With Safaga, Hurghada and El Gouna close together I was diving with Easy Divers at all three and left it to my host Nigel to sort out the details. He had worked out that based on the divers booked and trips planned I would get better diving if I did them in reverse order.
A pick up truck is off to El Gouna to transfer equipment, so my bags go in the back and I ride in the front with the driver.
El Gouna is a completely purpose built resort town. Hotels, houses, golf course, light airport, downtown shopping and restaurant area. All have been planned specifically for tourists about a canal complex dug to create more prime waterfront. Throw in a few gondolas and it could be a modern Venice.
In a pick up driven by a local we have to go in by the service entrance. Along a dirt road beside the airport before mixing with more respectable traffic and making our way to the Easy Divers shop at the Rihanna Hotel.
Luxury hotels and resorts aside, the big diving advantage is that El Gouna is a convenient location for many of the famous wrecks. On a good day it is just a 3 hour boat ride across the Gulf of Suez to the Rosalie Moller and Thistlegorm. Shaab Abu Nuhas and the famous wrecks of the Ghiannis D, Carnatic, Chrisoula K and Kimon M are within a 2 hours standard day trip, rather than an extended premium trip from Hurghada.
Alas the weather conspires against me. Next morning strong winds from the north make the exposed wrecks of Shaab Abu Nuhas impossible and we head south for a more sheltered dive. A day later things are looking good, but the wind picks up as we head out. By the time we are at Shaab Abu Nuhas it is again too rough to dive the wrecks.
On the sheltered side of the reef I have a pleasant wall dive with Marcus, a part time dive guide who alternates months in El Gouna with months in Belgium pursuing cave diving projects.
As we get out of the water our captain has good news, the wind is slacking, and while it may pick up later there is a window of opportunity to dive the Ghiannis D . Lunch is put on hold as we change cylinders and I change film.
Ignoring the Ghiannis D for now, Marcus and I head off towards the Carnatic. It's a fairly brisk 10 minute swim before the stern of the Carnatic appears from the blue-grey haze at the limit of visibility.
My enjoyment of this really photogenic wreck is only slightly marred by my strobe batteries dying just as I reach the bow. At least I had one pass of the wreck with strobe working.
Heading back to the Ghiannis D I ponder the dead batteries, they had been on charge all the previous day. Then it clicks, my room at the Rihanna had one of these systems where electricity is controlled by inserting the key fob into a slot in the wall. My batteries had been busy not charging all day. I should have left the charger at the dive centre.
Back at the Ghiannis D they had recovered enough for a couple of shots with flash before dying again. The excess of sunlight that is normally such a photographic hassle in the Red Sea comes to my rescue as I finish the film with available light.
Closer to El Gouna at Abu Nugar I had an easy and very picturesque dive. A sandy seabed at 18 metres with some small and very colourful shaabs and habilis rising towards the surface. Apparently typical of the inshore diving.