The Red Sea is BLUE

Get out your Bibles. Look up Ezion-geber. You'll find this is where Solomon launched his fleet to get the gold of Ophir. This is also where Jehoshaphat lost his fleet after a prophet told him he had made a wrong alliance. Ezion-geber is for all intents and purposes, Aqaba where we are! In two of the passages, it also lists Eloth (now Eilat, Israel, where we will go tomorrow.) And when the Israelites left Ezion-geber, they travelled through the wilderness of Zin, or Kadesh.

Well, it sure felt like we were traveling through some kind of wilderness on our way from Petra to Aqaba! Amazing formations in the distance and lots of trucks coming from the port. (I took some photos for Gaby.)

We extended our stay by one day so we could go snorkeling, and today was the day. As the pictures show, it is an amazing blue arm (gulf) of the Red Sea.

Yes, we both got in the water and both loved it. My mask didn't fit very comfortably, but in spite of looking like the great white whale, I enjoyed seeing the amazing schools of tiny fish. It was like swimming in a giant aquarium! And the coral formations were wonderful, too. One was a brilliant blue. With no underwater camera, you'll just have to believe me :-).

Just as much fun were the people on board our four hour cruise. One couple from Portugal, our age, were a delight. He spent 6 years at sea as an engineer and learned his English there. She stuck with Portuguese. Quite the travelers!

The rest of the group seemed to be from Israel, but were mostly Arabs / Palestinians instead of Jewish citizens. The young family in the last photo was from Nazareth and had driven to Aqaba in 5 hours. That's like driving to Tacoma from Milton-Freewater! Just shows how distances are different over here. They left 6-month-old twins at home with two grandmothers to care for them! Their mother is a special-ed teacher finding it really challenging to do her work at school AND have twins when she gets home in the evening.

The boat also had a glass bottom and took us over a sunken ship. Very intriguing. (Why do disasters fascinate us?)

One of the ship's crew pointed out a big Hilton Hotel on the far shore just on the Egyptian side of the Egypt/Israel border. And the mountains of Sinai extended on south.

One other story: Yesterday evening after a walk on the beach front, we spotted a barber and I decided to get my first sabbatical haircut. Vonnie returned to the room to try out the "sink and bathtub washing machine". My barber spoke little or no English but seemed to understand my wishes. However, he had one surprise for me. I watched curiously as he pulled off some thread from a spool and came toward my face. Suddenly he was uprooting extraneous hairs from my ears, around my eyebrows, between my eyebrows, and on my cheeks - defining my week-old beard. I still have no idea how he could use that thread to snag short, short hairs! I DO know that it HURT!

When an English speaking customer/friend saw that I was wincing (crying?) he asked if I wanted the barber to stop. I laughed and said No. He told me this is how they do it in Aqaba and I told him that I was in Aqaba to experience things I couldn't at home, so please continue. By the time it was over, we were all laughing. I asked him, How much? He said "Whatever you want" in the best English he could. I checked my understanding with the friend, and he confirmed that's what he meant. I have no clue how much it costs locally, so I gave him the equivalent of what I pay in Walla Walla. And Vonnie thought it was such a good job, both on the hair and the beard, that we stopped today and gave him another tip. He was all smiles, as were we.

Vonnie once again found us wonderful housing for Friday night and Sabbath. We'll be on the Israeli side of the Dead Sea. It took a LOT of work on her part to learn how to call to Israel from Jordan.

Oh, the "washing machine" seemed to work. We will start our next adventures with fresh clothes in the suitcases. (Where are the laundromats?)