Red Sea – ear shark

You never wanted to swim in the aquarium? The boy, looking at the glass of the fascinated golden fish, driving the medium of algae, I represented, to which it would be nice to frolic together with them in a cool space between four transparent walls. Just then I read the book about the adventures of the Karika and Vali, who turned into tiny gnomes, and envied it very much. In the time of my childhood, the story of Yana Larry, the writer and a biologist, was an unusually popular.

Anti-scientific character of this dream has become clear to me. And suddenly, quite unexpectedly children’s fault, which I forgot about, turned out to turn around. In the coral islands in the Egyptian sector of the Red Sea in the Hurghada area, where I recently visited, it fits such a number of fish of a wide variety of forms and colors, which, waiting for water, you can not get rid of the feeling that you dived into a giant aquarium. This impression enhances the extraordinary transparency of local waters: visibility – up to 50 meters. But to enjoy this fantastic spectacle, you need to arma with the scuba.

With mask and las, I’m not familiar with one dozen years old, but with "Underwater lungs", How did his great invention, Jacques Yves Kusto, did not have anything and did not accept the idea that our ways are unlikely to cross. And here is the case: it turned out that the world of blue silence can be penetrated for $ 25. It is so much worth the accelerated course of training in Diving – another fashionable English word, entered without translation into our pretty allegedly alive and mighty language. You noticed that since Russia began to move on the backyards of world history, the system of immune protection of the Russian speech noticeably weakened?

Well, the course was, indeed, accelerated – at the tempo of the instant photo in the metro transitions. The whole briefing held directly on the deck of the boat rushing to the coral reefs, took 15 minutes. "The main thing – do not forget to breathe", – He announced the fundamental commandment charred by the Krasnomore Sun instructor named Arkady. By the way, our countryman, the Russian, which today wherever you meet. We promised that I would not forget. The rest of the time went on filling insurance certificates with a list of 19 contraindications, the presence of which closes the path under water. Next to them I brought the word 19 times "No", Although this was real was sure only in one thing: I don’t have pregnancy, that’s for sure. I suspect that the document bonded by my autograph was not so much insurance as reinsurance. What happens to what trouble, it will not be difficult to prove that some kind of silent signed maliciously – an autopsy will show it. So it’s better not to count on posthumous dividends.

The feed of the boat ended with an open, without a side, platform: to make it easier to go under the water. This process is referred to "Immersion". So they say: "You signed up for immersion?" I signed up for the integer two, for 30 minutes each.

First of all it was necessary to tighten the wet. Self-respecting divers, it is necessary to have our own wardrobe. We had to be satisfied with the rolling set. For the first dive I got a faded and prettyly isolated set – rubberized shorts with a zipper on the side, articulated with a swampy, on the elbows of which shone the constellation of holes. I instinctively tried to cover them with my palm, but quickly realized that the fish should not be shy. But the costume was dry, that I appreciated a little later, with the second session.

This time I managed to deal with almost new effects of spectacular color gamut – black with red. However, the costume turned out to be promoted, because of it just shook my predecessor on the diving conveyor. Put in a tightly tight body cold and wet rubber was disgusted, but I comforted myself that beauty demands victims. Unfortunately, preparing material for the release, our artists, tough realists, stopped the choice in the photo with ripped elbows. So beauty remained behind the scenes like this is neither regrettable.

The most essential part of the equipment is an inflatable vest, to which all the equipment is mounted – cylinders with compressed air, breathing tube, monometer and one more tricky thing that allows you to adjust the filling of the vest: drove the air – it increases buoyancy, released – decreases. About this device, equipped with two buttons, which could be easily confused, Arkady strictly said: "Better not to touch him at all. Forget".

Then he examined our system by a harsh view of the father of the commander and warned: "In the water go to twine". "I can not roll!" – I pledged, presenting a terrible picture, how I hang over the Red Sea, the breakdown of the legs with the movement of a black swan from the famous ballet. "Showing", – Threw Arkady. I pushed off the flooring and poured noisily into the water: it weighed it pretty and had a dense convex belly. There was no twine in the risen: just spread the legs with scissors and bent them in the knees. Plisetskaya here and did not smell. So I can. That immediately and confirmed, raising the cloud of splashes.

Under the water, our four, as it should be novice, descended, holding over the rope with the ship at the end. It disciplines, and there is a guarantee that you will not betray from the way, – moving down strictly vertically, without turning anywhere. But then the first difficulty arose: a sharp pain appeared in the ears. This happened to me and earlier with the most routine diving, it was worth only cool to dial the depth. This is a signal, it’s time to surface. But this time I am at the very beginning of the way, there is no turn back.

