Back in the time of Moses, when I was a Red Sea dive guide, I used to keep all my dive-site drawings and briefings in a loose-leaf folder.
Later, when back aboard my old boat for a holiday, the new young dive guide chastised me for not listening to his briefings.
I told him that I didn't mind him using my notes, but at least he could have rewritten them in his own handwriting.
It has always amazed me that dive-guides spend time laboriously redrawing site maps on whiteboards when they could have them laminated in plastic along with site notes and re-use them.
Ahmed Fadel, one of the most experienced (and educated) of the new generation of Egyptian guides, and an able apprentice of the late and lamented Guido Sherif, has obviously given it some thought and has done exactly that, but had the sites printed and published in book form. This is it.
The book's 236 ring-bound pages cover 48 dive sites in the area of Marsa Alam, the southern marine parks, Fury Shoal, St John's, Abu Fendera, Shallal and Elba Reef. The drawings are no more sophisticated than you would expect from a whiteboard drawing done with marker pens.
Ahmed is clever enough to know that conditions change from day to day, so he makes no promises on that front. It is exactly what you would expect from a proficient dive-guide in a briefing immediately before diving.
I bet a lot of guides use it. I hope they don't chastise him for not listening when they do.
John Bantin
Tor Mark Press
ISBN: 9780952397199
Softback, 228pp, £14.99
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