Red Sea boat trip

Here are pictures from our boat trip on the Red Sea.  It was so beautiful and relaxing! What a great way to kick off our vacation :)

Walking through "Diver's Village" down to the boat.

It's like a resort where you can rent these little villas out for a couple thousand riyals a day.

The inside of our boat.

Leaving Jeddah in our wake :)

We had to wear our abayas until we got past the border patrol.

The coastline of Saudi Arabia.

The Saudi flag flying from our boat.  I thought it looked cool against the Red Sea.

The Red Sea.  We were so far out to sea that we couldn't see any coastline or other boats on the horizon. We only knew which direction Jeddah was located in by the brown haze on the horizon coming from the city.

To prove to you that I was actually on this boat trip on the Red Sea.  We were moving pretty fast still at this point, so my face kind of looks funny from the wind.

We stopped at three different coral reefs.  In this picture, you can sort of see the greenish color to the water where the reef was shallow.  There were parts that were 30 ft. deep (or more), and parts that were too shallow to even swim over without cutting yourself on the coral.

The captain of the ship fed the fish our left over lettuce from lunch.  This was the closest I could get with my camera since I still haven't found underwater housing for it.

The giant parrotfish in the center of this photo was very curious.  He hung around our boat the entire couple of hours we were at that stop.  He was probably about 2 feet long and it looked like he had teeth or a beak-like mouth.  He was a rainbow of colors, but in this picture he looks gray.
I also saw some "Nemo"s (clownfish) near some sea anemone.  The coral was so colorful and varied.  There was some that was such a vibrant indigo color.  It was like a beautiful flower garden underwater.  I saw a giant sea cucumber, a vibrant blue clam, some long eel or barracuda looking fish, a variety of angelfish, and this flat fish with both eyes on the top of his head.  It was the color of the sand and is the kind of fish that likes to bury itself in the sand.  However, this one was swimming around above the coral for awhile looking for a flat sandy area.  It was the only fish of its kind, and the rest of the fish were following it around, staring at it like they had never seen a fish like that before.  It finally settled on a flat rock, and the other fish just gathered around, probably wondering where it went since it blended in so well with the rock.
I'm hoping next time I go out on a boat I can see dolphins.  One of the teachers had gone out on a boat last weekend and a pod of dolphins swam around their boat for awhile.  She has pictures and they are so amazing!