Windsurfing A Way Of Life

Added a few pics for your enjoyment of a trip I made last year to Monafia. A friend of mine Alladin who makes the T Shirts for us here in Dahab invited me there to stay with his family to see what it is like up in the North of Egypt. After staying down here in Dahab for so long it was quite refreshing to see how green it was. It was also amazing to see how basicaly the local people lived, but also how happy they all seemed to be. It just goes to show you can be very happy without a load of stuff.

The other thing that I found a bit strange was how all the kids etc were walking around pointing at me like I had just landed from the moon, but I later found out that Europeans don’t visit these places often so I could well have been the first ugly Brit they have seen.

Thanks to Alladin and his family for their generous hospitality it was a great time thankyou.

You will find the rest of the pics here

CM Dahab family together at Christmas

Merry Christmas to Svetlana and Ahmed who are away on Holiday at the moment from your Dahab family. See you again very soon.

Merry Christmas Everyone

Well what can I say, no wind today woke up early to catch the laundry in the Hilton. Now the laundry service in the Hilton is actually quite good. You can drop your clothes in there early around 8:30am and collect them around 5pm the same day all washed, pressed and ironed. Sounds great I hear you cry, no more drying laundry hanging around the house because its too wet outside, or the clothes are freezing on the line and so on all the usual problems with washing in winter in Europe on days when you can’t use that but ugly whirly gig thing that becomes a blot on the picturesque view of your garden, God I hate those things, you spend a fortune on plants, and then find you can’t see them, because this damn spinning washing is blocking the view. Anyway where was I, ahh yes, the Hilton Laundry. The guys in the laundry are absolutely great very friendly and do give a great service. However there is a problem, it seems the machines in there only wash at boiling temperature, its a good testing ground for those brand label items, is the quality of this material really as the sales person told me? send them to me and i’ll go test them for you. Anyway its a life saver for a guy like me who really doesn’t want to invest in a washing machine and has no time for ironing, the laundry service keeps me looking clean and fresh and i thank them for it. THANKS GUYS!!

After going to the Laundry I passed to the Club Mistral Windsurfing center at the Hilton Dahab to see friends and colleagues. When I arrived I was pleasantly surprised to see that we had received a delivery of new North Sails Teamwear. I have to say I have been waiting for some of this to arrive and immediately bought a short and long sleeve t-shirt. After raiding the shop I set off to the Swiss Inn with Manolis for a spot of lunch, actually in a year and a half here today was the first time I have eaten in the Swiss Inn and I must say it was very nice to have something other than the same deep fried artery clog hot menu from the beach bar at the Hilton. Actually the beach bar food at the Hilton is very nice but the menu hasn’t changed in the whole time I have been here and it could do with a few healthy option hot dishes. The food was quite good and I filled my stomach with some yummy pasta with chicken and a cream sauce. Manolis had to dash off as he had arranged a trip for his guests to the Blue Hole, a local dive and snorkeling site which is a great trip and a must do if you visit Dahab. If you go to the Blue hole I would suggest that you swim around the right hand side. There is a beautiful bank of coral running down and this is the most alive part of the reef.

To round up grabbed a pizza from the beach bar to bring back to the flat for later on, came home and cracked on with some work. Now filling this in for anyone who is interested and enjoying a glass of Chivas Regal with warm water YUM!. Take care all.

Well its been a couple of days so here is a quick update.

The wind starting playing games yesterday. What normally happens here in Dahab is during the night the wind blows from the mountains accross the bay offshore from the right. In the morning as the sun warms up the mountains wind gets pulled across from the open sea to the normal direction cross offshore from the left. Well the day before yesterday we had the wind blowing very strong cross off from the right as per the night. However, the wind in this direction was incredibly gusty 8.0 weather 1 minute and 4.0 weather the next so as you can imagine not a very comfortable direction to sail in.

The beachfront looked a bit like a typical summer day at my local home beach when all the windsurfers are gathered waiting for that illusive sea breeze to kick in. Everyone was basiclly sitting around waiting to see if the wind would swap to the left hand side and stabilize. In the end I had a cheese sandwich and a tea and left for home to catch up on some emails etc.

17-12-2006

No wind today that was a dead cert so woke up and did a bit of work on electronic girlfriend and then decided to go and chill out at one of my favorite escapes here in Dahab. Eel Garden, so named because of the colony of eels that reside in the sand bank at the foot of the reef. The place for me is perfect, situated in Assala the bedouin village right on the beach. Its location means it is away from the main drag of restaurants and bazaars in Masbat freeing you from the constant badgering to have a tea, smoke a shisha or buy something you don’t really need. Even in high season Eel garden restaurant remains a quiet relaxing place where you can sit by the water and enjoy the ambience eating some great food (Chicken Portugese is my favorite) and reading a book.

After chilling there for a while I walked down through Masbat to gather some much needed supplies from the Gazala supermarket and then grab a taxi to head for home.

The forecast is not looking that great until Thursday so don’t be too upset if there are no updates until Thursday night.

Until then wishing everyone good wind and happy sailing.

I found this gorgeous moth on my Beast 84 today while washing some boards in the center. Posted a pic up on the boards forum and thanks to Nico have found out it is an Oleander Hawkmoth.