Poseidon's Parlour: I'm A Spanish Dancer, A Dancer For Money

Military escort - the Village People

Our original plan had been to dive the wreck of the Cedar Pride, but Nasser asked me a question when he picked me up. "Do you want to see the wreck or sealife and corals?" To be honest, I'm more into the sealife. So, I plumped for a sealife dive over the wreck.

On hearing that legendary riot starter and night diver Stephen Frewbowski was in town for a night dive, the Jordanian Navy were sent to investigate. Some smooth words and the opportunity to have his photo taken with the author of Poseidon's Parlour was enough to ensure the evening would go swimmingly well.

In all seriousness, it should be noted that it is the law in Jordan that even experienced divers must have a guide. Furthermore, for security reasons (it's a sensitive part of the world) if night diving you must have shore cover provided by the Jordanian Royal Navy. Apparently, in the 70s a nutcase from Egypt used an underwater scooter to go from Taba in Egypt up to Eilat in Israel for less than honourable purposes.

We dived the reef next to the Cedar Pride (called Rainbow Reef) which began simply before drifting over and along a beautiful coral wall that dropped from about 8m down to around 18m by my reckoning as we moved along we moved onto a new second reef called Cable Reef which seemed to drop much deeper as it felt we were just hanging mid ocean. Essentially, a reef that has formed round a giant electricity cable powering parts of Egypt on the other side of the Gulf of Aqaba. However, it all went so smoothly that had it not been explained to me after the dive I'd have thought was all one site.

If you've never dived in tropical waters at night you are really missing out. Gone are the colourful reef fish of day and out are the lesser seen beasts and reef hunters. Barrcuda, grouper (the ugly kind), lionfish, the sea cucumbers, the urchins and starfish that hide by day and, of course, out come the Spanish Dancers. Moreover, the coral sing their own unique song at night, best described as the snap, crackle & pop of Rice Krispies.

My camera ran out of juice about two thirds of the way through the dive, but I managed to get some decent shots before it went kapoot.

A great dive to round off a fantastic experience diving with guys at Aqaba's Anchor.