The wind was still blowing this morning, and we were due to go to Ras Mohammad again. The usual dives were out though, so we went to a couple of reefs I’ve never dived before.
Lighthouse Reef is at the very tip of Ras Mohammad, and a haven for snorkellers. It also had a depressingly large quantity of rubbish on the reef. Chris and Strood Chris both picked up large plastic bags that were strangling fire coral.
The lower depths were quite desolate, but the upper levels were gorgeous coral gardens, thriving with life. Things we saw included a giant moray, a masked pufferfish getting cleaned, a jellyfish pretending to be an anemone, pipefish, and the most enormous one full metre filefish, specifically a scribbled leather jacket.

The second dive was the reef next door, Key Reef, and this was debatably the best dive of the holiday. There was still rubbish, but not nearly as much as Lighthouse. We were greeted by a youngish giant moray, and saw more giant morays of various sizes and ages throughout the dive. A titan triggerfish kept us company for a short while, clearly not nesting as it was very chilled out.

But the things that really made us happy dance were first an eagle ray that flew slowly by us, and then a big devil ray which was lying on the bottom, and took off after we’d watched it for a while.

The last dive of the holiday was at Ras Ghoslani, which was very picturesque and a lot of the small stuff, along with the morays, came out to say goodbye.

Checking out is always the saddest part of the holiday, especially checking out of the dive centre. But short work was made of that and we returned to the hotel for showers and food.

Now Thomas Cook very nearly caused us grief as we did not know the pick up time for the airport and could find no board for Thomas Cook in the myriad of boards for other companies. It was only when Chris spoke with a Thomsons rep who told us off for not attending the TC reps briefing on Monday (well, sorry, but we had plans that conflicted, so there), that it transpired that, despite having travelled out under TC, when it came to information, they were using the name Panorama. And of course there was a lovely big board for Panorama telling us everything we needed to know.
We mooched off for dinner at eight, preferring to stick to the Italian restaurant (you can have food from any restaurant and eat it in any) because of the lack of screaming kids. Or so I thought.

We turned up, and the MaitreD’, Captain Ahmed greeted us and took us to a specially laid table with lots of flowers, and tablecloth swan and an ice bucket with wine. An idea by Chris and carried out by the restaurant staff, it was a complete surprise to me, and brought a tear to my eye.
Is it really awful of me to say that I might just have got a real kick out of the jealous looks I got from other guests? I think one or two blokes might just have been in the doghouse…
We had a lovely evening, and eventually fell into bed.

Sunday we pack, check out and lie by the pool/beach until pick up. Moo. But the holiday isn’t over until its over.