Trip to the Egyptian red sea (Pic intensive)
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Topic: Trip to the Egyptian red sea (Pic intensive)
Posted By: seti007
Subject: Trip to the Egyptian red sea (Pic intensive)
Date Posted: December 14 2007 at 11:53am
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I just returend from an amazing dive trip to the egyptian red sed. I have to say that it is one of the most incredible places I've ever had the good fortune to visit. I was in Dahab for a week and then in Sharm El sheikh for another week. Most of the diving and snorkeling in Dahab is right from shore. It is just the most incredible experience to just walk off the shore and see amazing fish and acropora forests in waist deep water. Most places have a sheer drop off about a 100' off shore and here you can see Tridacna clams, an amazing variety of both hard and soft corals, anemone fish, surgeon fish, butterfly fish, lion fish, angles and literally thousands of antias. I took almost 4000 (thats four thousand) pictures, most of them under water while snorkeling. Some during dives and others top side. Until I go through all the pictures, here are a few I have uploaded.
The highlight of the trip was a visit to the blue hole in Dahab and then to Ras Mohammed national park in Sharm El Sheikh. The latter has suffered a lot from the huge influx of tourists that step on coral while the former still has some amazing pristine coral reefs, most right off shore in extremely shallow water. Here are some pics from Dahab. I will post some more from both dahab and sharm once I go through them. All these images were shot with a canon XTI Rebel at 3888x2592 resolution so it will take me bit to reduce these down to 1024x768 to uplad them.
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Replies:
Posted By: seti007
Date Posted: December 14 2007 at 12:00pm
Some More of Dahab
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Posted By: seti007
Date Posted: December 14 2007 at 12:10pm
One thing I tried my luck at were top down pictures where you attempt to capture above and below the water surface. This gives quite a unique perspective to the picture. Here are a few from the Ras Mohammed trip.
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Posted By: Mike Savage
Date Posted: December 14 2007 at 12:10pm
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Beautiful shots Asad! It sounds like a wonderful trip too.
Mike -------------  |
Posted By: larhalli
Date Posted: December 14 2007 at 12:11pm
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The pictures are amazing. What an opportunity to be able to actually see that in person. I am sure those pictures you will treasure for the rest of your life.
------------- Larry Halliday West Jordan |
Posted By: superman1981
Date Posted: December 14 2007 at 12:14pm
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Those pics are amazing! I have never seen anything like that in my life! Looks like I need to plan a diving trip!
------------- Sure you are, you are Crappy Reef Club Member #1 -Chk4tix 6 gal nanocube 65 gal http://www.utahreefs.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=78639&title=tims-65-gallon-build" rel="nofollow - build thread |
Posted By: seti007
Date Posted: December 14 2007 at 12:15pm
| I was so sad to see all the dead corals in sharm el sheikh especially in the Ras Mohammed area. It is proteced but heavily vistied. I saw some recently dead table acros that were around 12' or so across. also saw literally acres of dead acros in the same ares. Dahab for now is still in a fairly good shape since most people do not go up there. |
Posted By: seti007
Date Posted: December 14 2007 at 12:17pm
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What struck me was that most of these pics were taken while snorkeling in water starting around 5'-20' feet deep and around 50' from shore. you can see a drop off in some of the pics that goes down to anywhere from 25' to a few hunder feet. the visibility was great even though most winter days are rather choppy. Ive been to the carribbean several times but this totally beats it hands down. There were a few strage things I noticed, first, there are no white sand beaches anywhere, most of the shore line is rocky. Secondly, there are no sea birds that I saw. Thats quite weird. Here are a few more from Ras Mohammed:            |
Posted By: Mike Savage
Date Posted: December 14 2007 at 12:19pm
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For those above and below water shots you really need an extreme wide angle or fish eye lens so you can get a very deep depth of field. Those came out pretty good though.
Mike ------------- |
Posted By: seti007
Date Posted: December 14 2007 at 12:30pm
| Thats right Mike. I regretted not buying a WA lens. They are so darn expensive and I wouldve needed a dome port for my housing. |
Posted By: Mike Savage
Date Posted: December 14 2007 at 12:49pm
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No seabirds? That is strange for sure.
Mike ------------- |
Posted By: cl2ysta1
Date Posted: December 14 2007 at 1:39pm
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omg those are quite amazing. thank you so much for sharing. very lucky to get to see that in person! ------------- I <3 Boxers Achilles tang lover |
Posted By: seti007
Date Posted: December 14 2007 at 1:54pm
Thanks
Here are a few more
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cl2ysta1 wrote:Posted By: seti007
Date Posted: December 14 2007 at 1:56pm
 
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Posted By: seti007
Date Posted: December 14 2007 at 2:06pm
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Posted By: seti007
Date Posted: December 14 2007 at 2:18pm
another top down
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Posted By: seti007
Date Posted: December 14 2007 at 2:29pm
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Posted By: Will Spencer
Date Posted: December 14 2007 at 9:33pm
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Stunning!
I am so jealous. I would love to make a trip like that someday.
Please share more when you have time.
