Birthdays in Jeddah

Three of the teachers at our school have birthdays within a week of each other, including myself.  We had a joint celebration at a local tea cafe, went to the beach for one birthday, and finished the "birthday week" with a boat trip on the Red Sea.  I was able to use my new underwater housing for my camera, so here are the pictures from the beach and boat trip:

Digging for clams in the Red Sea.

Dinner...fresh out of the slimy ocean bottom.

One of our family traditions used to be to go to a japanese hibachi restaurant for our birthdays.  I found a Benihana's in Jeddah, so a few of us went out for dinner just for fun!  It was delicious and reminded me of home...although I must say that the chefs at Saito's put on a better show.

Me pretending to be the chef while we were waiting for our real chef to come.  Since it is Saudi Arabia, there are separate rooms for each table.  So, we had a private room for just the three of us...nice and relaxing.

Snorkeling in the Red Sea on my birthday!  What could be better than that?

Our first stop was a shipwreck, not a reef.  This was my first "wreck dive"...although, I only snorkeled. It was beautiful and eerie all at the same time!

 

Some pretty striped fish swimming by the wreck.

A bunch of my friends scuba diving through a school of fish.

Our second stop on the boat trip was a beautiful reef.

There was this weird transparent cylindrical creature floating near the surface of the reef.  It looked sort of like a jelly fish without the tentacles.

Angelfish or bannerfish.

Beautiful coral and zebra fish (I'm not sure if that is the scientific name, but that is what I call them).

An underwater garden...the colors are even more vibrant in real life.

This is my favorite picture of the coral because it captures the vibrant purples.

A pretty big fish...not sure what it is called but it has rainbow stripes.

Here is a close up of some of the purple coral.

Unfortunately, this picture does not capture the rainbow of colors on this fish.  This type of fish is my favorite because it is so brightly colored.  I think it is called a parrotfish because its mouth looks like a parrot's beak and it is brightly colored.

The water is so clear in this picture.  The reflection of the sun on the water almost creates rainbows on the coral and sand below.