Dahab

Dive – Sleep – Eat

Dahab is the epitome of Diver-bum, backpacker hangout, staying-longer-than-you-planed, beach side town, and its where I’ve been living for the last month.

Not as package-tourist (or expensive!) as its nearby counterpart Sharm el Sheikh, life in Dahab is simple and basically revolves around a handful or ingredients: Scuba-Diving, Sun-Baking, Eating, Sleeping, Hanging out with Bedouin Kids.

Alot of the pics on here I take specifically for the blog, put some type of half-interesting story together, try and make it coherent.
But in true kick-back Dahab style, I barely pulled out a camera the entire month, so what you get this time is all off the cuff; shitty digi’s, camera phone and web cam combos.

And most of them wont mean anything unless you were there.

Enjoy.

View from the accom.

30m away from my doorstep.

Meye Meye!

Girls Dorm

‘Buy one, buy one!”

Home of the Best Falafel in Dahab.

6 Egyptian Pounds = $1.50 AU

Just across the water..The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

and its Frontier protection

Front Zip’s on wetsuits suck.

Muhammad (of course).

Swedes talk alot of shit.

Take a day off oil-covered-everything, there are some serious Russian options.

Kvas and Vareniki

Jamie found a roll of cash, so we hit up the best restaurant in town.

Dorm life.

8-11 Breakfast, (ie, breakfast and an early lunch)

Farwa and Rimi (milk me for Falafel)

Free Diving – Underwater diving on one breath.
I too originally came to Dahab to Scuba Dive, but after a few sessions I wasn’t that stoked with the dives (lots of fish and reef, not enough shipwrecks and caves) and quickly fell into the world of Free Diving.

Free Diving is definitely not for everyone. Its either going to be your thing or its not.
Holding your breath, lowering your heart-rate, descending as deep as you can, for as long as you can, fighting your body’s urge and contractions to breath, making it back to the surface without black-ing out in the 5-10m danger zone. Fun? Totally!

You reach a point were you are so relaxed underwater the whole experience is euphoric. The urge to breath completely disappears and your there, just floating around, so still, hanging out in the deep blue.
If your going for depth, after minus 15-20m you become ‘negatively buoyant’, meaning, your body is not floating any more, and you’ll begin to get effortlessly sucked down, faster and faster the deeper you go..

Then you do actually feel the need to breath, look up, and there’s a world of water above you..
I’d popped back up on the surface totally lucid, half conscious, half dizzy, floating on my back with the sun on my face, dying to sink back down and do it all again. Awesome.

the Mermaid – Аlena Молчанова

Me, stoked after making 27m meters, 2 mins, through ‘the bells’ window.
Alena: “Matthew, you diving deep alone again?! You should not dive deep alone!”

“why you buy from her, why not you buy from me!”

Upgrading

Farwa

TOURIST INFO
Cost – You can comfortably live off 100 Egyptian Pounds per day (13 Euros, or $20 AU). Thats basic accomodation, basic lunch and decent dinner with drinks.

To do – Dahab life is all about the water, in it, or around it.
Obviously the number one activity is Scuba Diving, but if you don’t dive, there are a number of other options – Wind Surfing, Kite Boarding, Snorkeling, all your hippy Yoga options, Sun Baking, Book Reading, Camel Safari-ing, Sheesha smoking, Quad Biking. But thats about it.
If your not into any of those, you might get bored.

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