Scuba Diving In Sharm

Okay so this post might be a little late considering we went to Egypt at the beginning of September but I couldn't not share these photos of what was undoubtedly one of the best experiences of my life. I'd heard amazing things about the sealife in Sharm el Sheikh and heard that it was one of the best places to go scuba diving in the world, so when we booked our hotel we made sure we picked one with a scuba diving centre. To make it even better, a huge coral reef ran the whole length of our hotel's beach meaning amazing sealife was right on our doorstep. Neither me or Karl had ever been scuba diving before and although we were nervous, it was one of the first things we wanted to do when we arrived.

Once we were suited up with our flippers and wetsuits (me with my very stylish underwater camera on my head), we headed down to the jetty and walked along to the coral reef. Karl went down first as he was the most nervous (scaredy-cat) so I sat and waited for him to resurface and ge absolutely loved it and said as soon as he came up that he would do it again in a heartbeat, despite being so nervous before he went down. Then it was my turn. I wasn't really nervous about any of it as I'm not scared of water or fish at all but I was nervous about the extremely heavy breathing tank. How would I breathe? Would I be able to support the weight? Our diving instructor was absolutely fantastic and helped me start to breathe calmly once I was under the water. I did have trouble breathing and popping my ears at first, which really, really hurt when I couldn't do it properly but the instructor helped me do it and after that it was plain sailing and it was bloody brilliant.

We saw some absolutely amazing sealife, including huge fish, pufferfish, both Dory and Nemo (!!!) and, unluckily for me, a stonefish. If you've never heard of a stonefish, they're a kind of flat, stone coloured fish that blends in with the rocks behind it and although they aren't aggressive, if you touch one of them, they sting you and chances are if you don't get to a hospital within about 30 minutes, you'll die. Now, as you can probably tell they blend completely in with the reef and while I was busy looking at the sealife, I started to accidentally sink with my hand outstretched and ended up about three inches away from one of these stonefish. I had no idea; you literally cannot see them. It was only when the instructor pulled me back up and nudged it with his flipper that I saw it and realised what it was. Close call or what?! 

(the pesky stonefish!)

Overall scuba diving was an absolutely fantastic experience that I would love to do again. It can be quite daunting at first but our instructor was brilliant and made us feel safe the whole time we were under the water. You can't really see how bright it was on the reef on the photos but I can assure you there wasn't a colour that you couldn't see. The fish were bright, vivid blues and yellows and greens, with bright pink Nemo style coral everywhere (yes I am very scientific). It was bloody amazing!

Amy x