Ras Mohamed

     After leaving Dahab, Steve and I returned to Sharm to spend a few more days with Debbie at Blue Eye.  With the help of Debbie and some of her employees (Paul, Rachel and Sam) we spent our last few days in Egypt cramming as much underwater video knowledge into our little heads as we possibly could.  Not only did we work on our filming, but we did it at some of the best dive sites on the planet.  We had been diving from the Straights of Tiran to Sharm and up to Dahab, but we still hadn't made it to Ras Mohamed.

     Ras Mohamed is one of Egypt's first national parks.  About 20 minutes south of Sharm El Sheikh, its sits on the southern tip of the Sinai Peninsula.  To the west lies the Gulf of Suez; to the east, the Gulf of Aqaba.  The junction of these two portions of the Red Sea and the extreme depth of the water immediately off of the shore means that the life, especially the amount of large, pelagic fish is extraordinary.  Most people board large day boats in Sharm and get to do two or three dives.  In my opinion, that's one of the worst ways to dive Ras Mohamed.  Rent a jeep, throw some tanks in the back and if you can avoid the land-mines left in the park from the Six-Day War with Israel (stick to the roads), you'll have the best spots all to yourself, for a quarter of the price.

     Everyday Steve, Debbie, Sam and myself sat down, scripted out what we wanted to shoot that day, drove out to Ras Mohamed, picked a spot, dove, shot, came home, edited our short films, reviewed them, and got ready to do it all over again the next day.  The improvement in our underwater video skills was incredible, and the diving was fantastic.  Shark Reef was holding steady as my favourite dive site in the park until our last day of diving.  Sam and his friend Mark Doherty surprised us by taking us to a spot that no dive boat leaving from Sharm will ever take you to.  It was a little deeper and further from shore than most divers go, but it was absolutely worth it.  Mark took some excellent pictures for Steve and I that I've included here as a slideshow (please respect his ownership of the images).

     I think it's always best to end on a high note, and the dive was a great way to wind up our time in Egypt.  I have to thank Debbie for being such an awesome host.  Besides putting a roof over our head and food in our mouths she always made sure that Steve and I were having a great time and learning as much as we could about video.  I also want to thank Paul, Rachel, Sam and everyone else at Blue Eye for taking us under their wing and letting us tag along.  Everyone was super friendly and so eager to share all their best tips and tricks.  Thanks Guys!

The Golden Emperor

The Golden Emperor

     I've been in Egypt for almost 10 days now, and so far it's been incredible.  I spent my first few days with Debbie Metcalfe, owner of Blue Eye FX in Sharm El Sheikh.  The world freediving championships were just ending as I arrived in Egypt, and Debbie had been contracted to provide all the television coverage of the event, so I was able to tag along for some of that.  After a few days, Steve travelled up from Hurghada to join me in Dahab where we were set to join a live-aboard for a week.  Our friends Lars and Dave from Red Sea Safaris had arranged for us to live on the Golden Emperor for a week, diving up and down the Gulf of Aqaba and assist one of Debbie's cameramen, Paul, with filming some promotional material.

Steve filming a bait ball on a night dive

     We drove up to Dahab from Sharm, boarded the boat, and were pleasantly surprised to find that our friend from the One Ocean Dive Center, Tronde Jarle was a passenger on the boat as well.  The next week was filled with new friends, plenty of filming, and absolutely stunning diving.  Not only were we able to visit the Blue Hole and The Canyon in Dahab, but we were able to get to a lot of sites that can only be accessed by boat.  The reefs were incredibly healthy, and the fish life was amazing.  Steve and I had a great time diving with Paul and helping film the trip and we really learned a lot about shooting and editing underwater video from him.  Steve and I got on really well with the crew and our fellow divers, and we're sad to leave Dahab, but we know we've still got some great diving ahead of us before we leave Egypt.

Shark Bait

     While staying with our friend in Denmark, Steve, Eline and I had a unique opportunity to visit and dive at an aquarium, shark center and dive resort, the Kattegatcentret.  The Kattegatcentret is unique in that it's probably the only dive center in the world that offers confined water dives in an aquarium.  Not only did we have an opportunity to check out Denmark's natural marine fauna exhibited in the aquarium, but we were able to jump into a tank filled to the brim with huge sharks.

