Remembering the Red Sea ​​​​​​​

LAWSON WOOD has just released a new guide to the Egyptian Red Sea, and here he reminisces about his long history with the region.

I first dived the Red Sea back in 1974 with my very good friend Harry Simmonds on a marine biology course headed by Dr Paul Cragg (a contemporary of my good friend Professor David Bellamy). I had a loan of a Nikonos II underwater camera with no clue whatsoever on how it worked, but Jim Wilmot, Pete Bignel and

Kevin Cullimore soon set me straight. I had picked up a Nikonos guide book by Jim and Cathy Church to read on the plane to Eilat and took just three rolls of 35mm film on our two-week trip!

This first trip spurred me to start leading safaris through the Sinai Peninsula from Eilat in Israel (remember that the Sinai was controlled by Israel after the Six Day War in June 1967). These expeditionary safaris took in all of the Eastern Sinai Peninsula when there was no development whatsoever. There was only one hotel - the Marina Sharm Hotel - and only three dive businesses in Na’ama Bay. Red Sea Divers, run by Howard Rosenstein; Aquanaut, owned and operated by Rolf and Petra Schmidt; and Aquamarine, with Alain Sobol and Claude Antoine. There was no construction at all and hardly any roads, except for the main road from Eilat to Sharm, and a very poor track up to Suez via El Tur and on to Cairo.

Utilising small Bedouin encampments and fishing huts, we carted all of our needs - sleeping bags, food, water, soft drinks (and harder drinks when required!), air tanks, weights and air compressor - for a week or two of sleeping rough and diving unexplored coastal reefs in an area which was virtually uninhabited. We dived the legendary Blue Hole at Dahab, Nuweiba, Ras Nasrani and Ras Um Sid. Under the control of Israel until 1979, I ran one of the last safari trips into the Sinai, and was part of the expat community who were politely asked to leave the Sinai. All businesses were shut down and many structures and schools were destroyed as Israel evacuated the Sinai, meaning the reefs of the Red Sea remained undived for almost two years.