Anticipating that there may be a problem, I cautiously asked the instructor before diving, is it possible to take advantage of earliets. He waved his hands: "Excluded". Why not explained. I found the answer at home, rereading the corrupt. He writes that he never dives with grips in the ears, it is very dangerous. Between them and drumpipelast left airbag. When the pressure in Eustachiye pipes increases, the air is fixed from the inside with such a force that can break them. "Wow perspective!" – I was horrified with some delay. But immediately cheered up: as it turned out, with the first sample of scuba, the hype-free Jacques, I also felt the pain in the middle ear and snail. Then he swallowed several times how it was done in the plane when she lays her ears. Eustachy pipes opened, and pain disappeared.

I took a similar reception – thanks to Arkady, something he learned me yet. She climbed his nose covered with rubber dye, and sent the air into clamped nostrils several times. The pain released. I folded the big and index fingers in the letter "O" and showed her instructor. In submariner languages, this means: "OK! I go to the bottom, the mood is cheerful".

So, periodically grabbing his nose, I descended everything deeper and finally felt that I touched the bottom. I needed a 13-meter stratum of the Red Sea, through the sun-beam, and around the neo-beam blue, which fish crossed in all directions – loners and whole pieces. The background for all this deductions served openwork corals. Aesthetic delight that overwhelmed me demanded immediate exit. I immediately pressed one of the two forbidden buttons, and a silver strip of bubbles ran to me to the dome of the sea.

By adjusting to the rhythm of inhalation and exhalation, I called from the memory of Nikolai Gumilyov’s row, which was the first of the Russian poets in honor of this aquatic extravagania:

"Hello, Red Sea, ear shark, // Negro bath, sandy boiler.!// On the rocks of yours, instead of a wet moss, // Limestone, like a stone cactus, bloomed".

Not only scuba, primitive mask at the romance poet, who visited Africa three times, was not. How did he guessed the beauty of the underwater kingdom? Here they are, stone limestone cacti, here is the sandy boiler, on which I pair, and the Negro Bath – it’s herself swaying under the Sun of the bay, who took us in her Lono. Lack of perhaps only sharks.

I will not say that for the sake of poetic completeness, I would be delighted by the appearance of this predatory creature, by a third of the jaws. I love poetry, but not until the same degree. There are enough theoretical knowledge that sharks in the Red Sea Great Many. By the way, recently there has been a steady tendency to their rehabilitation. Many researchers prove that sharks are not aggressive, they simply do not need to provoke them. Let’s say, fighting in places of their possible habitat, do not knock on the water with hands and legs. It will remind the sharp behavior of the wounded fish, and she will not have anything else, how to swallow you. Would be a mistake to offer her feed (God you are mine, really there are such idiots in the world?). Treats it will accept, but maybe you should catch up for a snack. If you find that shark is approaching, do not try to escape, it will disagree from one principle easily. The only right solution is to turn around to her face and demonstrate that you are calm and friendly.

As you can see, I studied the sharks of the habits well, but I don’t regret at all that I did not have to apply my erudition in practice.

Meanwhile, when the first excitement passed, I began to slowly master my new, underwater existence. Moved with flips and without connecting hands, swam. Took a deep breath, and felt that I was pulling up up, exhaled – dropped. Then spread his hands and hung over the bottom. Coustech said that the lungs – the main descendant-lifting mechanism of the scuba. Suturing his famous book "In the world of silence", I came across a curious observation of the founder. Talking about your first diving, he writes: "I often dreamed earlier that I am flying, making hands-wings. And now I walked in fact – only without wings (after the first "Flight" With aqualung, I have never flown in a dream again)".

Curiously, will it happen to me? If so, there will be a little sorry to part with the flights that you make, without leaving the bed, and wake up with an unclear feeling of joy and forgotten on the face of a smile.

And one more detail readiness, which made a big impression on me, but completely differently. The first Aqualung Jacques IV designed 56 years ago (in charge of the sake of notice that he had a co-author – an engineer Emil Ganyan). In June 1943, he received a Bandol station in French Riviera who arrived on the railway from Paris a wooden box with a custom equipment for underwater research. Tried him immediately nearby, in a secluded fill, "where it was possible – as Kusto writes, – not fear of curious swimsters and Italian soldiers from the occupation troops".

This is what the most striking: luggage with complex equipment, having, strictly speaking, considerable defense importance, was without any problems – the post office was uninterrupted – transported from the occupied Paris to the occupied south of France. And there this technique was intensely tested, giving the Kusto and his team, no insane joy of discoverers. Along the way to restore the calorie spent, they straight hands were caught in the underwater grottoes of luxury lobsters. When this mining was delivered to the shore, local fishermen from surprise dropped fishing rods. And next door sunbathe on the beach carefree bathrs. Here is such an idyl.