     The shark tank is huge, over 550,000 liters, and contains Zebra, Wobbegong, Nurse, Sand Tiger, Sand Bar, Lemon, Reef Sharks, huge rays and all sorts of fish, eels, and smaller sharks.  Once a year, divers are permitted to dive into the tank with a cage, but we had special permission to dive without a cage.  It wasn't the first time I had been in the water with sharks, but I had never been in the water with so many, or with any nearly as large as this.  The largest sharks at the Kattegatcentret are definitely over 2  meters in length.  The aquarium was really well done, and the sharks were incredibly beautiful.  I have to give Lars and Teddy a huge thank you for arranging the experience for us, it was fantastic!

Eline, Steve, Jamie, Teddy & Lars

The Greatest Beer in the World

     Before I depart Europe for Egypt, I've been staying with Steve and Eline at a friend's house in Denmark.  While visiting a friend in Copenhagen I had a remarkable beer experience I thought I'd share with everyone.

     A few years ago, my friend Alan and I read about a type of beer called Westvleteren.  Westvleteren is an ale from Belgium, brewed by Trappist monks inside the Abbey of Saint Sixtus near Ypres, Belgium.  Besides being extremely rare, Westvleteren ales have long been considered by beer connoisseurs to be some of the, if not the finest beer in the world.  At the time, Alan's sister was studying in Paris, and we nearly convinced her to drive to the Westvleteren Abbey in Belgium and purchase a case for us (Westvleteren can only be purchased one case a month per person, at the Abbey and only with a reservation!).  Alas, our plan never came to fruition and I thought that neither of us would have a chance to try Westvleteren ever again.  Luckily I was wrong.

     Some friends and I were in a bar in Copenhagen that supposedly has been ranked very highly  internationally as a beer bar.  I was talking about Trappist ales with the proprietor when he mentioned that he happened to have a very hard to find bottle of Westvleteren 8 ale.  Although it was obviously a little more expensive than a pint of PBR, I couldn't say no.  It was definitely one of the best beers I've ever tasted, full of body and flavor.  The only thing that would have improved the experience would have been to have Alan there to share it with.  We'll just have to go on a road-trip to Westvleteren!

August Journal Entry

A quick look back at the month of August:

     August 1^st was a date I had been looking forward to ever since the beginning of my scholarship.  On July 31^st I left my parent’s house in Washington DC and boarded a flight to Copenhagen.  I arrived the next morning, met last year’s European scholar Igor Valente at the airport, and traveled together to 2Dive in Copenhagen.  Igor, Eline, 2005 European scholar Vibe and myself were guests of Flemming Thyge, the owner of 2Dive and a pro trainer for the International Association for Handicapped Divers (IAHD) in Scandinavia.  All of this year’s scholars, as well as any previous scholars who wanted to come had been invited to participate in an IAHD Pro training course at 2Dive.  Flemming, his assistant instructor Sole Victor, and another instructor, Daniel Zuidema from the Netherlands would be teaching us how to provide safe diving experiences for handicapped divers.  Steve, who was traveling to Europe from Indonesia, would be unable to meet up with us for the IAHD course but would be joining us for the remainder of our time together in Scandinavia.  The course took three days and went very smoothly.  We learned a lot, had a lot of fun, and had an opportunity to give some handicapped people a chance to try diving for the first time, which was quite exciting.  Flemming, Sole and Daniel were great hosts and I’m very glad I had a chance to meet and spend time with them.

     On August 4^th Igor and Vibe departed for home and Eline and I met Steve at the airport and traveled north by train to the town of Helsingør.  After spending a little time getting lost in the rain, we met up with Christian Rasmussen of Fotodyk.dk for a PADI underwater photo course.  Christian not only went through the basics of underwater photography with us but also took a little time to show us around his hometown and introduce us to some traditional Danish food.  While in Helsingør we had planned on doing a little wreck diving with Christian and Kjell Evensen from Master Dive, but unfortunately the weather was not cooperating, so we had to settle for a short pool dive and some beer and Thai food.