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Posted By: Freshy
Date Posted: December 14 2007 at 11:49pm
| These pictures are amazing. |
Posted By: jfinch
Date Posted: December 14 2007 at 11:58pm
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Great photos. It's amazing that anthias are not priced like damsels... ------------- Jon https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6y_EzjI_ljbIwf2n5uNzTw" rel="nofollow - What I've been doing... |
Posted By: Danner
Date Posted: December 15 2007 at 12:13am
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wow all i can say is breath taking
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Posted By: Jhamb
Date Posted: December 15 2007 at 1:30am
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Those pictures make me want to go diving SO BAD!!!! your one lucky fellow i can only hope for an opportunity like that one day!!! thanks
------------- Jeremy 40B INW USAF |
Posted By: seti007
Date Posted: December 15 2007 at 12:30pm
No Kidding, they were everywhere. Reminded me of the feeder goldfish tank at petco :) The cool thing was that where ever you saw anthias, the lion fish were not far. On occassion, I saw dozens of lion fish hanging out next to the anthias.
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Posted By: Debbles
Date Posted: December 15 2007 at 4:14pm
Wow, very nice Jeff ------------- Yes Mikey...I still have fins!!! |
Posted By: Mark Peterson
Date Posted: December 16 2007 at 10:00am
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Wow....you lucky dog. I miss hanging out with you. ------------- Reefkeeping Tips, & quick, easy setup tricks: www.utahreefs.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=9244 Pay it forward - become a paid WMAS member 
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Posted By: seti007
Date Posted: December 16 2007 at 6:07pm
Same here Mark. Be sure to call me and let me know when youre in town so we can hang out.
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Posted By: smatney
Date Posted: December 17 2007 at 2:27pm
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Oh my gosh Asad, that looks like an amazing trip. Jealousy doesn't even define the feeling.
PS - I still have your battery operated pump. ------------- Susan Matney Farmington, UT |
Posted By: seti007
Date Posted: December 17 2007 at 10:13pm
| Hi Suzan, are we still up for the Raja Ampat trip? Im planing for around the middle of next year. As for the pump, dont worry, you can drop it by whenever you are near by. Asad |
Posted By: smatney
Date Posted: December 18 2007 at 10:16am
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Asad, Fred and I are going on a two week land/cruise tour of Alaska next June for our 30th anniversary. So...that's it for my vacation funds for 2008. I NEED to get some dives in though. ------------- Susan Matney Farmington, UT |
Posted By: dduts
Date Posted: December 18 2007 at 12:22pm
WOW! Asad, thank you for posting those pics. Makes me kind of ocean sick now. I need to go SOON 
------------- 90g mixed reef GOT CRABS? Sometimes I wonder "why is that frisbee getting bigger?"....and then it hits me |
Posted By: seti007
Date Posted: December 18 2007 at 2:56pm
That sounds great. Maybe next year then. Have fun in Alaska.
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Posted By: Gahlenfr
Date Posted: December 18 2007 at 6:10pm
| Asad, those are hands down the best dive photos I have viewed on this board! Thank you for sharing them with us. Was your trip strictly a dive trip or did you visit family as well? |
Posted By: seti007
Date Posted: December 18 2007 at 10:21pm
Thanks, glad you like them. I am quite pleased with how my new Canon camera performed.
It was a strictly dive trip. Unfortunately, I didnt know anyone in Egypt. However, I have a few friends there now. Egyptians are the on of the friendliest people I have ever met.
Asad
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Posted By: jfinch
Date Posted: December 18 2007 at 11:21pm
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That's really good to hear that about Egyptians. I have always want to go to Egypt. There's so much cool stuff to see. The lighthouse at Pharos, Cairo, pyramids, nile and diving! But I'm also very worried about getting shot. If I ever go, I'll stay as far away from tour buses full of Americans as I can get!
------------- Jon https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6y_EzjI_ljbIwf2n5uNzTw" rel="nofollow - What I've been doing... |
Posted By: seti007
Date Posted: December 19 2007 at 8:25am
For some reason, you dont see too many Americans down in sharm El sheikh and even fewer in Dahab. Probably because it so darn hard to get to from here. I had to go to England and then take a charter flight from there. Its mostly the europeans and Russians that seem to be everywhere. Its only about 4 hours away from most cities in Western europe and even less from Moscow. After the bombing in 2005 (in sharm el Sheikh), the security is very tight. You see police checkpost everywhere. All hotels now have metal detectors in their lobbies and cars are not allowed anywhere near them. It is unfortunate but it does make you feel safer. Despite the risk, Sharm El Sheik is heavily visited. I went in the low season but even then the place was packed. Sharm El Sheikh is known for its night life while Dahab is more of a backpacker's paradise and very laid back. Diving/snorkeling is great at Dahab and good at Sharm El Sheikh. There are also a lot of desert excursions if you have had enough water activities. The oldest monestary in the world is not too far away.
I initially had plans to visit Cairo and Luxor but did nt get the time to do so. Maybe next time.
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Posted By: thesaent14
Date Posted: January 12 2008 at 8:44am
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really nice
------------- thesaent |
Posted By: Jake Pehrson
Date Posted: January 12 2008 at 11:27am
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Awesome. Did you use a travel company to plan the trip or did you do the whole thing yourself? How did you find out about the dive boats you used? ------------- Jake Pehrson Murray http://coralplanet.com" rel="nofollow - coralplanet.com http://utahbeeranch.com" rel="nofollow - :) |
Posted By: seti007
Date Posted: January 14 2008 at 12:30am
Jake, its very hard to get to Sharm El sheikh from here. I had to plan the whole thing myself. I flew to England first, stayed there for a week and then took a charter flight from London to Sharm and back to London. Its very easy to fly to sharm from europe. As for dive boats and stuff, i did some research and booked a few trips online from here. The rest, including the trips out to Ras Mohammed, were just scheduled through local dive shops. |