G’day all. Today I wrap up my Saudi series with a dip in the Red Sea that divides Egypt from Saudi Arabia. Snorkelling and diving is a popular activity for those visiting Egypt’s Red Sea Coast, but it is perfectly possible to do the activity from the other side, as I did.

The company I went with, due mostly to positive online reviews and a mention in the Lonely Planet, was ‘Al-Haddad Scuba’. It was a half-day trip onto the Red Sea and the total cost was $105USD for the half-day. If you are thinking of doing this when in Jeddah, it pays to keep in mind that they leave from a way north of the city, far past the corniche and getting there is going to involve taxi, Uber or your own car.

At the office we all got snorkelling gear – just snorkel, face mask and flippers (which is what we got in Muscat too). There were a few on the trip, they run two a day incidentally, probably 12 or so I think. I had booked online and paid by credit card which was a convenient way to do it. We could change at the office/shop front and get ready before being taken to a marina, not sure what it was called, where the boat left from.

This was a swanky expensive seaside area, and we were dropped off at what seemed to be a hotel or resort and led through the place where there were little jetties and boats were lined up. The boat was, you know, a speed boat! (lol) what else can I tell you about it? Oh, no toilet so holding it in is the order of the day! We were out for four hours without hitting land so yeah, that’s a negative I guess!

The boat pulled in before heading out into the Red Sea and handed some papers with all our names and details to police and we were keenly watched by a cat at this little pier before we turned right and went out into the Red Sea! We had quite a way to go to get to the first spot for snorkelling, and they had the boat going really fast. Much fast than the boat from Oman, it was bouncing on the waves and we got pretty wet on the way out. Kind of fun I guess and once you relax into the rhythm of the bounces, it was all good. The captain was a bit of a wild guy I guess, pumping out the music and then there was another on the boat who I think was support staff.

They were happy to relax into the experience with the patrons but they weren’t particularly chatty and there wasn’t much time talking about safety on boats which is common but you know, there were life jackets provided etc.

We pulled up near some small islands/rocks – basically a reef. It was a bit like ‘ok, the reef’s just there, we’re here for an hour and a half’, and then we jumped in and were mostly left to it. It was good snorkelling. There was nothing that really blew me away – no sharks, rays or sea turtles, and I had no idea exactly where I was – it had taken an hour to get there so we were a LONG way from the mainland, but the water was warm, there was lots of coral and plenty of fish. We had plenty of time for snorkelling too. The best way to show you is to show you the video, it’s part of my Jeddah video. I MIGHT do a separate video one day for this trip I need to go through what I shot to see if there is enough for me to justify a new video. Generally I felt the footage was a bit disappointing – it didn’t fully capture the experience.

We were moved on after 90 minutes to a second location about 15 minutes on the boat away and stayed there for a good hour or more. This was good but not as the first location. The weather all day every day in Jeddah and surrounds was hot and humid. So actually perfect weather for snorkelling and lovely warm water too.

We scooted back to the dock where we had to wait half an hour for the pick up to arrive. The experience was great, the tour provided could have been improved with a bit of work on the communication really. At the dock waiting for the pick up at the end would have been a great time to change into dry clothes but apart from access to the dock for the boat it didn’t seem like we could access anything else there.

Even though it wasn’t the brilliant experience that snorkelling in Oman had been, if you like snorkelling and are in Jeddah I definitely would recommend it. The chance to go out into the middle of Red Sea and just swim would have been worth it because it’s just so different from anything else you can do in Jeddah.

Thanks for joining me today! Thus endeth the Saudi blogs. There should be another post next week not sure exactly what at this stage, and then a bit of a break over Christmas/New Yeah, some summary blogs before continuing the story of my Dhaka to Dakar trip kicking off from Egypt! Thanks also for following these adventures I’ve had in 2023, take care wherever you are in the world and… May the Journey Never End!