Tip - Water World Diving Center in El Quseir - Marsa Alam - Egypte

www.waterworld-divingcenter.de

In May 2006, our group of 12 Belgium friends, of which 9 dive buddies
from dive center Scuba College in Mechelen (www.scubacollege.be),
visited the Water World Dive Center, located on the premises of the
superb, recently build, Akassia Swiss Resort hotel, about a 40 minutes
drive away from the new airport of Marsa Alam.

The practical accommodations, including plenty of room for rinsing and
storing dive equipment, and the warm and warm welcome by the dive
center staff where immediate eye catchers. As was the large coffee and
tea corner used to welcome new guests, and debrief after diving with
the staff and other guests of the center.

The dive center is very flexible in assembling the daily dive agenda,
offering free choice for groups of 3 or more people. Asking around
other divers to join you for a selected dive spot quickly helps you in
getting your choice on the agenda. House reef dives from the jetti can
start as early as 600 am, until night dives, where you only enter the
water when it is actually dark. Jeep safari dives using minibuses for
dive transport while the equipment is safely carried with jeeps, to any
spot North or South of the dive center, typically as close by as 10 to
30 minutes. And finally boat dives, which mostly start from the new
port of Ghalib (about 45 minutes away with minibus), or the well known
port of Safaga when you want to dive on the Salem Express wreck.

The center is in German hands (efficiency and safety rules), yet the
staff masters English, Dutch and Italian. The center is looking for
French speaking instructors, while the base leader called Hagen is
studying French himself.

The staff is very friendly, competent, and has user satisfaction highly
on the priority list. Both Egypt and foreign Instructors and Dive
Masters are part of the staff, with surprisingly mostly instructors.

Top dive spots are Elphinestone reef (extremely beautiful soft and hard
corals, many of which we as an experience group of divers had never
seen, white tip reef sharks, and 'inshala', hammer sharks), Abu Dabab
(doejong sea cow, giant sea turtles, guitar ray, stone fish), Salem
Express (completely preserved ferry wreck that even novice divers can
handle, famous sea grave yard, show respect by not entering the wreck,
as there is lots of opportunity to live the history by looking inside
broken windows), Shab Sher West and Wizr (superb coral gardens and
coral pillars). And if you do not bump into a large group of dolphins
during any of your boat trips, it is time to go for confession, because
you clearly did something seriously wrong.

The dive center demands a check dive to start. Groups having their own
instructors can define their own check dive, the location is fixed
though, a nice and easy dive spot anyway to get the group into 'diving
gear'.

Prices are average for Egypt, with an option to get a nice discount for
groups, especially if you threat the staff nice A tip: contact the
dive center before the trip via email or fax.

We have never experience a dive vacation in Egypt, offering such a
large variety in corals and colorful fish. Less large schools of fish
can be observed in these parts of the Red sea, yet the diversity well
substitutes that. We are still finding species we never saw before in
our Red Sea Reef Guide.

A special thanks goes to base leader Hagen, who personally took care of
our group, in a very friendly, flexible, and efficient manor. We hope
to see the staff of Water World Dive Center back pretty soon...