Taras Fomchenkov
for EcoToutism Expert 
It is almost impossible to visit Egypt without seeing its beautiful coral reefs along the coast. However, there are some tourists who wanted more than just regular snorkeling to see much more under water. This is what scuba diving is invented for.
Your humble narrator, a holder of a PADI Advanced Open Water Diver certificate, who completed his two dozen dives during his last trip to Egypt, still remembers the emotions from his introdive. So, for example, I was ‘forced’ to jump into the water directly from the pontoon, which was very scary to do wearing an 18-kg scuba tank. And the first breath through the mouth using the diving regulator was difficult because the body ‘understood’ that it was possible to breathe like that but it was too unusual.
In this article, the talk is about what an introdive for beginners is like from start to finish and the cost of this pleasant experience in Sharm el-Sheikh now.
Dive, no matter the cost
Let’s start with the main things that interest every newcomer, the price and safety. In most scuba diving clubs, the cost of an introdive is the same and amounts to $25. It’s up to you to decide whether it is expensive or not for an opportunity to see the beautiful underwater world at arm’s length. At the same time, the first scuba dive can be combined with yacht experience, then the introduction to the underwater world can cost a little more, about $40 to $45.
It is worth mentioning that when organizing an introdive, scuba diving clubs usually offer additional services, including, for example, underwater photography. It usually costs from $20 to $30, but be in no hurry to refuse it!
Filming is usually carried out using professional photographic and video equipment (and not a smartphone or an action camera in a waterproof case, as you might think). In most cases, your introdive can be filmed with a professional SLR camera equipped with additional lamps so that the colors in the videos and photos are bright and contrasting. And you can receive several 30-second videos and 10 to 20 photos, which can be used to make a small video film later, at home.
By the way, the need to pay for services in dollars should not keep the Russian tourists from enjoying an introdive. Visa, MasterCard and, of course, MIR cards are not accepted in Egypt but the majority of the Egyptians working with the Russian tourists have the opportunity to get payment for their goods and services via Sberbank Online. Certainly, in this case the dollar-ruble exchange rate may be 10 to 20 percent higher than the official one, but it does a credit to the Egyptian tourist industry’s players that such an opportunity exists.
Another point is safety. Firstly, the most important thing is to be accompanied by a scuba diver-instructor certified under the international PADI system. So, you have a right to demand a diver’s card indicating his qualification. By the way, this is why it is best to make an introdive at a PADI-certified scuba diving club, and its owner or manager can provide all the necessary certificates and documents to confirm his qualification.
This is about the documents required. Now, let’s talk about the introdive itself. Before diving for the first time, you are asked to fill in quite a lot of papers. By the way, you need to provide medical information about yourself, including whether you have ever had otitis or you have a cold and the snuffles at the time of diving, mention your problems with your heart, blood pressure, trouble seeing, and so on.
I would like to mention that checking your heart rate and proving that you have no cold is not required by the PADI introdive regulations, so it is entirely up to a newcomer to give a true information about his or her health. However, I hope that even the most avid fans of scuba diving would not dive with a stuffy nose!
But the requirement not to dive a day before departure to avoid possible problems with air pressure on the airplane applies rather to certified scuba divers to great depths; so, after scuba diving for 10 to 15 minutes to a depth of about 3 meters, you will not face any problems when returning home by airplane.
And in general, everything in scuba diving is very seriously regulated now in Egypt compared to what it was, for example, about 10 years ago: you should have seen how many papers the dive instructor fills in after your scuba diving! So, it can be said with confidence that today, the introdive procedure complies with all the necessary norms and rules.
Introdiving in numbers
It is not necessary to travel far as most first-line hotels in Sharm el-Sheikh have their own scuba diving club and also a reef where diving usually takes place.
“Any scuba dive, especially the first one, is not allowed without briefing,” explains Usama Fathe, a diver-instructor and owner of the Butterfly Scuba-Diving Club in Sharks Bay. “During the briefing, the equipment is explained to a beginner and he or she is taught the simplest gestures in the divers’ language to show the instructor that you have problems, as well as the ways to control your air supply.”
Equipment is also selected individually; paddles should be to the size of an introdiver’s feet and a weight-belt should be provided, which prevents the diver from floating to the surface. At the same time, the weight-belt is usually calculated using the formula ‘a person’s weight divided by 10’, so beginners, especially girls, should give their real weight numbers, otherwise during scuba diving, the water can turn them on their side, and they can even go deeper under water.
“The introdive is aimed at ensuring that the tourists get their first acquaintance with the underwater world of the Red Sea, so it is not designed for any serious extreme loads and is entirely in an easy ‘recreational’ format,” continues Usama Fathe. By the way, he has made over 5,000 dives, so his words can be fully trusted.
Indeed, the first dive, introdive, usually takes not more than 15 minutes, and the depth to which a beginner dives rarely exceeds 3-4 meters. So, there should definitely be enough air in the scuba tank; for example, certified divers like the writer of these words, can spend up to 45 to 50 minutes under water and dive to depths of about 25 meters with the same air volume.
15 minutes are enough to understand whether it’s worth continuing diving or whether the first experience is enough and it’s better to watch fish and look at corals while swimming on the surface with a mask and a snorkel.
Holding the newcomer’s hand while introdiving
By the way, one more note for those who are worried about their safety and do not understand anything about how to float to the surface and dive. During an introdive, an experienced instructor accompanies his client all the time, at every ‘flap of paddles’. “The instructor controls the position of an introdiver’s body and the depth of the dive by deflating or inflating the stabilizing jacket. He controls the position of the introdiver’s body because many introdivers do not know how to change the position of their body under water and flap their arms, but this should not be done. In addition, the instructor solves possible problems, for example, when water gets under the mask or an introdiver suddenly starts panicking,” the owner of the Butterfly Scuba-Diving Club explains his responsibilities.
And he adds that many introdivers experience panic during the first scuba dive. “This is because the underwater world is an environment alien to humans. And they need to be able to behave in it, they need to be able to breathe calmly and get the adrenalin going not because of fear, but because of observing the amazing corals of the Red Sea and the beauty of its inhabitants,” says Usama Fathe.
In conclusion - of course, an introdiver is not given a log book, the so-called ‘diver’s book’, where each dive is recorded and certified with the scuba diving club’s seal, as well as the time the diver spent under water, the maximum depth to which he or she dived. But most scuba clubs definitely offer a stamped certificate stating that the tourist has had a briefing and completed an introdive. By the way, it is this paper that can become a ‘pass’ to the stunning underwater world. Because…
“After the first scuba dive, about a third of tourists return and dive over and over again, which means that becoming an introdiver here in Egypt, on the Red Sea, is the best way to get acquainted and fall in love with the beautiful underwater world,” sums up Usama Fathe, the scuba diver-instructor and owner of the Butterfly Scuba-Diving Club in Sharks Bay.
