Day 252 – Hurghada
Snorkelling in the Red Sea
We had booked a tour yesterday over the phone with “Book Tour Egypt” for Dolphin House. Despite the name, there is no house. It’s a boat tour into the Red Sea with snorkelling in an area that is known of dolphin sightings. The tour is advertised as 13 English Pounds (GBP) per person which translated to 291 EGP / $25.17 AUD per person. This includes transfers from Hotel, snorkelling equipment, 3 snorkelling stops, lunch and unlimited soft drinks or water.
We had to wait for pick up at 7:50am. We left Sunny Seaside Villa and waited on the side of the road. We had to wait for a while, as the driver was struggling to find the hotel. Around 8.15am the van picked us up and dropped us off, close to our first hotel in Hurghada, Villamar Red Sea View, close to Magic Beach hotel.
Here we got our snorkelling gear, and we had to pay 300 EGP / $25.93 per person which was slightly over the 582 EGP / $25.17 AUD the tour company had said over the phone. The gentleman, told me he would give me my change later, but this is Egypt. Later as the guys on the boat come around asking for tips, I told them, that the guy on the shore was going to “give me change” and that they can just keep the change as a tip. At first the guy didn’t understand me and you could tell he thought I wasn’t giving a tip, so I later found him and explained the situation. He seems more amicable after that.
The tour itself was amazing. The boat drives for a while and during that time we got a briefing about the day. After getting equipped with snorkels, flippers, and life jackets we went on a trial run of jumping in the water and swimming around. It was nerve racking at first, as the boat doesn’t stop, it just slows down.
But OMG the water was amazingly cool, and with a life jacket, we had no worries. The coral is very bleached and void of colour. We did see some oil trails in the water, probably from tour boats. But otherwise, the water was pristine, with lots of tropical fish swimming around and very clear.
After this we got back on board and did it a few more times. At one location we saw a dolphin, who was rushed by at least 30 people, from all the tour boats in the area. But the dolphin swam really fast, darting away from all the crowds. It was safe to say, that while we were in the water, the dolphins had mainly abandoned their house. However, there were plenty of fish around.
The lunch was served inside the boat, and there was plenty of food to go around. After, lunch there were a few water activities like banana boats and other inflatable activities.
The boat stops when your getting back in
Close to when we were about to go, a few dolphins started to give us a show from a little distance. They were doing back flips to the cheering crowd which was very cool.
We were back to the hotel, Sunny Seaside Villa just before by 4:30pm with the included hotel transfer. Despite not seeing as many dolphins as we expected, it was an awesome day of snorkelling in the Red Sea, which is super blue.