     With our time in Denmark drawing to a close (for now) Eline, Steve and I prepared to travel north into Norway.  We would be spending a week at the One Ocean Dive Center with Carlo Golfetto in Kristiansand, diving on some of its famous wrecks and working on an article about our experiences with Christian Skauge, the Editor of the Norwegian magazine Dykking.  Carlo went so far as to pick us up from our overnight train at 4 am and put us up in his own apartment.  The diving was fantastic and we had a great time with Carlo, Christian and Carlo’s divemaster, Trond Jarle Repvik.  We even got to spend an evening wakeboarding in a nearby Fjord.  Carlo was an excellent host, and it was the first time I had been on a dive boat where all the guests were served endless amounts of delicious pasta, fish soup and espresso!

     We were sad to leave the great friends we had made in Kristiansand, but not even that could keep us from being excited about our next stop: Reykjavík!  Diving in Iceland was something all three of us had expressed a strong interest in doing during our first meeting in New York in April, and now we were actually doing it.  We went into our week in Iceland with very high expectations, and we were not disappointed one bit.  Without even considering the hospitality and enthusiasm of our hosts, Tobias Klose and Louis Kotze from Dive.is, the trendiness and excitement of Reykjavík and the rugged beauty of the Icelandic landscape, diving in Iceland was an experience that affected me in an almost spiritual way.  Traveling to ϸingvellir and diving into the crevices at Silfra was one of the most incredible experiences of my life.  Silfra’s beauty, above and below the water, is compounded by the purity of its freezing water and its geologic and historical significance.  I’m fairly certain I’ll never find another place that compares to Silfra as long as I am diving, so I really feel privileged to have been invited there by Tobias.

 

      After having a chance to dive in Silfra, we had another unique opportunity to visit the founder of Dive.is, Tommy Knutsson.  Tommy has moved on from running Dive.is to work full time with an environmental group he started, the Blue Army.  It began as a project to pull dumped batteries out of his local dive site and has grown into a widespread campaign to promote recycling, energy efficiency and environmentalism across Iceland.  Although the people of Iceland have been blessed with an incredibly pristine and unique environment, it is not one immune to abuse and it was good to visit with Tommy and the Blue Army and see some of the great projects they are working on.

      Just as Eline, Steve and I were falling totally in love with Iceland, and were convinced that there was no way it could get any better than this, Tobias played his ace in-the-hole.  Louis, Eline, Steve and I drove 6 hours from Reykjavík to the north coast of Iceland to see the Strytans.  These are a series of geothermal chimneys discovered on the bottom of a fjord in 1996.  The largest rises over 55 meters from the seabed, spewing hot mineral rich water into the freezing arctic water of the fjord.  The chimneys are not only fantastic and unique in a geological sense, but the life they draw is equally incredible.  Huge schools of Cod and Coalfish black out the sun, making a torch a necessary piece of equipment while diving the Strytans.  Not only were we staying in a farmhouse beside an incredibly beautiful fjord on the edge of the Arctic Circle, diving on one of the most unique geologic formations on Earth, but we also got to do it with the man who discovered the chimneys, Erlendur.  Erlendur and his friend Siggi were fantastic guys and great divers, and you could tell they were very excited to share the Strytans with us.  Siggi even invited us to come diving off of his boat later that evening.  Knowing that it would be our last chance to dive in Iceland, we drove North to Olafsfjorður and headed out to dive one of his favorite spots, a kelp forest that lay below the tallest cliffs in Iceland (over 600 meters high).  The dive was just incredible and it was an excellent way to conclude our diving in Iceland.

     After promising ourselves that one week was not nearly enough time to spend in Iceland, and that we would all be coming back next year, Steve, Eline and I set off for Göteborg, Sweden.  We were met at the airport by Johan Enqvist a partner and co-founder of Oxygène Diving.  After going to lunch and taking a quick tour of Oxygène Göteborg, Johan drove us up the coast to Lysekil, where we would be spending a few days diving with Daniel and Susanne Dahlströhm, managers of Oxygène Lysekil.  Johan had said that what exactly we would be doing there was going to be a surprise and something that could only be done almost exclusively at Oxygène Lysekil.  None of us were able to unravel the mystery, but when we finally arrived we were excited to learn that we were going to be trained to pilot ‘dragons’.  Originally used to search large areas of the sea floor for mines, unexploded ordinance, etc. dragons are basically a diver driven sled towed behind a boat, complete with a canopy, stabilizing tail fins and two wings used by to pilot to turn, ascend, descend or spin the dragon.  Over the next few days we had a great time with Daniel and the rest of the Lysekil staff learning to fly the dragons and exploring Lysekil.  Not only was dragon diving a blast but the people working at Oxygène Lysekil are a fun and close knit group, and we spent our ‘down-time’ exploring the rocks and caves that surround Lysekil, going boating, on cookouts and having a great time with the people we met there.

