Encounter with the sharks of the Strait of Tiran.
Meeting with sharks of the Strait of Tiran and other impressions.
We quite often go to Egypt to swim with a mask and snorkel (we don’t dive with a balloon). For the next trip, the Coral Beach Rotana Resort Montazah hotel was chosen (the hotel itself is nothing special - the four of the economy class, economy primarily in terms of food). The hotel was not chosen by chance, since on 2 previous trips we stayed at the Melia Sinai and Savita hotels. Usually we can swim up to 2 kilometers from the hotel pontoon in one direction and the places where we planned to swim were well known to us. We planned to swim to the lighthouse and swim in the Ras Ghamila lagoon.
In the first days, we could not swim to the lighthouse (the distance from the pontoon of our hotel to the lighthouse is exactly 2 kilometers). It was interfered with by the currents. At low tide, the flow of water (if you swim towards the lighthouse) is in your face, the water is warm and rather muddy, it’s nice to swim against the current, like in a pool with a countercurrent, but you can’t see much.
Sometimes after breakfast there was a slight wind and waves, which made it difficult to sail towards the lighthouse. At high tide, on the contrary, with a stream of clear sea water, it carried towards the lighthouse and the lagoon so strongly that there were doubts whether we could return. I agree with many authors that the Ras Ghamila lagoon is not the most interesting place for snorkeling, but sometimes, swimming in the Red Sea, you want variety. So in one of the swims, we allowed the tide to carry us into the lagoon.
Sailing over the reef platform was quite pleasant and interesting, in this place
The coral on the platform is 100% alive, as it never remains exposed at low tide, the variety of corals, the abundance of small fish, watch the corals, and “blossoming” soft corals create the illusion of flying over the surface of a fantastic planet.
When the platform begins to descend towards the lagoon, fields of bright real grass suddenly appear, you can forget that you are in the Red Sea, then the grass begins to thin, fade, turns brown and you can see the sandy bottom.
The only thing that is really interesting on this bottom is the minks, in which fish and crayfish live together, if you do not move, you can observe the work of the crayfish.
We swam in this lagoon for a while and saw a huge stingray (1.5-2 meters in diameter). I had only seen such people in the aquarium before, but there they were, maybe a little less. In the reference books that I have, I did not find such a slope. At first we chased him, and the stingray quickly swam away, but after a while we again found the stingray, we did not move and the stingray calmly swam, rummaged in the sand, surfaced.
In terms of shape and movement, it looks like a small stingray (with blue spots) that are often found on the bottom near the wall of any reef.
The next day after the first swim in the lagoon, we finally sailed to the lighthouse. The weather was favorable - complete calm and no current. The closest pontoon to the lighthouse is the pontoon of the Coral Sea Sensatori Resort (former Imperial) - 1.6 kilometers, but we sailed from our hotel (distance 2 kilometers), as it is pleasant and interesting to sail - the places are very beautiful. We swam near the pontoon of the former Imperial before on previous trips. Unfortunately, with the start of the hotel’s full operation, the species composition of fish in this place has changed - there used to be schools of fry, telosura, flutes, barracudas of various age categories (very small and larger) and other rarer small predators of various calibers, whose names I don’t know . Now under the pontoon there is a "classic" set of baited fish.
Perhaps, in terms of species, there are even more of them, but the uniqueness of the place has disappeared.
The path to the lighthouse is quite picturesque on the first half of the "road". This is one of the most beautiful places in Sharm, in my opinion. There are practically no people there. No boat drivers, no excursions. Because of the perfectly calm weather, rafts made of vegetable debris from the lagoon are on the surface, under which they often had to dive. The closer the lighthouse was, the less I wanted to swim to it - the lighthouse seemed large and beautiful from afar, but close it is small and shabby, some structures are lying nearby on the reef platform. Corals, however, are the same as everywhere else, the species composition of fish is almost the same, with the exception of the social mass event of black-spotted sweet lips (the name was taken from the reference book - this is such a silver fish with yellow edges and dark dots on the body measuring 45 centimeters).
There were many of these fish, usually they are very calm, but in this place they were "boiling", probably they were going to spawn.
We swam up to the lighthouse, leaned out of the water, I took off my mask, we discussed the lighthouse, the birds that were sitting on the metal structures. Then they put on masks, put their heads into the water and at the same time noticed a shark at some distance from us at a shallow depth above the reef. Less than a man, but more than a meter, rather thin than thick, did not move. I didn't look at it anymore. Somehow, without thinking, I ended up above the reef platform (despite the low tide) and scaring away the sohals (surgeon fish), trying not to move our legs, we shamefully began to crawl away from the shark into the lagoon.
I even stood on the reef (the depth was 60 centimeters, I then measured it by my leg), but I couldn’t see the sharks, only the “seething” of schooling fish. My husband said that in the place where the shark was, there were still large fish swimming, but I did not notice this.
Almost as soon as we sailed away from the lighthouse, a pedal catamaran (from Jazz Belvedere or Nabak) sailed to the lighthouse and people began to swim in this place.
Having crossed the low water through the platform into the lagoon, we found that the inner wall of the platform facing the lagoon is very interesting (then we returned to this place 2 times). The inner wall is not as chic as the outer wall, up to 2 meters high, somewhere less than human height, but the corals are so bizarrely horned and grow differently from the outer side of the reef wall. There are absolutely no tourists there. Sometimes strange "fishermen" or gatherers (? ) of their locals walk around in strange red clothes. Human 4. Feeling of peace and "unity" with nature. It seems that the shores are very far away (at the same time, you can stand with your feet on the bottom), the feeling that this lagoon is very large and it will be difficult to swim to the shore.
But when three eagle rays approached us, we happily chased after them, trying to surround them, naturally we didn’t catch up. When we looked back, it turned out that we swam out, almost to the middle of the lagoon (and then thoughts arose, but could they swim into the lagoon except for eagles and sharks).
This lagoon is interesting only for the inner reef wall (small area). The entire center of the lagoon is sand at a depth, often muddy water, there is nothing to see with a mask.
The text is very long. I will try to briefly write a few words about the Napoleons. Several Napoleons.
Two large ones (seen at the same time, there is a photo), two medium ones and several small ones that are not lured.
In the morning at 6 o'clock we almost always met one Napoleon (each time different) next to the pontoon. Once we met 3 at once, a large one and 2 medium ones. In the morning they are well lured. You can take pictures in an embrace for a small fee.
It is better not to tease one of the average Napoleons - it can be intrusive.
In the morning, opposite the Melia Sharm beaches, we met a small turtle several times. They teased octopuses (but without familiarities).
The main incredible meeting happened to us on the last day before our departure. Opposite the beaches of Melia Sharm there is a cape and behind it a sharply vertical section of the reef wall. Then a real whale shark swam up to the reef wall. It's just incredible, it's hard to believe your eyes in the first seconds, it's like seeing a Mayan pyramid in the middle of Moscow (nevertheless, it is there). The shark swam from the Strait of Tiran. She was dark. Her silhouette is more expressive, slender, more "shark" than they draw in reference books. I can't say how many meters. The size of the outer part of the pontoon (meters 5? ). Besides us, there were 2 other people in the water. There were no cameras (mine had a leak the day before and had to be drowned). There were no other witnesses.
On the shore, I caught a divers' boatman, but he did not believe us. Although he said “she is not dangerous” and “then she will swim back” and the fact that in the Strait of Tiran he met three-meter sharks. So due to the language barrier, I was unable to find out if a whale shark swam there by chance or if it always swims at 1.30 in that place.
