Page 68 - AlertDiver_Winter2013

66 | WINTER 2013
together so tightly it almost gets dark as I drift through the
middle. At one point I am suspended in a sphere of clear blue
water with a moving wall of big fish on every side. Breathtaking.
Below snappers, pairs of bigeye trevallies are courting; the
slightly smaller males have turned from silver to black as they
swim in synchrony below the females. I drift on and spot
a room-sized school of large unicornfish below me. I also
see schools of blueline emperors, black snappers, longnose
parrotfish, giant trevally, more batfish and perhaps most
impressive, a huge swirl of barracuda that materializes from the
blue. I move toward them, but my ears warn me that the fish
are luring me deeper and deeper, and I turn back to the reef.
This is truly one of the best dives of my life, and it is not
even my best dive at Ras Mohammed. Here I’ve watched
silky sharks stalking barracudas, a napoleon wrasse fight
a titan triggerfish to steal its eggs, a manta burst through
schooling snappers and even a pod of dolphins hunting.
This is my favorite dive site in the world, and we’re less than an
hour from Sharm. I know it is sounds cooler to name somewhere
remote, but Ras Mohammed, filled with the summer schools, is
one of the world’s great wildlife spectacles. A big reason I love the
place is that so many people get to experience it.
Winter Wonderland
While summer equals spawning, winter means sharks.
Cooler waters always seem to increase shark sightings. Like