Hello everybody and Happy New Year!
Welcome to my latest blog! In my last blog I wrote about the 10 reasons to become a diver, check it out here if you haven’t read it yet!
This time I’m going to talk about my first encounter with a dugong!
I worked for a year as a Divemaster in one of the most beautiful dive resorts I know - Coral Garden - a bit outside of Safaga, Egypt.
The dive site itself is called Gassous Bay, and it's perfect for beginners and advanced divers! It's also perfect for technical diving, and the diving center is prepared with everything you need. I tried it myself and it was just amazing! Maybe I will tell you more about it sometime. Let me know in the comments if you're interested!
At Gassous Bay you have a reef on the north side and a reef on the south. In the middle of the bay are some very interesting pinnacles.
At 20 - 24 meters you can find Harlequin Ghost Pipefish, juvenile Imperator Angelfish and so many other interesting species! The team also constructed an artificial reef where a lot of corals have started to grow and fish have settled, and it was there on the seagrass that I met my first dugong!
I have to say that before I saw the dugong for the first time, I missed out badly. I was diving with a group of 4 people and the visiblilty was so damn bad that we couldn’t see very far. Tom, the dive center manager, was also diving with a group of divers and started to shake his shaker. My group heard the shaker, but we didn’t know where it was coming from, and after turning 380 degrees we continued in the direction which we had planned and discussed in the briefing.
A big disappointment was waiting for us when we came out of the water. We had missed a dugong around 5 meters away from us! It's funny that Tom and his group saw us but we didn’t see them! And we didn’t see the dugong - that wasn’t so funny!
My time was also coming, and finally I got to see the dugong too! On an early morning dive my group, which was behind me, saw it and tried signal that it was directly behind me. When I turned to see what my group was doing I got a big smile from the dugong, and then I saw the happy faces of my group! It was one of my most beautiful dives ever!
Out of fright I let out a little cry, I hadn't expected to see this beautiful sea creature, and I never thought that it would come so close to say hello! The dugong was dancing and showing her best side for the whole dive!
I was lucky to see her two more times and it was always an amazing feeling...I will never forget it!
Have you seen a dugong before? I would like to know about your most beautiful encounter underwater, let me know in the comments!
In my next blog I'm going to write about meeting my first seahorse, stay tuned!
Semra
15th January 2019
Safaga, Qesm Safaga, Egypt 
