Cable Canyon - 02/01/2019

The diving gods were kind to me in 2018, and set a trend that seems to be continuing into 2019, as myself and Gill.I.Am took advantage of some cheap flights and a love affair with Jordan to allow me to dive again at one of my favourite parts of the world. 

Long term readers will know, I've visited and dived in this area before. However, I genuinely love this site. A wee bimble down a coral canyon to 43m then a turn and ascending under the man made cables connecting Jordan and Egypt, passing bright red anemones and delicate corals. Most importantly, considering all the people that dive from South Beach you won't see a soul until the shallows. That's because, they all want to dive the Cedar Pride. I did too, back then. But now it's so passe.

This time I was diving with Dive Aqaba, the company I'd used in the past was now kaput. I chatted Abdallah, tolf him of my experiences and how I wanted to see some old friends down deep on the reef I went, and there they were. I was, as the youngsters say, "totes emosh". 

We followed that up with a wee dive around the Cedar Pride, but I knew my wee anemone was still safe 4 years on. I was happy.

Then - December 2014

Now - January 2019

Snakelocks

Buddy for the day

Cedar Pride

Cedar Pride

Return to Cable Reef and Cedar Pride - 30/12/2014

I've dived both Cable Reef and the Cedar Pride before. However, I've only dived Cable Reef at night and the Cedar Pride is big enough to have a lot more to explore than I saw the first time.

Cable Reef was up first and it delivered some nice nudibranch's, a red bubble anemone, a grey moray and a few different types of pufferfish. It was cool to see a reef I'd only dived at night during the day. Especially, the cable section (an area where large electrical cables run from Jordan across to Taba in Egypt. This is also a coral nusery where environmentalists are regrowing different types of Red Sea coral.

The return to Cedar Pride was even better, with a Panther Torpedo Ray, a huge Napoleonfish, a wee visit inside the bridge of the wreck and a swim under of the wreck.

Grey Moray

Four Colour Chromodoris

Masked Puffer behind Grape Coral

Diadem Sea Urchin, Red Anemone and Red Sea Anemone fish

Panther Torpedo Ray

Big Napoleonfish

Big Napoleonfish (2)

Day 6 - Time To Say Goodbye Part 1 - 23/11/2014

The final day on the boat was provided us with two dives. The first at Jackson Reef and the second at Ras Umm Sid.

Jackson Reef delivered a very pleasant red anemone without much excitement. By way of contrast, Ras Umm Sid (one of the fluffiest dives) gave us a free swimming conger and a turtle as well as underwater high jinks.

Al-chemist demonstrated his underwater BCD surfing technique while I rode the Lawman as though he were Seabiscuit. It was a fitting final dive.

Riding Seabiscuit by Vivianne

Red Anemone

Giant Trevally

Spanish Dancer Eggs

Moray

Turtle & Bubble

Turtle

Day 5 - The Road To 200 - 22/11/2014

They say in diving that if you don't have a picture then it never happened. It's true, underwater your eyes can be easily decieved.

Today saw me undertake dives number 197-200. It seemed fitting that dive 200 was going to be a night dive. My log book is about 50% that.

However, before that particular moment of legend I still had to dive, Thomas, Woodhouse and Jackson reefs. The reefs lie in the Straits of Tiran in the Gulf of Aqaba.

The day was always going to be a bit farcical with one of Snapdragon's rhibs either broken down or burst. They hadn't been very reliable all week.

During the first dive (Thomas Reef) I spent most of my time watching the space between the edge of the reef and the blue. Then I saw something, something big. I was sure it was another reef shark. At the surface the Zookeeper disagreed, but the Lawman also claimed to have seen it. However, neither of us took pictures therefore we never saw it. Them's the rules!

Woodhouse Reef provided us with more drifting and an alleged 'cleaning station'. It did however provide us with one half of the legendary Derola buddy pair being that the first half was sitting the dive out. I liked it as a dive - long and straight with porcupine fish and a turtle.

Jackson Reef provided us with more drift diving and a prolonged wait on the surface to be picked up. However, the boat banter was enough (for some of us) to make up for the certain doom had it been an emergency. :)

Then came two hundred....

Banners and Butterflies

Turtle

Red Anemone

Camera Failure

Zookeeper & Porcupinefish