     After leaving Lysekil, the three of us had a chance to visit Poseidon Diving Systems in Göteborg.  We got a personalized tour of the facility from Jörgen Nilsson and by pure chance got an opportunity to test out a prototype of the new Cis-Lunar MK. 6 Discovery rebreather.  Jörgen had thought that there wouldn’t be a unit available for our visit, but the design manager happened to be demonstrating a unit for a distributor so Eline, Steve and I became the first non-Poseidon divers to test the new unit.  Although we were a little disappointed we didn’t get to take a MK. 6 home with us, we had a great time at Poseidon.

     At this point our threesome split up for a few days.  Steve headed north to Oslo, while Eline and I traveled to the Baltic coast of Sweden to visit Fred Hocker at the Vasamuseum in Stockholm.  Although Stockholm and the Vasamuseum were great fun and incredibly interesting, it was the kind of place that I would have liked to spent a longer and more in-depth time visiting.  The Vasa was a warship commissioned by the king of Sweden in 1624 and eventually sunk in Stockholm Harbor.  Its story spans hundreds of years, and although I’m a total amateur when it comes to archaeology, the work performed by Fred and others that’s on display at the Vasamuseum is fascinating.  I know that Delia spent a long time working with Fred at the Vasamuseum and I can certainly understand why.

     After chilling out for a few days with Flemming again in Copenhagen for a few days, Eline and I were happily reunited with Steve and headed south to meet up with our Scandinavian coordinator Lars Kirkegaard and Jesper Østergaard from the Stevns Dykker Skole.  Were there to take an IANTD wreck diving course.  The course was a first for me in that there were five students and six instructors!  Besides having a chance to learn about wreck and technical diving from a variety of different viewpoints, Eline, Steve and I got to go wreck diving in the Baltic with a group of safe, fun and totally awesome Danish wreck divers.  We were able to make several reconnaissance and penetration dives on the wrecks of the Vapper and the Minos as well as try out some scooters.

     Although it sometimes seems like August has flown by, when I stop to think about all the incredible experiences we’ve had in Scandinavia, I realize that we did A LOT this month, and we’re not finished yet!  The best part is that whenever we were short on sleep or dreading getting onto another train or bus, we were still more stoked than ever to put a tank on our backs and jump into the water.

Stevns Dykker Skole

     We wrapped up our month of Scandinavian travel with a long weekend of wreck diving with Jesper Østergaard, owner of the Stevns Dykker Skole in Rødvig.  Our Scandinavian coordinator, Lars Stenholt Kirkegaard joined Steve, Eline, myself and another diver as students in an IANTD wreck diving course.  The conditions in the Baltic can be similar to those in the Great Lakes, cold, deep and fresh, and the centuries of maritime trade and warfare in the region mean that there are tens of thousands of wrecks in excellent condition, many still waiting to be discovered.  Although Jesper and our other instructors have been exploring and diving these wrecks their entire lives, we didn’t set out to do anything groundbreaking or unprecedented.  Our goals for the weekend were to examine the special considerations one must make when diving in overhead environments, and to practice some of these new skills on two well-known yet excellent local wrecks, the Vapper and the Minos.

     We were blessed with amazing weather, and everyone had a blast zipping around on RIBs and trying out the new scooters that Jesper and his friends had just bought.  Having so many experienced and enthusiastic instructors along meant we were always learning, and the lectures were almost as much fun as the diving.  I'm really grateful to Jesper for inviting us into his home and showing us a little piece of the incredible wreck diving that the Baltic has to offer!  It was the perfect way to end our time in Denmark.