Frank's Christian Thoughts: Travel Biography Photo Extravaganza

Saturday, 27 December 2025

Travel Biography Photo Extravaganza - Part 54.

Our Day Trip To Eilat Continues.

Rather than put all the underwater photos in one week's album, to avoid or lessen the risk of monotony, I thought it would be better to split the album into two sections. And so, here are the rest of the underwater photos I took at Coral Beach, in the resort of Eilat on the Gulf of Aqaba, close to the border with Egypt.

However, I have also reposted the location as seen from the pierhead, which I consider to be the star photo of the entire Israel 2000 album. The same image also appeared in one of my reviews of the Holy Land on the TripAdvisor website. For a while, it featured as the star photo of all reviews from worldwide, on Coral Beach.

Star Pic. Looking at Coral Beach from the Pierhead.

Compared with the whole of my life, snorkelling was relatively recent. Yes, I tried it out for the first time ever in 1972, just off a rocky ledge at the Spanish Costa Brava. Back then, I panicked and nearly got into trouble after a rogue wave entered the breathing tube, as I was out of my depth. Fortunately, I whipped off the mask and snorkel and hurriedly swam back to shore. I then handed the borrowed equipment to its owner and decided not to go near any snorkelling equipment again.

That was in 1972. It took another 25 years before I plucked up the courage to handle snorkelling equipment. In 1997, while I was on board a catamaran from Cairns, Queensland, to Green Island Coral Cay, I rented the gear. The goggles were lighter, and with separate lenses, one for each eye, I was able to "bed in" quicker, unlike the single oval screen characteristic of scuba divers. Hence, at the reef island, I managed to gain confidence with the snorkel before handling the underwater camera.

Two or three days later, while I was still staying at Cairns, I boarded another catamaran for Low Isles Coral Cay, with the need to change boats at Port Douglas. The sea surrounding the Low Isles was deeper, and the corals were richer and more vibrant. But at both venues, the water was slightly cloudy, as very fine grains of sand were carried by the current. The third venue where I snorkelled was at Border Island, a Continental Island at the Whitsundays Archipelago, a group of islands reached from Arlie Beach, also on the Queensland coast. Here, the water was deeper and quite clear. By then, snorkelling became my second nature.

One more venue where I snorkelled with an underwater camera, other than in Israel, was at Puerto del Carmen, on the Atlantic island of Lanzarote. However, there were no corals in the true sense at that venue. Rather, the little cove consisted of solidified basaltic lava forming a couple of black ledges slanting into the sea. So far, I have not posted any of the Lanzarote photos in the Biography, as this 2006 trip was a single-venue package holiday, and not truly backpacking. However, I am considering whether to post these pics here in this Photo Extravaganza.

I took photos at four of the five snorkelling venues. The exception was at Border Island, as there were no shops or kiosks where I could have bought a camera. The catamaran from Arlie Beach was small enough to be classed as a motorboat and carried a limited number of people.

What was the underwater camera I used on all four occasions like? If I wanted to snap underwater life at present (2025/6), I would need to be well-off financially. Digital underwater cameras are very expensive, and I believe, fiendishly complicated to operate for the best results. Furthermore, I'm rather technophobic. I could spend a small fortune on a device and still return with poor results, or no results at all. But in my day, the average camera carried a cellulose acetate strip on which light-sensitive chemicals respond when the shutter opens. To me, that was real photography. Its results often came with double exposure (forgetting to wind to the next frame after the first picture was taken), fogginess, camera shake, and out-of-focus (soft images). Some of the pics I have taken with acetate film show shaded areas as nearly black, and areas under sunshine too bright.

The underwater camera I used for all four venues was a single-use cardboard box, looking very much like a carton of jelly beans, with a plastic shutter mechanism. The whole device was sealed with a transparent plastic casing, making it entirely waterproof. If accidentally released from my hand while snorkelling, it floats and is easy to reach. When I was in Australia, I recall paying up to twelve dollars for 24 frames. Very cheap indeed, and no professional photographer would even consider using such a device. Yet, due to the excellent calibration of the lens, the submarine photos came out very well, and are fit to be posted here.

This week's album contains the remaining underwater photos of the Gulf of Aqaba reef. These are followed by land photos of Ein Gedi, near the western shore of the Dead Sea.

The area is a nature reserve, which is literally a crevice plunging down from the desert plains of Judea, 200 metres above sea level, to the Dead Sea valley, 400 metres below sea level. Hence, I could describe the crevice as a 600-metre side canyon feeding into the Rift Valley, itself a wide canyon. Two streams flow through the Reserve, which empty into the Dead Sea. One is the Nahal Arugot. The other, which we were more familiar with, was Nahal David. Hiking trails circulate between the two streams, and extend as far as the Calcolithic Temple, a building dating back to Abraham's day, and even earlier. Here, I thought about reposting one of my photos of the Calcolithic Temple, which I took in 1993.

Ruins of the Calcolithic Temple, taken in 1993.

It was in En Gedi where the shepherd boy David hid from the wrath of King Saul, who was jealous of David's superior military feats. The more famous of the two streams is Nahal David. Issuing from a spring, the creek cascades over a series of waterfalls. One of them is David Waterfall, and beneath it, a waist-deep pool at the time, offered free bathing in the cool, fresh water. Because of the freshness of the spring water, I was happy for Alex to swim with me. However, I believe that entry into the pool is now forbidden due to falling rocks.

I visited Ein Gedi in 1993 and again in 1994. In 1993, I hiked to the ruins of the ancient Calcolithic Temple, but in 2000, with Alex approaching 20 weeks of pregnancy, we kept our hiking very short. We kept by Nahal David, and after the swim, explored the environment on a local level without ascending any gradients.

Click here for the Index link for the main Biography, covering Weeks 123-128.

Underwater pics of the Corals at the Gulf of Aqaba (cont).

I spotted a Surgeon Fish, popular among reefs.