Day 81

Sleeping location: A tiny beach in Ras Mohammed NP, Egypt
Distance (km today/total): 29 / 6313
Estimated climb (m today/total): 200 / 56100
Total dives in the Red Sea: 9
Day in three words: One last dip

After a comparative lie in (7am) we packed up and headed to the dive shop, where they were very friendly and let us store our bikes inside no problem. The dives were bizarrely from an Italian restaurant that had its own jetty, but that didn’t detract from more Red Sea beautiful corals and fishes. As usual I failed to see anything big (shark/turtle/ray) but as usual there were tons of other smaller interesting things to gawp at. On the second dive we did some drift diving, which neither of us had done before and was very fun. There were also loads of quite big fish hanging around in the current, no idea what they were waiting for. We went back to the dive shop and headed off on the bikes for about 3.30, just about enough time to get to our destination of Ras Mohammed by dark. 

On the way to the dive shop my gears had been playing up, shifting randomly, and as we left I discovered why - the cable had started to badly fray at the shifter, and needed replacing ASAP. As we didn’t want to risk not being allowed into the national park I decided to repair it later, for now putting it into a lowish gear and trying not to touch the rear shifter at all. This meant I effectively only had three gears, so I alternated between whirring my legs round on downhills and pushing hard on uphills. Incidentally, my dad advised against changing my gear cables in Kalkan, so I didn’t, so this is definitely his fault. 

We got to RM in time but were charged an inexplicable £10 each to be able to wild camp there - more than our apartment in Sharm the night before. Because the “day” tickets were only £2 each he gave us 9, plus some random things written in Arabic, so that’s ok. At the park registration we were recorded as Kevin Ball and Rebecca Patrick. Inside we found a small beach to sleep on, and went for a skinny dip in the dusk, which was very nice after a hot afternoon cycle. After we got out some camels appeared out of the dark and started eating a tree nearby, which was quite startling when you don’t really know what a camel sounds like. To celebrate our lovely spot we opened a bottle of red that I’d been carrying for AGES (four days). Again the moon was absent and the stars were amazing, and this time we did sleep without the tent despite a strong-ish wind. After a couple of hours of sleep we (Rebecca) remembered that tides exist and we moved ourselves up the beach, just in case. 

Comments

  1. UnknownOctober 24, 2019 at 3:51 AM

    Your Dad had obviously read the JP guide to LeJoG maintenance - change the outer, but forget the important one!

    ReplyDelete

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