January 20, 2008: Dugong!

Woo hoo!

After over a year of diving in the Red Sea, and over a dozen dives in a bay actually inhabited by dugongs (and where everyone but me seems to find them), I finally spotted my first one. Near the end of a dive, nowhere near where any dugong should be hanging out, she just cruised on over in about 5 metres of water as me and my group were swimming along back towards our exit point in the reef. I looked over to my left and nearly had a heart attack when I saw the two-metre long beast just gliding along a few metres away from me, looking at me with her beady little eye and patiently waiting to get noticed. Afraid she wouldn't stay, I could hardly tear my eyes away long enough to get the attention of my divers (who all nearly surfaced in their surprise). But our dugong was in the mood for a bit of fun; she circled around us a couple of times, pumping her whale tail as we stared in wonder and awe. We hung out long enough for our photograher to get a few shots off (the photo is courtesy of him), but eventually, and extremely reluctantly, I had to end the party thanks to the group's dwindling air supply (I considered staying down until they were out of air and making them snorkel in, but I wasn't sure how well that would go down). Sigh... Oh well, now that I've seen a dugong, I can leave Egypt and head for the Indian Ocean and the Maldives. No dugongs there, but mantas galore and the occasional whale shark to boot. Sweet!