Okay, that’s enough: no more Dennis the Dugong after this post (at least for now). The Portugese underwater filmer Joel Machado, who can be seen at work this photo, just sent me a link to his video of our little quest to find Dennis.
Abu Dabab – “the dining room” from Joel Machado on Vimeo.
You can see me swim by a few times and trying to get aquinted with a Remorra… at 04:21 I’m actually taking this picture (watch the flash). But have a look at the video because it’s simply beautiful!
It is starting out to be a bit of a Port Ghalib fest on this website as (see here and here), again, there is another publication on this brand new resorttown. This time a massive 8-page checkout in the Dutch diving magazine Duikmagazine. The article is about the resort as well as the fantastic diving with the guys from Emperor Divers who run a very nice operation over there. Surely one of the best spots in Egypt that easily accesible as Port Ghalib is about ten minutes away from the Marsa Alam airport. Resort quality? Let’s just say that it’s the only place in Egypt where I’ve found it to be safe to eat the salads and fruits in the hotels.
Again, a full PDF is downloadable here.
Many thanks go out to:
www.discoverportghalib.com
www.suninternational.com
www.emperordivers.com
www.isropa.nl
www.tourismafrica.nl
What is an article on scuba-diving doing in a Ski Magazine? Well, that’s gotta be the summer-edition full of climbing, biking and this time some diving too. It’s in Dutch, sorry for those who can’t read it. The openingspread was taken at the Port Ghalib Resort near Marsa Alam. See this post for more under water images from this area.
Knowing there is something to fotograph but not being able to find it sort of frustrating, especially when underwater and being limited by an annoying but finite thing as an air supply.
Try imagining an area as large as a couple of football fields of underwater seagrass and an underwater visibility of about 20 meters and you’ll understand it’s not easy to find a specific living animal, even it has the size of about two humans.
The “thing” I am talking about is “Dennis”, the famous seacow (or Dugong, it’s one of the three members of the Manatee family) of the Abu Dabbab bay near Port Ghalib in the Marsa Alam region of Egypt.
Seeing these pictures you’ve probably guessed we found it but it took us two full-hour dives to actually spot it. Sure, we did come across plenty of huge and approacheable Turtles and a couple of large Stingrays but imagine being a the last stage of your dive (it’s that limited air supply) and spotting an enormous dustcloud underwater, the number one Dugong signature… but no Dennis to match it.
Turned out it was right above us and while we were getting highly frustrated not seeing it, he was just getting a breath of fresh air. Our paths finally crossed when we decided to go up and finish the dive while he was going down to continue vacuuming the seafloor.
We squeezed a few last minutes at our ample air supply… enjoy the shots!
Images taken with a Canon Eos 20D, 15mm f2.8 fisheye and an UK-Germany housing.
Port Ghalib is a newly constructed resort and marina very close to the airport of Marsa Alam in the South of the Egyption Red Sea. In 2007 and 2008 I had the opportunity to stay and photograph the immense project as it just opened its doors. Incredible to imagine that before these buildings there was only sand and rocks. The Palace Hotel has the largest manmade saltwater pool area in the world.
Click on “full screen” for the high-res slideshow:
De mooiste canvassen voor de kinderkamer, ontworpen door Rutger Geerling.
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