Snorkelling by default

In stealth mode early this morning, we snuck out of our hotel around 7:30 to go snorkelling. We were trying to avoid the guys at the hotel reception, as they had been trying to get us to buy trips and ferry tickets from them. But we didn't want to give them any more business than we already were, so we booked elsewhere (and at a cheaper price too). We didn't really feel like spending the money on a day's snorkelling here, but we also didn't want to hang around Hurgada all day either. Snorkelling won by default.

We bought some bread and cheese (our niece Megan would call them 'Baby Cheeses') at the only shop open around, then had a 'coffee' at a coffee & sheesha shop. I say 'coffee' because it's really that crystallized powder Nescafe stuff. We're getting rather used to it actually. Around 8:30 we were picked up by a minibus, where we drove all over town collecting other passengers also snorkelling for the day. Finally at the boat dock, we waited in line (we were the last ones) to get snorkelling gear. After trying about 4 different pairs of flippers and masks each, we were so annoyed at the guys at the equipment counter that we nearly didn't go out on the trip. They were so rude and accused us of not trying on the flippers and just asking for smaller/larger sizes without even trying them. Now, why the hell would we do that?? Anyway, our gear in hand, we walked down to the boats. There were about 4 different boats there, and no one knew which one we were supposed to be on. The receipt for our trip had been collected by the minibus driver, and we couldn't see anyone we recognized from the minibus on any of the boats. True, we could have hopped on any of the boats, but there are many different snorkelling trips and we wanted to be sure we were going to where we had paid to go. Frustrated beyond belief at this stage, Nigel finally got onto one of the boats, recognized someone, and off we went, hoping it would take us to 2 snorkelling spots plus Griftin Island.

As I boarded the boat, an Egyptian guy (who worked on the boat) was using an ancient video camera to film all of the passengers. We could only assume it would be made into a cheesy souvenier video we could purchase at the end of our fabulous day. Whenever we saw him turning the camera to us, Nigel and I would quickly turn the other way or move to a different spot. We cruised (slowly which was the maximum speed of the grossly underpowered vessel) in the boat for about an hour or so through the beautiful clear blue waters of the Red Sea. The varying depths of the water made a variety of ocean colours, from deep dark blue to turquoise to clear sea green. We stopped at Griftin Island for about 1.5 hours. It's a fairly large island off the coast of Hurgada, and home to only one resort and nothing else but beautiful sandy beaches. The wind was howling mightily, and the water was a bit chilly, but we went in anyway to see what we could find. Unfortunately, we didn't see much at all. We did see one flat fish cruising along the sandy bottom, a few tiger fish and that was about all. We spent the rest of the time under the shade of one of two straw umbrella huts, 'enjoying' the view of hordes of tourists arriving in boats and invading the island.

When our time was up, we loaded back onto the boat and sat there for about 30 minutes while one of the guides went and found 2 people that hadn't come back to the boat. We then cruised to another snorkelling spot. This time we jumped into the water from the boat, and the snorkelling was much better. We saw tons of fish and coral. The highlight was probably seeing a few blue spotted rays. After lunch on the boat, we went to another snorkelling spot. It wasn't as good, but still worth having a swim around. The water is just so clear and beautiful here, it's like swimming in a pool.

Arriving back to the mainland, we turned in our snorkelling gear, waited at least 30 more minutes for everyone to be loaded into the proper vans, and we were dropped off somewhere near where we were picked up that morning. Without even returning to our hotel, we went straight to the pub for a few cold beers. Afterwards we walked around for ages looking for somewhere cheap to eat. Finding nothing, we took a bus to the other area of Hurgada. This place was full of restaurants, shops, hotels and people! It's too bad we didn't know about this area before! We got a salad (a real treat to us!) and a burger at McDonald's (I think we should buy stock in the Golden Arches) and made our way back to our hotel. Again, with nothing else to do, we went to bed.