Is it possible to imagine something similar happening in our country, who also knew what occupation is? How different was the same war – the second world – for our Western allies and for Russia! Sad something becomes from these thoughts, in principle who have no relation to what I intended to tell. Forgive me this is not quite a lyrical digression, and I again dust for positive emotions on the bottom of the Red Sea.

However, perhaps it is time to say a few words about the most natural and historical phenomenon – the warmth and most close to Europe, the tropical sea.

In the place where it splashes, in the tertiary period there was a rift of the earth’s crust, which determined the peculiar configuration of the Red Sea. A narrow, almost straightforward crack between the Mediterranean Sea and the Indian Ocean filled the water. Left, if you look in the side of the Mediterranean, – Africa, right – the Arabian Peninsula, this is already Asia. In essence, the Red Sea – a long natural tube with a length of 2,350 kilometers, in width – not more than 350.

In the Old Testament times, events had an impact on the development of world civilization. Here’s how they are set out in the biblical "Exodus". Jews who fled from Egyptian slavery, the army sent by Pharaoh, overtaking by the night of the Cherry Sea. It seemed they were doomed. However, Moses, scientific gentlemen, striking his hand over a water stroke, and having flown a strong wind began to drive the wave. He blew all night, and as a result of the water parted, the sea had been landing, according to which the sons of Israel moved to the other coast, – "WATER WATER THE WHENESS TO THE RIGHT AND TOP" (14: 21-22). By the morning, after successfully completing the crossing, Moses threw his hand again, and the waters were returned, the cover of the chase. "So Skilled Lord Egyptians among the sea" (14: 27).

We must pay tribute to modern Egyptians: they do not hold evil on the sea, so cruelly raised with their distant ancestors. The Red Sea is the subject of their pride and the most important source of national income. Bright example – Hurghada: modest in the recent pasta village turned into a sea resort of world importance. Tourists here hundreds of times more than local residents. And along the entire coast continues the rapid construction of new hotels. I think, be sure to know exactly where God drowned the pharaoh army, to this place would be guided signs. Tourist excitement turns into a currency flux.

However, disputes that it should be considered the Biblical Smere Sea ("cherry" means "Camcam") are still underway. This honor claims two bays in the northern part of the Red Sea, separated by the Sinai Peninsula, – Akabsky and Suez. Moreover, most experts prefer the latter, near which Hurghada is located.

Naturally, Nikolai Gumilev, who fell in love with this exotic region, could not fail to respond to the historic drama, which was playing here a few millennia ago. In general, his African poems entered the collection "Tent", so accurately tied to the terrain and densely saturated with historical realities that one of the modern Gumilev critics galloped them "Rhymed Guide for Africa". Well, it is far from the worst guidebooks – a reliable, thorough, full of artistic insight. In poem "Red sea", which I already quoted, the poet draws such words to him:

"And you remember how, only one of the seas. // You performed once God’s law – // broke the mighty alloys of Zybay, // so that Moses passed and Pharaoh was killed".

In no way wanting to accumulate the scale of the cataclysm, accomplished on the Cherma Sea, I still can not hide that I also saw torn "Alloys Zybay". Somehow, choosing to the beach of the hotel "Sultan Beach", I was amazed by changing the marine landscape. Where in the morning to the horizon, the bowl, full of blue and lights stretched, sandwiches were discovered,. Having entered the sea, I felt like a Guliver in Liliputia: Water is an ankle, then by knee, and at times. Almost in Moses: Waters have become land.

And in reality – just a tide. The Red Sea lives in the mode of semi-daily tides, and the drop in the levels of its mirror reaches 1.5 – 1.6 meters in bays: almost human growth. Not refuting the biblical miracle, this case will be expanding the space of miracles. If you look closely, nature is just full of them.

The Red Sea belongs to several records. It is not only the warmest (average temperature in February in the northern part +21 degrees Celsius, in August +27), but also the most salty in the world. It is explained by the fact that, adjacent to the greatest desert of the world of sugar ("Ocean sandy spill". N.Gumilev), the sea gets a very small influx of freshwater. But evaporation from its surface is huge: for the year the sun "merging" Water layer Three and a half meters thick. Near the Suez Gulf The value of salinity reaches 41.5 ppm. This is combined with clean and warm (but not overheated) water – the optimal environment for the development of corals.

