Egypt!

I'm in Egypt!
After spending a night in London, Igor (the European scholar) and I traveled together to Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, on the 27th. We were to stay with Debbie Metcalfe, of Blue Eye FX Underwater Filming and Photography. Debbie, who had hosted previous scholars before us, agreed to host us and teach us how to use our new fancy underwater video equipment.

So here I am - I have been in Egypt for 5 days already! Besides bring right on the red sea, we're in the desert. This is evidenced by the large mountainous-like hills of desert rock, large, sandy grains everywhere, and the blistering heat. Sharm is a tourist area so there are a lot of foreigners walking about. Debbie lives north of the city so we are in a quieter area surrounded by other foreigners like Debbie who live here, Bedouin huts, and other Egyptian locals. There are goats, camels, dogs, and cats everywhere.

Debbie has her own company - Blue Eye FX. She and her other videographers do filming on dive boats and sell the DVDs to the divers. We have been on three dives so far off a local reef through one of the resorts. The first dive was to pressure test our housings to make sure they don't leak at about 100 feet. The second and third dives we put our Sony cameras in and shot some footage.

The night before last Debbie took us out on an off-road adventure into the dessert where we were invited by Bedouins to have tea. I was given a short camel ride (my first!) and we sat on mats sipping the tea and enjoying the cooler air as the sun started to go down.

I am very much enjoying myself here, besides having a bit of trouble becoming accustomed to the changes in bacteria in my stomach at the moment. I took two days off from diving but we're going to Ras Mohamad National Park tomorrow which is one of THE places to dive around here.

Photos to come soon!