Oh, fishy, fishy, fishy fish! That went wherever I… did go!
I heard something yesterday that kind of changed my stay here in Dahab. Some New Zealand friends I met who have been travelling around the world, snorkelling and diving told me that the Red Sea coast, where I’m at, because it is the world’s second saltiest water behind the Dead Sea, has some of the best coral reefs and thus some of the best snorkelling in the world. And I sat around for a week without even bothering to get in the water. What a jackass! So now I figure, if I ever snorkel again it’ll probably never be as good as it is now, and if i never do it again, at least i saw about the best shit i could. So now I’m going in every day. And today was the best day yet.
I got in the water late - about 11am - and the water was unbelievably clear. You could see the bottom about 50 feet down, and out for about another 40 feet. The coral reef I was on - which I pretty much had to myself because it’s in front of the hotels and people, I guess, assume that there’s nothing there, when it’s actually about as good a reef as the places you have to pay to get to around here. It was so clear and there were so many fish that I had to tear myself out of the water to go buy a disposable underwater camera. I burned most of the roll of 27 in about a half an hour, then saved a few just in case i saw something really unusual. Burned those last few off within the hour. If these photos come out I’ll fucking batch. The fish love man batter. That first roll might be just for figuring out what kinds of underwater photos come out. I got great shots of this gigantic diverse reef, full of tons of crazy-ass fish, from above, from below… getting a little turned on again. Sorry.
After I ran out of film I learned a little trick. There’s a type of black fish with colored stripes about the size of a dinner plate and that swim around the reef in big schools. Today I started following them around. They’d swim away scared, but not very far, so I just kept following them slowly so as not to scare them. (Listen up boys, this is also how I pick up the foxes. Oh… yeah!) Eventually, they stopped freaking out and let me swim with them. That was cool as shit so for about an hour i just swam along this long reef with my new posse. What’s more, when we passed by all the other fish - the ones who would fuck off when i tried to come near them, they’d just keep on keepin on, and i could get close to all the other fish this way. So that’s how you do it! Sweet. I’ve got reef cred now. Cuz I’m hangin with the brothers. Thas’ what i’m talkin bout! Boyeeeeee! I’m retarded.
So tomorrow, if any of these pics I took today came out, I’ll be taking the sweet-ass fish photos with my new homies. Word.
