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I went diving at Marsa Shagra, Egypt recently (4-11 October 2006) with Mark and Angus.
I saw some of the most amazing things: an Oceanic White Tip shark, a Dugong, White AND Black Tip Reef sharks, two massive Hawksbill Turtles as well as all the usual stuff you see in the Red Sea.
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As usual, I took way too many photos and I've uploaded way too many! I can't help it!
I was soooo close to the Oceanic White Tip! It was amazing! It came right towards me and was checking me out, no doubt. I have a video clip taken by Helen Lancaster of the shark swimming up to me, circling underneath me and swimming away again. It was so close, I could have touched it at one point.
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But the best dive of the holiday has to have been at Marsa Abu Dubab where I saw the Dugong. We started the dive by checking out the sea grass in search of the dugong, but no luck. So we headed over to the reef to see what it was like. That's when we met a group of divers circling a pair of humongous Hawsbill Turtles. They were happily munching on the grass and didn't seem to care that they were the star attraction! After a quick photoshoot and a fair bit of gawping at the turtles, we headed toward to reef again where we had a swim-by from two Guitar Sharks. Very cool, but they didn't hang around to be photographer. I missed the Black Tip Reef sharks, but Mark managed to spot them in the distance.
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We finally got to the reef and after a while, I was thinking that it was a bit dull! We'd just seen turtles and sharks and there might be a dugong out there too. So I used my dive slate to tell my plan to the other divers in the group. We all agreed and I set a 45 degree bearing for the seagrass. It was fantastic: we passed another hawksbill before bumping into the Dugong! It was very cute - if you can call a fat 2m sea cow cute! It was just there in about 3m deep water munching on the seagrass; bobbing up to the surface every so often to get a breath of air and to be patted by the Italian Bikini Fish who were snorkling above us trying to get a good look at the dugong.
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I have put up a small gallery of pictures in memory of my beautiful Button who sadly died on Saturday 16th September 2006, aged 13, after an operation to stem internal bleeding caused by a growth on her liver.
She was known widely as Buttley, Buttley-Boo, Chicken-Boo and Monkey-Boo. She could often be seen sleeping in a pot and her hobbies included sleeping and eating dolphin friendly tuna. She was such an affectionate wee girl and gave me so much happiness when everything around me was falling apart.
I loved her so much and will miss her dreadfully.
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Pictures of my THIRD holiday in Egypt (5th to 12th May 2006) are up on my Kodak Gallery.
We saw dolphins!!!! Yeah!!!! Woo-hooo! Dolphins! Less than 3m away! We saw a few dolphins from the boat over the holiday, which was amazing, but to actually see them while diving was soooo special. Jealous? You should be ;-)
All these pictures were taken with my new Canon IXUS 65 with Canon underwater case. It's a great camera for underwater use, but I'd recommend going the extra step and buying the IXUS800IS.
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Pictures of my second holiday in Egypt (29 January to 06 February 2006) are up on my Kodak EasyShare Gallery.
James and Mark DeBrun didn't come along this time, so it was only Mark Hambleton and I. We met some great people out there but we weren't swamped with too many divers either.
I borrowed James' Olympus uD500 camera and under water housing for the week and Mark brought his Canon IXUS v2 with him for a few land shots. I took most of the underwater shots, but the ones of me were taken by Mark, I know that much!! Photo of the year is shown just to your left.
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Pictures of my holiday in Egypt (23-29 September 2005) are now on my Kodak EasyShare Gallery.
The slideshow consists of pictures from both MarkH and James' cameras, so there are loads of underwater shots as well as some taken on dry land. |
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Form an orderly queue for photos of James' birthday celebrations in Brussels. Some of the indoor photos came out a little wierd, but I've kept them anyway.
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Owenrigh cottage is now owned by my cousin Niall Harkin and his wife Emma. Pictures taken at Christmas 2004 and on St. Patrick's day 2005 are now available for viewing on my Ofoto site.
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Buttley is the fatest monkey in the world. And she thinks she's a cat!
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Over £6000 was raised in honour of my father, Michael Harkin, at a fundraiser for the Foyle Hospice held at the Drummond Hotel, Ballykelly on 15 April 2005. |
unofficial prong website
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