Day 12 Beach Camp on Aqaba Gulf

Thursday March 31^st

Woke up early this morning. It was a glorious morning. Lots of warm sunshine, no clouds, very peaceful and beautiful rock mountains and blue sky. We loaded up and drove the rest of the way east across the Sinai peninsula to the coast and our Sawa Beach Camp. It is located on the Gulf of Aqaba which is the north end of the Red Sea. From here you can see Saudi Arabia about fifteen kilometres across the gulf.

The camp consists of small bamboo huts on a nice sandy beach. There is a large restaurant/lobby area that provides protection from the sun. The water is a beautiful pale blue and the bottom is a combination of sand, pebbles, small weeds and further out coral and the reef. The reef is about a hundred metres off the shore and can be reached easily by walking and swimming.

Met Jess and her group here when we arrived. She had Tarla and three other women and one man, for the Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Turkey trip. We had a couple of hours to talk and have lunch before they left for their ferry ride to Aqaba in Jordan.

I have cabin number zero. Spent the afternoon relaxing and tanning, reading a new book and then when the tide came in, I went snorkeling out to the reef. The first thing I saw was a number of large black sea slugs. Swam out to the reef and saw lots of fish including lionfish, a blue spotted lagoon ray, a couple of eels and the usual variety of colourful reef fish. The reef seems to be in good shape with a large variety of colourful coral. Swam for about an hour and then came back to warm up and read some more in my hammock before it got dark.

For dinner I had grilled vegetables, zucchini, carrots and eggplant with rice. For lunch I had vegetable curry. So today I was a vegetarian. Considering I'm at a basic camp the food here is excellent, and so by the way, are the washroom and shower facilities.

After dinner I sat with Sam and a couple of his friends in the lobby area. After awhile the mosquitoes drove me to my cabin. Got in my mosquito netted bed and read before going to sleep.