In May 2008 Eve and I returned to Taba with our regular diving holiday friends Ann and Richard Preston. Unlike Eve and Richard, Ann does not dive but on this holiday neither did Richard, who was suffering from sciatica or Eve, who was recovering from surgery and chemotherapy.

Since Eve and I had last stayed in Taba, the Mövenpick Resort had been completed and we stayed there rather than at the Taba Hilton. From past experience I knew that the region had two exceptional dives sites, The Canyon and Black Coral, both being shore dives easily accessible from the Taba Hilton or the Mövenpick Resort and so whenever possible I dived these rather than House Reef or boat dive sites. The Canyon never disappoints with colourful Frogfish, Crocodilefish, Octopuses, Sea Moths and on this trip, Clamdiggers. Sea Horses can be found in the shallows between Black Coral and House Reef and there are more Frogfish as well as Stonefish, Scorpionfish and Moray Eels at Black Coral.

My AquaSport dive guides for the week were Walid Abuhoah, Khalil Mohamed Ahmed, David Cohen, Corinna Deininger, Mohamed Ali Shaheen and the Aquasport Dive Centre Manager Huw Watson. Corinna, Huw, Khalil and Mohamed all willingly modeled for me underwater with Corinna even willingly replacing her mask with sunglasses and removing her regulator to make the photographs more interesting.

Highlights of the week included my dive 1529 with Walid spotting a dead Octopus being eaten and dragged through the water by large Snappers and my dive 1533 when Huw introduced me to a concrete box near the Black Coral reef containing Lionfish, Nudibranch and Moray Eels, ideal for easy photography. I thought it would be safe as well as easy but I had reckoned without a pair of suicidal Lionfish who drifted up behind me while I was photographing the Moray Eels. Without Huw’s warning shout they might easily have carried on drifting right into me. At the end of my dive 1534 Mohamed Ali and I were removing our fins when an Octopus appeared from deeper water and stayed around us for a short while. A small piece of grit in BCD’s rear air dump caused it to malfunction during my dive 1536 giving me serious buoyancy problems throughout the dive. And my dive 1537 was memorable for Mohamed Ali blowing air rings underwater and us discovering that my Billabong shorts complete with room card had been stolen while we had been underwater.

After my final dive of the holiday I attempted to take a split-level photograph of a camel in the shallows next to some coral in a perfectly flat sea with excellent underwater visibility. I was just about to take the first photograph when I heard a warning shout and a large wave crashed over my head. A series of waves followed, all caused by a passing large boat. The camel took fright but fortunately its owner was able to control it. The waves quickly subsided but the underwater visibility in the shallows had been ruined and with it any chance of a good split-level photograph.

In an unfortunate conclusion to this holiday, Ann, Eve and Richard in common with many other Mövenpick Resort guests contacted the norovirus, Eve having to spend much of her last night in an Eilat hospital. The local representatives of our tour operator, Longwoods were a great help to us both in Taba and Eilat and finally at Taba airport where they arranged special assistance for a poorly Eve to board our flight home.