - which was being projected onto the side of the hotel next to one of the pools!

image credit

Upon returning to the room for the final time, we showered and readied for bed. I fell asleep in the shower and could barely get myself into bed. I definitely slept through the engineering crew that came to fix our air-conditioning.

This morning (Friday), we rose bright and early, ate breakfast, picked up our sack lunches from reception and went out to meet the bus with all of our scuba gear (Austin did have to run back to the room with a maintenance man to get the lock/key situation figured out and to close our room safe), and enjoyed the air-conditioned bus ride to Emperor Divers dive center.

There you have it! Finally in a great hotel and ready to start an incredible vacation!

See you next time!

His,

Click here to read part 3!

To see a list of ALL of our travel stories, in chronological order, click here!

Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt ~ Arrival and Dissapointment

Hello everyone!

Today I'll start telling the story of our incredible trip to Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt!

image credit

My journal for this trip was one of the most detailed I have ever kept, and I was so thankful to have all of the memories recorded! This was mainly a diving trip for us, so many of my journal entries read like a dive log. If that's not your cup of tea, don't worry! There are a lot of other adventures that have happened and that continue to unfold, so there's sure to be something else for you before too long!

Without further ado, let's start this journey!

Thursday, June 28, 2012

11:47

The Sharm El Sheikh Airport
image credit

We arrived at the Sharm el-Sheikh airport and were bussed to the terminal. After some small confusion with getting our entry Visas, we waited in a very long passport control line.

(Quick Travel Tip: Apparently they allow private companies to sell the entry visas for an inflated rate, so we stood in one line briefly only to switch to the bank line when we discovered that little detail. They're clever about it, too! The second you enter the terminal, they're calling out like sellers in a bazaar trying to get you to buy the visa from them!)

While we were waiting, I noticed a plastic snowflake hanging from the ceiling. For a place that probably NEVER sees snow, and in the end of June, it struck me as odd, and quite comical.

13:22

The process of getting a taxi from the airport was rather crazy!

As soon as we stepped out into the sweltering Egyptian desert, the very aggressive taxi drivers began to attempt to solicit our business. The only problem with that was their prices started out at exorbitant when we were curbside, and by the time we got to the main road we ended up paying less than 1/3 of the first price we were offered! (That may have had something to do with the police officer who was probably going to give the driver a ticket if he didn't agree to Austin's price and skedaddle out of there.)

While we were haggling with the taxi drivers - which basically consisted of three Egyptian men arguing in Arabic, loudly, while we tried to get some advice from a German lady who actually lives here - we also witnessed a taxi versus minibus accident, which the drivers tried to use as an reason for us to pay their higher prices, lol!

After finally settling on a price and being hustled into a taxi, we took our lives into our hands as our Bedouin driver zipped us to our hotel, the Sol Y Mar Sharks Bay.

Looks great, doesn't it? Well, appearances can be deceiving!
image credit

At the hotel we had to pass first through a guarded gate (a guard shack next to some chains strung between metal poles), then we had to put or bags down and walk through a metal detector before entering the lobby.

We received a nice welcome drink while we were checking in, and they let us check in even though we were early; however, that is where the positive moments of truth ended. Even though we had booked an all-inclusive stay, they handed us a list of things that are NOT included (including water and ice cream). That is pretty typical of a European all-inclusive, but in Egypt you can't drink the water and they don't provide you with an alternative.

Upon being shown to our room, the disappointments kept coming. There were no toiletries provided except for liquid soaps in dispensers like in a public restroom, our terrace door did not lock properly, and, since we're on the main floor, everyone who walks across the terrace passes right next to our bed. Awkward.

Thank the Lord for Hotels.com. Austin is on the phone with them right now trying to figure out an alternative. And we are hungry. Because we have not had lunch yet.

The pictures made it look so good!
image credit

(Quick Travel Tip: Sometimes, no matter how many reviews your read or how much research you do, you end up in a really crappy hotel. (And sometimes the hotels that get many poor reviews end up being gems.) That is when it is extremely important to have some kind of a back-up plan. For us, on this trip, that meant taking advantage of the Hotels.com Five Star customer service! Because we had traveled so much for work with BBI and Club Beyond and for pleasure, at this point we were "Five Star Gold" members which meant that we had an incredible team of customer service personnel on our side! Sometimes travel booking loyalty isn't worth the paper it's written on, but in this case it was literally our saving grace!)
image credit

14:53

After a face-to-face with the general manager of the hotel, Ibrahim (who was ironically from Turkey, and who reminded me of a 50's mobster - slicked back hair and all. He promised to switch our room and offered us free bottled water for each day of our stay which was nice, but in hindsight literally the least he could do), we went to the hotel restaurant to attempt to eat lunch.

