My Submarine Experience

I first heard that there's such a ship which can completely submerge in water and cruise underwater when I was about 7. This strange ship is called submarine, my then 6 years old cousin told me. I was fascinated.

In high school, I learnt that submarines are usually used by army for defence purposes. That didn't leave much space for my wild imagination then. After I graduated, I read that nowadays even normal tourists like you and me are able to take a leisure submarine ride! My heart started to race again! Oh... how cool it would be to be able to ride a submarine! It has then etched a mark in my 'Ultimate Dreams' list!

I finally came across the opportunity to ride a submarine when I went to Hurghada, Egypt! And guess what? It's a submarine ride in the Red Sea! At that time I haven't got my diving license yet, but Red Sea is one of the top diving spot in the world! So to see the underwater world, taking a tourist submarine is THE way to go then, so I thought. I was very eager for this trip and didn't mind paying the exorbitant amount of USD65 for just a 45 minutes submarine ride.

The following photos can tell a better story than me so check them out:

*The Sinbad submarines before it is submerged into the water*

*This is how you get into a submarine*

*The engine part of the submarine*

*Remember the principle of Periscope from high school physics? We can see what's happening above water even when we were 20m below water by using periscope*

*Our view from the submarine, the unnaturally 'new' wreck at the route of the submarine really made me feel like a stupid tourist!*

In the end, I was not too impressed with what we managed to see from the underwater world of Red Sea. In fact, I kind of felt cheated as there were divers hired by the submarine tour company to usher fishes nearer to the submarine so that tourists inside the submarine could take photos. There was also a sunken ship and some other wrecks along the route of the submarine that looked too 'deliberate' to me.
In conclusion, I can summarize my submarine experience as 'been to Red Sea, done the submarine tour', that's it. But hey, people are still impressed! 'Ohhh... you've ride in a submarine before, how cool!'
Haha...ya, it's like paying USD65 to buy the 'coolness' eh? :p