Today we were assigned to a smaller boat than the one we had gone out on the other day. It is also a very nice boat with a similar layout, and with only half as many people on board, it felt even more spacious than the first one. We went to a spot called Marsa Shoni Kebir, in the ocean just south of the Port Ghalib entrance, close to the shore. The site consists of two walls close to one another.

For the first dive, we went to the east wall. Once again, we lounged for quite a while before suiting up and jumping in. It is another nice spot, though once again, not spectacular. We saw more variety of coral, though there is still a lot of the fire and geranium looking soft corals. In one spot we saw some yellow waver coral. We also saw more fish, more variety of fish, and some new fish. Better still, we borrowed a “Red Sea” fish book and wrote down what we saw right away, while it was still fresh in our minds. The specific variety of unicorn fish that we mentioned the other day are called short nosed unicorn fish. The parrotfish with different colors we mentioned is called a rusty parrotfish. We saw both the rusty parrotfish and the short nosed unicorn fish on this dive, too.

One of the new fish is called a bird wrasse, a fish with a bird like beak. Another one is called a sailfin tang, a brown, cream and orange striped fish with a yellow tail shaped kind of like a batfish. We also saw a yellow tang, which is a similar shape but yellow color. Other new ones include hogfish and Arabian boxfish. We also saw Arabian Picasso triggerfish, which have the same markings as a regular Picasso triggerfish, but different colors.

In more familiar fish, we saw a school of baby trevally. Eric spotted an octopus. We saw more of the orangespine unicorn fish, one lionfish, red sea bannerfish, which are only slightly different than the bannerfish we have seen throughout the Indian ocean, royal angelfish, humbug damselfish, blue bar partner goby, and a very large potato grouper.

We had lunch about an hour after the dive, and it was once again a buffet with a large assortment of food, and good food. Another hour later, we were back in for the second dive, this time on the west wall. Once again, another nice spot. In addition most of the other fish mentioned above, we also saw a couple very large batfish dancing, meaning doing circles around one another. We saw a new variety of octopus that looks like a rock. We saw a big school of snapper, an eagle ray, lots of gold fish, and some grouper. Once again, thank you to the great English couple that gave us the photos.

As soon as we got back from diving, we went to the front desk to inquire about our bag. Yes, it had arrived, but we owed 100 Egyptian pounds to our French friends. Our French friends? What French friends? Our French friends that received the bag for us. Huh? We didn’t recognize the name or the description of these French people, but the clerk was adamant they were friends of ours. We wandered around the hotel, intending to find the mystery people’s room to pay them back. As we passed the pool, Christi managed to make a dramatic fall into the shallow section of the pool that got everyone’s attention, including the mystery couple. Good thing, since we would have missed each other were it not for the embarrassing fall.

This is a “truth is stranger than fiction” story. It turned out that the airline did charge us to have our bag delivered for the second time, and the courier needed cash on delivery. Apparently, when the courier arrived, no one was on duty at reception that had been told to expect our bag. The staff didn’t recognize our name as a hotel guest. The courier said the bag was for a yacht, which completely baffled the staff, despite us trying to explain the desk staff we were expecting a bag. One of the guys remembered that a couple that had checked in the prior day had arrived on a yacht, and figured the bag must be for them. He called their room and told them to come down and claim the bag for their yacht.

The couple was confused, since they weren’t expecting a bag, but figured they should come down anyway and find out what is going on in person. They got to reception and looked at the bag. They didn’t recognize the name on it. They opened it and started looking through it. When they saw that it was full of Lugger parts, they knew the bag was for Kosmos, and they paid the courier for it and left it at the front desk for us.

We mentioned that in Oman, we spent a couple hours chatting with the boat in line behind us for fuel, Tania. The boat crew consisted of the couple who owned it and their two guests who were going from Phuket to the Mediterranean with them. We mostly talked to the woman who owned the boat, only briefly chatting with their guests. We never got the guests name, nor did they get ours. In the short visit with the guests, we must have mentioned we had a Lugger engine.

So, Tania had fallen way behind schedule for reaching the Med. Tania pulled into Port Ghalib, and they were assigned a spot on the other side of the marina complex, where we never saw the boat. They never stopped by to say hi because they thought we were still in the US. The French guests decided they should get off in Port Ghalib and fly to France because they have another commitment in France soon and they will never make it in time if they stay aboard Tania. They checked into the hotel and started working on travel arrangements back to France. And then our bag showed up, and thanks to a casual comment about our engine, they knew it was ours. Needless to say, we thanked them profusely.