Underwater wildlife Video courses with Jeff Goodman in the Red Sea. A place with no Politics – Just Sun, Sea and great diving.

At a time when Egypt is only in the news for conflict and political uncertainty, there are a few places in the south that seem worlds away. Red Sea Diving Safaris have three eco dive resorts in the south, Marsa Shagra, Marsa Nakari and Wadi Lakmi.I have just returned from Marsa Shagra where I was holding another underwater wildlife video course.  My students and I mostly dived the excellent house reef going through all the skills and practicalities of making good underwater video, but also had a good session a few miles up the coast with resident Green Turtles and a Dugong.

The Turtles are pretty well guaranteed but the Dugong can be a little more elusive. The day was clear with a bright sun and calm water. We left the shore and came across the first turtle only 50 meters from shore. It was a juvenile with the two obligatory Remora fish clinging to its back. Although a fine day, there was quite a bit of fine sand mixed up in the water, making the visibility a little subdued.  But no matter, filming turtles what ever the conditions is always a great pleasure. My students had all the time in the world to get the shots they needed for a good video sequence.

Towards the latter part of the dive we noticed the visibility a few hundred meters off to the south was very poor. The sand was being stirred up by something. And there it was, right in the middle of a small self inflicted sand storm, A dugong feeding contently on the sparse sea grass.  Using its snout, it ploughs the seabed shaking its head to get rid of the sand. The Dugong can be found at 20 meters or more it usually feeds in around 1-5 meters of water and consumes about 50 Kilograms of food a day.

What a wonderful sight, such a strange yet charismatic animal. The temptation to rush in and get some shots is best tempered. We took a moment or two to let the Dugong know we were there and get use to us. To let it know we meant no harm. This done, we were free to dive with it in a relaxed and controlled way.

Previously Dugongs in this area have been harassed continuously by divers and snorkelers giving it no time to feed properly. Being an air breathing mammal the Dugong needs to surface regularly for breath, but often the shear pressure from snorkelers chasing it, drive it back to the sea bed in panic. This can be day in day out and of course in the end the pressure takes it’s toll and the animal has to move away to look for quieter feeding grounds.  Then surprise surprise, we all say Oh, the Dugong has gone………                                                                 

With the stirred up sand and sun now low on the horizon, the light was not too kind to us, making colour saturation, apparent image sharpness and contrast quite difficult.  The images shown in this article are taken directly from video frames during the edit. A finished sequence can be seen at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpntdNI4lxw

We spent a good 15 minutes with it before being joined by a few other divers, so to ease the pressure on the animal we headed back to the beach with smiles and a feeling of utter satisfaction.

It was now back to base for an excellent meal a cool drink and watch the full moon come up over the calm watery horizon.

If you would like to book on a course please contact;

Jeff Goodman – [email protected] – www.jeffgoodman.co.uk

OonasDivers (UK) – [email protected] - www.oonasdivers.com

Red Sea Diving Safaris - www.redsea-divingsafari.org