For comparison: in the neighboring and also very salted Mediterranean Sea, the salinity indicator ranges from 36 to 39. True, substantially above it is in the Dead Sea (260 ppm), but it is not a sea at all, but a faceless lake, viscous, like diluted kissel. I testify to this as an eyewitness: the faithful habit of dipping into all the oncoming reservoirs, I also beat it too.

Well, the salinity of the Red Sea, I felt not only the skin, but also the mucous membrane of the eye. With the second immersion, it is self-chapted by the experienced aqualant, I did not carefully choose a mask and already found that the water penetrates through the rubber edging of the glass. What eyes have twisted, you could still survive. It is worse that visibility has deteriorated sharply. And under the waves of the Red Sea there is something to see.

Tropical seas, including red, no matter how strange it will be strange, are not so rich in food (hence in part and their transparency). Therefore, special abundance of fish there is not observed. But in the zone of coral reefs, which bordered the shore seems to be collected by all local fauna. Only fish – more than 400 species, and more than 20 percent are endemic: nowhere, except in the Red Sea, do not meet.

Sometimes it seemed that we accept the parade, but not military, but beauty. Something like Brazilian carnival with beauties on moving platforms. Upstairs, on the boat, we showed tables with photos of the local underwater "Beaumda", And, floating at a depth under the watchful supervision of the instructor, we, as it were, the identification process.

It is easiest to know the Guban, whose huge – up to two meters – the shadow from time to time sailed over us. It is the shadow: this fish prefers the upper tier, and in the stream of scattered light, breaking through the roof of the sea, is perceived by counter-sized silhouette. The local breed of Hubanov is referred to as Napoleon – due to the characteristic protrusion on the head, in which, if desired, you can guess the similarity with the legendary tri digger of the French emperor.

By the way, scablasts from France, famous gourmets, possibly guided by patriotic considerations, having fallen to feed the names of Bonaparta with boiled eggs. However, now it is strictly pressed for.

But Moraine, the fish is even larger, to the reefs. Its long, devoid of scales of the body she resembles the enlarged model of the Mine eg. Ichtiologists assure that, despite their bad glory, Moraine, in essence, shy. The fear usually causes an uninterruptedly discovering and closing mouth of this fish, as if trying on, how would you part more comfortably. But what can you do if the poor thing breathes. And yet put her finger in the mouth is not recommended. It is enough so that you will not stretch it back: her sharp teeth are tilted inside.

Funny, expanded winters like horse-hump. Their bright colors something like "EFFECT OF AHOMOR". It is possible to consider it as a warning: Be vitrate! Folders of the wolted ends with needles connected to poisonous glands.

Plakaxes – collectivists: love to swim by groups and just as smoothly suddenly everyone dive to the bottom for prey. Nose from this fish cut, the body length is proportioned to the width, which makes it similar to the plate. Well, a flock of plakaxes is already a service.

Lucianas, who are called still "Rifted bass", are considered long-livers among fish. Theoretically, they can live until 21 years. But this is a little good: on your misfortune, they are too tasty.

If everything that happens resembles a colorful performance, then this is the case when the scenery, the role of which corals perform, cause no less admiration than actors. The variety of their designs and the richness of color shades shake. I was afraid to touch the hand of this fragile beauty, just slowly sailed nearby – from one coral masterpiece to another: here is such an underwater venice. Especially remembered polyp in the form of a huge bouquet with lace flowers, capable of gathering the most skillful master of Japanese Ekiban. But it is not worth removing it from the water: paints are nervous, soft coating fabrics are dry, only a brittle white skeleton will remain.

Coral polyps – living beings related to the class of invertebrate animal type of intestinal. They have their own rhythm of existence, almost imperceptible to view from. At night, they usually hunt for tiny croutons, paralyzing them with tentacles with shooting modes of arrows by hairs, after which the mining is drawn into the mouth. In the afternoon, corals are pressed into their holes and ward forces. They need them for complex construction work. These amazing creatures themselves build their own skeleton. As a building materials, carbon dioxide calcium, absorbed from water. Other organism is located on one organism, then the third is brown together, and an infinite Vycle is formed, in which those who have lost the color of the coral polypa are adjacent to the rainbow with all the colors. Some personification of the infinite cycle of life and death.

Unfortunately, in the natural course of things, the poachers are increasingly interferred, which boil corals kilograms; who is as souvenirs and who for sale. But personally, we are conscious people and all the beauty left where they saw, – at the bottom. And with you seized only one – impressions.

There were so many that the discussion took the whole way to Hurghada. And above the deck, like flags of coloring, fluttered on the shoulders of garlands wet wetsuits. In part, it resembled the scene from the horror movie: not only hurt the sacrifice, but for reliability they shook and head.