Our New Year

Happy New Year. Well we certainly had a different New Years Weekend this year. We went to the Red Sea for the weekend. We stayed in Jeddah at a reasonable hotel which has it's own "private beach". The beach was absolutely fabulous. We could wear western clothes, swim, snorkel and Scuba dive right from the beach. There was a fab Cafe which served good food and apart from 1 Egyptian lady, not an Arab in sight. The Egyptian lady wore a "Saudi Bathing costume" which is essentially an all in one affair with a cap attached - it is all black and quite tight so over it she wore a loose fitting dress - not ideal for her I am sure, as the temp was well into the 30s but she was obviously more comfortable that way. I spent the day on a sun lounger in & out of the shade watching the kids messing about in the water. It really was a great day. New Year's Day dawned for us at 5.45am (YES 5.45AM!!) we had to be at a marina by 7.15 which was a half hours drive away. By 8 we were on our way out into the Red Sea - What an awesome day - we had dolphins swimming along side us for a while, him indoors did 2 open water dives each lasting about 45 mins - he saw clown fish and most of Nemo's other mates, one of the groups out scuba diving came head to head with a turtle, the sea was 28 degrees, but on the way home it did start to get a bit rough - not sickly rough but very wet rough! One of the other people scuba diving has been doing it all around the world for years, and according to them the sea of Jeddah is just abut the best place in the world to Scuba dive - better than the Micronesia islands, Maldives, Malaysia or the Caribbean. I guess Saudi does have something going for it!