The selection was VERY limited and the service was not great and the quality of what was offered was fairly low. I tried to chalk that up to "maybe this is just the way Egypt is," but Austin couldn't find anything so he went downstairs to try the snack bar.

All they had to offer were some petrified hunks of what they called beef burgers, but were about the size of sliders and had been cooking all day long. After a frustrated discussion, we decided to try to switch hotels. Austin called Hotels.com back and I went into the bathroom to go pee. The tiny little ants crawling all over the bathroom floor were he straw that broke the camel's back for me. (This was after we killed three spiders in the course of the first phone call to Hotels.com.)

It goes without saying that at this point we were very concerned about how this trip would turn out, but you won't want to miss the dramatic conclusion of the Sol Y Mar debacle! (It includes an international phone bill of more than $400!)

His,

NOTE: I feel that it is important to mention that our experience with the Sol Y Mar Sharks Bay Hotel was almost exactly two years ago. Most of the recent reviews I read in preparation for this post indicate that they have significantly improved their cleanliness and level of service!

Click here to read part 2!

To see a list of ALL of our travel stories, in chronological order, click here!

Cozumel Memories

I've been digging through the archives! So many pictures and memories! And I promised you travel adventures, so here it is...

The Trip That Started It All ~ Cozumel, Mexico ~ March 2009

(That may be a bit of an unfair title since our first international trip together (the one that planted the seeds of a passion for missions in our hearts) was a summer missions trip to France with a group from our college, but this was our first international trip as a married couple and included so many other firsts: Our first all-inclusive resort stay, our first SCUBA experience, etc. And it was on this trip when the adventure bug bit us both -- in a big way!)

In the late winter of early 2009, my frugal, brilliant husband was looking for a warm destination. The Iowa winter had been long and brutal, and we were dying to relax in the sunshine! He did quite a bit of research, and ended up finding a great deal on Orbitz where he was able to package our flights and our all-inclusive resort stay for a significant discount! (He's a keeper!)

When the day before our flight arrived, we packed up the car and headed to Des Moines. We spent the night before our early-morning flight at the Hampton Inn in Des Moines. We chose the Hampton because they had a continental breakfast, an airport shuttle, and we could park our car there until we got back! In my journal I recorded, "The desk manager was a card, so he and Austin got along great, and the room was very luxurious and comfortable - an excellent start to our long-awaited vacation."

The next morning, our requested 3:30am wake-up call did its job, and we caught the shuttle to the airport. Once there, we retrieved our boarding passes, checked our baggage, and sailed through security. Then we both slept most of the way to Atlanta.

image credits, clockwise starting at the top left: image 1, image 2, image 3, image 4, image 5

Once there we made our way to our next gate, then decided to do lunch at the airport version of TGIFridays. I love eating in airports because it is the most wonderful excuse to people watch! The Atlanta airport - reportedly the busiest airport in the world - boasts some pretty interesting characters, too.

It is always hard for me to wrap my mind around the fact that there are literally billions of people all over the world living out their life stories simultaneously, and nowhere is that more apparent than in a bustling airport. I think too often we find ourselves operating in a “Truman Show” mentality, as though ours is the only play on the stage and everyone who passes through it are just extras and stage technicians - there for our benefit.

Image credits: image 1, image 2

Anyway - back to Atlanta - after lunch we trundled ourselves back to our gate and waited for our boarding call.

When we booked the trip, we did not realize we would be traveling during spring break season, and the throng of already-intoxicated college students at the Cancun gate made us pretty nervous. There did not seem to be any rowdy patrons at our gate, or on our plane as we boarded, so that put our minds at ease.

We were delayed by almost 30 minutes in Atlanta, so we hit the ground in Cozumel nearly simultaneously with two or three other large planes - which made for quite a mess in their small customs area. We snaked our way through a line that filled the large room and extended out the doors to the tarmac for nearly two hours.

Once we cleared customs and retrieved our check bags, we stood in another security line, which, once cleared, popped us out into the beautiful Mexican sunshine!

