Diving in the Red Sea

The big thing at Eilat, besides buying tawdry souvenirs, is diving. One dive yesterday and three today. They have sunk an old missile command ship of the Israeli navy, which is now sitting on the seafloor at 25m. The sea is very clear and visibility is excellent, so one gets a good sense of the size of the ship. Corals are beginning to colonize it, but for now it looks fairly new.

The corals at Eilat aren’t the best I have seen. Much of the seafloor is sand, but due to the clear waters the colors of the corals and fish are brighter than what I have seen elsewhere. Big yellow-silver moraines with gaping mouths are waiting for prey, and we have seen stingrays and sea snakes too. Big schools of orange, blue, and silver fish, and a few enormous blue-green-yellow ones, didn’t mind at all that we were plowing through them.

The good news is that most diving sites don’t need a boat; you just step into the water at the shore. The bad news is that scuba gear, when wet, weighs close to 30kg, and I had to walk barefoot over sharp gravel… The same gear that lets you float effortlessly under water is enormously clunky on land.

Eilat is at the intersection of Israel, Jordan, and Egypt. I could see the others at a distance today. Tomorrow I’ll do a day trip to Jordan.