As usual the airport arrival hall at Sharm-el-Sheikh is a confusion of numerous queues and a total lack of directions. I am assaulted by tour reps hustling to line up in the wrong place and the whole set-up has been re-arranged since I was last here. Eventually I find the bank hidden round the back and buy my visa stamp before moving on to the immigration queue.
Outside I spot Simon from Poseidon Divers holding a welcome card. My first of many connections made, travel shock diminishes as it is all metaphorically downhill for a while.
The journey to Dahab across the Sinai mountains takes an hour or so by Toyota minibus. Stargazing through the clear desert night is facilitated by the driver leaving his lights off; something you soon get used to on Egyptian roads at night.
The air is dusty and dry. By the time we arrive I have consumed a 2 litre bottle of water and am making good progress into a second bottle. Even so, when beer is offered I don't need asking twice. I just need to unwind.
Like many of my diving adventures, the idea for this trip had been hatched at a dive show. The managing editor at Diver Magazine and I had been debating how to do something different about the Red Sea. Ideas spurred more crazy ideas. The scope of the project grew to cover all of the Egyptian Red Sea in a hectic 3-week road trip.
In the end I managed to schedule 8 locations at 2 days each, with the odd extra half day here and there. The northernmost being Dahab in the Sinai and the southernmost Wadi Lahami, almost at the Sudan border.
I went through a number of working titles. Mad Red Sea Project for Diver Magazine. Red Sea Quick and Dirty - quick because of the taxi drivers and dirty because there would be little time to wash. Red Sea Pole to Pole. The Incomplete Guide to Almost all the Red Sea. The Secret Red Sea Diary of John Mole, age 42¼.
The Red Sea is full of spectacular coral reefs, so my real challenge and the challenge I present to each dive centre was to show me what is different about their patch of the Red Sea.