I am still a "new diver" having only qualified 12 months ago in the cloudy murk of Stoney Cove, Leicestershire.
My husband doesn't share my passion for neoprene and nitrox so family holidays are a juggling act to keep him, me and my 12 year old daughter happy. We have managed this so far by holidaying in the Canaries but I was fed up of hearing how wonderful the Red Sea was, from my Buddies at Northampton Sub Aqua and decided I had to see for myself.
Having decided that we thought Sharm may be too busy for us we settled on a week at The Hilton Hotel, Taba. (Direct flight 5 hours) The only problem was that no one seemed to have heard of it! Taba is situated on the Sinai Peninsula right on the border with Israel. The scene at night is amazing, you can see Saudia Arabia, Jordan and Israel spread out infront of you.
The HiltonHotel has Aqua Sports International based on site. They are a 5 star Padi centre and can offer both shore and boat dives everyday. The centre is managed by Huw Watson from South Wales who was a pleasant and informative guide and buddy.
Still enough scene setting. The most important thing was the water, the fish, the corals......well what can I say?
The water is crystal clear and warm, the freedom when changing from a dry suit to a semi dry is positively elating. Not to mention shedding half of the weight from your weight belt.
The fish life put me in mind of a David Attenborough documentary. "Fish Soup" sums it up perfectly. In a single dive you see, trigger fish, parrot fish, clowns, wrasse, glass fish, porcupine fish, butterfly fish, sergeant majors, grunts, goatfish, cornets, jacks, tang and angels. Oh and I nearly forgot it has to be the Lion fish capital of the world. Then if all this isn't enough you can hear in the distance the whistling of bottle nosed dolphins. The shore dives we did took us down to a maximum depth of 25 metres.
The Hilton has a fabulous stretch of beach and 3 reefs, the House Reef, Coral Canyon and Black Coral. All three of them are beautiful and undamaged, although my favourite was definately Black Coral.
You don't even need to be a diver here to see most of this. The reef starts withing 3m of the beach and just snorkling will leave you spellbound.
The Hotel was very good, excellent food and with amazing service. The dive school was friendly and efficient and the diving was amazing. I would urge anyone to think more about going North from Sharm and Hurghada. Try Taba, but be careful it could spoil you for life when no where else can compare with it.
By the way, the juggling act worked. Husband and daughter were so happy I'm now counting the days until April when we go for 2 weeks!
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