When we reached the resort, the Melia Cozumel, we entered the gorgeous lobby area that was 1000x more beautiful than the pictures on the Internet. We stepped into the lobby through automatic sliding doors and directly in front of us, through another pair of doors, we could see a gorgeous swimming pool - complete with royal blue lounge chairs, a swim-up bar and towel stand, and steps down to the breathtakingly beautiful beach - perfect white sand and startlingly clear turquoise water.

We tore ourselves away from the view long enough to check in. At the front desk we were welcomed with stemmed glasses of jamaica water, presented with room keys, maps, activities schedules, all-inclusive wrist bands, and cuisine/entertainment schedules. A quick and friendly porter whisked our luggage onto his cart and led the way to the elevators. In his broken English and our broken Spanish we learned that the elevators were new, and that he had been hauling toursits’ luggage up and down the Melia’s stairways for thirty seven years!

He was the first of many incredible and obliging staff members that we met during our stay! Throughout our time there, we had the same server for most dinners, and by day two he had our drink orders down so that we never had to ask, and the housekeeping staff kept our room immaculate - cleaning twice a day - and our mini-fridge stocked with complimentary sodas and bottles of water!

The Melia is located far enough away from downtown Cozumel so as not to be negatively affected by traffic noise or the late-night party scene, but close enough to be a cheap taxi ride in to enjoy any of the touristy attractions on offer.

The activities staff were all the perfect combination of engaging without being intrusive and overbearing if you just wanted to sunbathe instead of participate in whatever was going on! And there was always something going on! From beach volleyball tournaments to sand sculpture contests to dance lessons to water aerobics, there was something for everyone. And it was a true all-inclusive so whenever we got hungry or thirsty, there were several different choices available!

On the first day, on the shuttle from the airport, we met a group of students from Hampton University in Virginia who had chosen Cozumel and the Melia as their spring break destination. We spent most of our resort time, and a couple of days in town with them, and had a great time making memories (as you can see in the pictures below)!

Most of our days were spent either hanging around the beach and the resort or strolling and shopping in downtown Cozumel, but one thing both Austin and I had always wanted to do was SCUBA dive, and Cozumel has some of the most incredible diving in the world.

We asked at the hotel's activities desk, and they were able to set us up with a "Discovery SCUBA" trip which was fantastic! "Discovery SCUBA" is a dive for people who have either never been diving before or who have no diving certification. Since we met both of those criteria, it was perfect for us! (Although, if we were on this trip now, we would probably shop around more and book independent from the hotel because the concierge is usually not the best deal.)

Our dive trip was with Dive With Martin, and since neither of us had ever been diving before, we went with an instructor and only two other divers. The took us to the Palancar Reef, which we found out later is one of the most incredible reef dives in the world. The instructors gave us a short tutorial on the boat ride out, and then we hopped out of the boat and began our very first descent.

After a brief panic on my part at the top, we both were able to descend without too much trouble and commenced with one of the most magical experiences we had ever had! SCUBA is an incredible sport, and little did we know that this dive would be the beginning of something wonderful!

When we surfaced after our second dive - after seeing the beautiful reef and all of the life it housed, including some of the beautiful sea turtles Cozumel is famous for, we were both very clear about our opinion of the sport: We LOVED it! We would definitely be doing that again!

Our fun and funny dive guides got us back to the dock, and along the way regaled us with stories of other dives and divers in the area. It was a wonderful first SCUBA experience, and one that would set the tone for the rest of our diving adventures! We were thoroughly impressed with Dive With Martin, and would use them again if we were diving in Cozumel!

The group from Hampton University had to leave the day before we did, so we spent our final resort day, just the two of us, bumming around. I finished reading a book by the pool, we played some beach volleyball, I'm sure there were other activities that day, but the biggest thing I remember is that it was the only day that we did not apply sunscreen. At all.

I remember that because by the end of the day we were incredibly sunburned. (See the above collage, bottom right. We snapped that selfie in the Cozumel airport waiting for our departure flight.) We were both so sunburned that during our overnight layover at a hotel in Cincinnati, OH, we took advantage of the two double beds and each slept alone so as not to bump one another in the middle of the night!

But the pain was worth it to have some incredible color when we got home and went back to work! There's nothing like looking like a beach bum in the middle of early-spring Iowa!

So, that was our trip! Little did we know that before the year was out we would be starting on an adventure that would take us to a total of 15 countries by way of 38 different flights and have us sleeping in 58 different beds. But that's another story for another time!

Thanks for stopping by! Hope you have a great Monday!

His,

To see the original blog post from 2009, click here!

To see a list of ALL of our travel stories, in chronological order, click here!