WHY GO FAR, IF YOU CAN GO DEEP?

FEATURE AHMED NABIL PHOTOGRAPHY AHMED EL GOHARY

As a big fan of the Red Sea, I always look for new dive sites and destinations to try. I had agreed a while back with a couple of my instructor friends in Saudi Arabia to organise a dive trip to Yanbu, the hidden gem of Saudi. The visibility and richness of the marine life was guaranteed.

When the plan was set and dates were confirmed, we could not hold our excitement to head for new diving adventures. We were fully equipped with our dive gear, cameras, extra memory cards and batteries, housings, various items for the boat, and supplements. Everything was in order and we were set. The day before heading to Yanbu, my phone rang and I took the call, “Hey Ahmed, tomorrow’s trip has to be postponed due to the sea conditions, the weather forecast is not really in our favour.” These were the slowest seconds of my last 10 years. While it is totally understandable and common to have weather forecasts mess with dive trips, I have to admit, my heart sank. I believe the tone of my voice gave away my disappointment. He carried on to say, “if you cannot go far, why don’t you go deep?” I had to ask him what he meant. He said, “Well, if Yanbu is not possible to dive tomorrow, lets go to Jeddah and dive somewhere new. We have explored different beach dive sites in Jeddah, what if we go out by boat and explore the deeper sites?” My brain started to digest the idea and I felt my enthusiasm come back.

PADI says anything from 18 to 30 metres (60 to 100ft) is a “deep dive” in the context of recreational diving. If you’re ready to expand your boundaries, a PADI Instructor will help you gain the skills and confidence to explore to a maximum depth of 40 metres (130 feet) with a Deep Dive Speciality course.

I have dived Jeddah many times at various depths and locations, but this time we would go to the maximum allowable depth, exploring new areas deeper and further. We started with the deepest dive of the day, and mistakenly reached 42.4m before we ascended back to our maximum limit of 40m. The water was so clear it was easy to make the mistake and go deeper. It’s thanks to setting our dive computers’ maximum depth alarm that we could make the correction.

On our descent, we were greeted by a hawksbill turtle roving in the blue. What a nice welcome and start to the dive. The site was full of corals, sponges, sea fans and all kinds of anemones. We spotted a complete marine pictograph during our descent with triggers, wrasses, groupers, sergeants, damsels, octopuses and squids just to name a few. What captured our attention was not only the variety, but also the large sizes of the fish.

At 40m, we were impressed seeing all the colours and the crystal clear visibility, it restored peace and tranquillity. A few minutes before we needed to start our ascent, we could easily see a large blue spotted stingray laying at the bottom, next to the largest porcupinefish I have ever seen. A few metres away, a titan triggerfish family guarded their nest. They were as large as their names! I’m not sure if we were lucky or if it’s this sites norm to be so rich in life. The dive did not miss in action, a one metre large stonefish lay next to us in perfect camouflage next to the rocks.

We started our slow ascent. To pass the time, we paid attention to the smaller details, looking in the crevices and spotting the micro fauna. It was a nudibranch heaven. We spotted so many species such as the Chromodoris magnifica, Goniobranchus geminus, Red Sea Opisthobranchia and many more!) I was surprised by the large variety of starfish at the site – pencil, soft, collectors, Crown-of-thorn, – just name it. Their large sizes and strong colours were impressive.

It was nice to also be greeted by a giant moray eel, it came out of nowhere. We slowly ascended to the next safety stop. The sea was so generous with us this day that we discovered a crevice full of banded coral shrimps. While my buddy was enjoying taking macro shots, I carried on looking around, and my curiosity was awarded a large crocodile fish. It was laying down on the benthic, resting beside the rocks and corals. The fun was quickly interrupted by the beeps of our dive computers’ transmitters indicating we were very low on air. Sadly, we were forced to end the dive.

We thoroughly enjoyed this discovery and returned with a wealth of photos. It was almost too good to be true having spotted all the marine life we saw just in that one dive. Our cameras were our tool documenting all that beauty and generosity of the sea. We spent our long surface interval chatting about our rich observations while drinking hot Adani style tea.

The day passed incredibly fast. Our friends invited us to an awesome seafood restaurant at the Jeddah corniche in the evening. After the banquet, we enjoyed the excellent company and Arabic vibes along with sipping hot mint tea. What else could we ask for.

I was happy to return home full of incredible memories (the dive, the friends, the food, just everything.) It was indeed excellent advice from my friend – why go far, if you can go deep?