Day 16: Ain Sukhna to Sharm

After the two dives in Ain Suknha, we looked at our watches and it was only 1:30 pm. We were going to stay nearby or in Cairo another evening but Yann pointed out that we could make it to Sharm by early evening if we had a quick getaway. The idea was tempting and even after the hospitality of the Stella Di Mare resort the draw of Sharm was too much to resist. The roads around Suez are still approaching completion but if they’re like all the other new Egyptian roads we’ve ridden on then they will greatly improve the network and make life easier, especially for bikers. It took 90 minutes to reach the Suez Canal tunnel through which we had to pass to get back into the Sinai. It’s not a long tunnel, about half a kilometer but it was loud as the KTM engine noise bounced off the walls and ceilings – music to the ears, as there’s few better sounds than that! The overheating in heavy traffic earlier in the trip was easily remedied. The coolant tank has a level range indicated by ‘min’ and ‘max’. Even though the level was within these two, the simple topping up with water to the ‘max’ level gave it the extra it needed to handle the excess cooling requirement when riding 200 km directly into heavy city traffic. It didn’t have a problem again after that.

After the tunnel, we had probably the best long run of the trip with just two short stops for fuel and a relatively clear road with good average speeds. The sun set about an hour from El Tur, which meant we would arrive in Sharm at about 9pm…90 minutes later than planned. Sorry for the short notice to everybody! But we were very pleased that the favourite bikers and divers bar, T2, had mustered a nice gathering of good friends to greet us back. It was much appreciated and so were the the ice-cold bottles of Sakara beer upon arrival from landlord, Monty.

Despite a couple of self-inflicted setbacks, the KTM 990 Adventure S Dakar bikes performed effortlessly and delivered the perfect trip. They clocked up a healthy mileage of just under 4,800 km each. Our O’Three suits and Apeks regulators also performed excellently as expected. It was great to know that a biker and diver can travel great distances over many days carrying everything they need and requiring only tanks and weights at each destination. One of the bikes carried enough technical diving equipment for a four-tank rig proving that weight and size did not restrict the choice of gear. A report about the technicalities and statistics of the trip will appear here soon.

We will also be updating the heading ‘Divers and Bikers’ to include all the clubs and facilities who helped with the Egypt trip. These will include, hotels, camps, bike clubs, dive clubs and others we have met along the way. We hope that our site will inspire and help you to get the most out of Egyptian travel, biking or diving, whatever your interests and goals are when visiting Egypt.

Do stay tuned for many more postings on the website of divingbikers.net. The Egyptian preliminary trip was just the beginning, there is plenty more to come.

Wishing you all safe traveling, diving and biking.
 
John Kean                                                                                                           Yann Vautrin