Eilat and Dolphin Reef

Back again after a short break!

In a few short weeks, Lee and I (with assorted parties) did the drive to and from Eilat (or Elat, depending on the sign*). As I mentioned before, Eilat is the city at the southern end of Israel; it is a border crossing town, as both Jordan and Egypt hit at this point. It also is a party town, where Israelis come for holidays to sun, swim, snorkel, scuba and generally raise hell. Needless to say, there is plenty to do here outside of crashing overnight before heading on to other destinations.

The evening we returned from Petra, Eyal suggested an amazing steakhouse - Eddie's Hide-A-Way. It was difficult to find (even for a regular like Eyal) and definitely tucked away! The steaks were amazing, and the dinner deal we wound up with was even better. Apparently, if you're a diver, for 100NIS you get: an appetizer for two, two steak dinners with all the trimmings and two beverages (sadly, sodas or juice only- the good stuff was extra). That's a smoking deal.

The following morning Geraldine, Dave and Lee had reservations to go snorkeling with the dolphins at Dolphin Reef. It's the only place in Israel where you can do this - and as Geraldine came all the way here, and it was one of the few things she had on her lifetime must-do list, we made it happen. The appointment was at 10am, so we had to be at the reef by 9:45 or so.....good ol' google maps said it was just 5 minutes away, so giving ourselves 20 minutes seemed reasonable. Until we discovered that google maps was so very very wrong, and we wound up in some alley behind a hotel, asking for directions from a fairly useless gift store clerk. Who was assisted by a very helpful co-worker who looked confused, then said:

"Why do you not give her the map?"

*blink*

There was a MAP and I'd just wasted 10 minutes trying to find out that A) I could take a bus that may or not be running, or B) could try to get back to some road that nobody knew the name of or C) ask someone else.

*sigh*

The FREE map of Eilat showed that we were a few kilometers away from Dolphin Reef, so we scrambled back into the car and raced down the coast to a fairly inconspicuous parking lot, and headed into awesome. Dolphin Reef beach is a secluded and well-kept oasis. It cost 60NIS to get in (only for me, as the cost for the rest of our group paid for the snorkeling). This entrance fee covered paying for an extremely clean beach, with an abundance of chairs, umbrellas, trees, beverage and food booths....and waiters. I set up camp with enough chairs and shade to sort us out for the day, and waited while everyone else did their snorkel. The beach was lovely, and it was a beautiful sunny day. I ordered a beer, cracked my book and put my feet up.


(A feeding platform)

About 30 minutes later, I watched three sets of snorkeling fins swim out into the outside barrier of the fenced in reef. The area was cordoned off into two sections, one (closer to the beach) was a half moon shape for beach-goers to swim in - complete with fish and small reef and a rope barrier that looked into the dolphin section. THAT section was comprised of a larger half moon wrapped around the inner circle where people could snorkel or dive with a pod of resident dolphins. Above this outer section coming off the beach were piers with platforms at intervals, where people could stand above the water and watch the dolphins swim around. Now, their 'enclosure' wasn't exactly that- according to Lee, the outer barrier wasn't quite a barrier - it was open in large places under the surface to allow the big guys to swim in and out. Apparently they keep coming back because they're fed at certain times, and it's just not a bad place to be. The managers of the reef keep the number of people in the outer barrier at a time to a minimum, and nobody is allowed to touch or harass the dolphins. So, people go in and swim back and forth in this roped off area and the dolphins come and go as they please - drive by's, hanging out, clicking and ticking and squeaking at one another. Apparently it was pretty cool - but you're not really allowed to take photos...Lee took a few sneaky ones anyhow.


(A sneaky snorkel photo; Lunchtime for Flipper!)

After about an hour, three soggy snorkelers made their way to our perch on the sand, and gave me the lowdown on how their adventure was. We spent the rest of the day drinking beers and relaxing on the sand - the service was amazing (friendly, expedient, inexpensive - all rare for Israel!), the food was yummy, and the beach was warm and delightful.


(mmmm, beach)

After a full day of chilling out, we stuffed ourselves back into the car and did the long long drive back up to Jerusalem.

The following week, Lee and I made the same trek to Eilat with my friend Meg and her brother in law, Drew. Drew unexpectedly crashed Meg's visit when the Iceland volcano messed up his return trip from Armenia. We're close enough to Armenia to make a stop while trans-Atlantic flights from London are delayed!

We stopped at a NEW beach on the Dead Sea - this one located at Ein Gedi and it was FREE. While the facilities weren't as nice, the water was clearer, and it was less crowded (for a while). You could take showers/get changed for 2NIS (coin op turnstile), but there were showers for hosing off the sea minerals for free too. The beach here wasn't much of a beach, really, but more of a dirt slope dropping off quickly into the water, which was full of large, wobbly stones. The water here was clearer, due to a distinct lack of mud - the only mud we found was a hefty swim/walk up the beach to one sad little wallow. We, of course, took advantage. Lee and I trekked over (well, swam, anyhow) and carted back a handful or two for Meg.


(Bobbing in the pretty water)

After our little foray into the water, we continued down to Eilat, and stayed in the same hotel we'd stayed in last time. Only, this time there was just one bedroom. Not the awesome two. And they were fully booked, as we were there over Israel's Independence Day. We wandered out for dinner that night and hit Paddy O'Briens - a pretty tidy Irish pub/restaurant in the 'happening' area of town. We had massive dinners, and waited several hours for festivities to begin. And waited. And waited. They had a bandstand set up, and occasionally someone who looked like a musician would come by and turn a knob, or blow into a mic, but the band hadn't started by the time we left- around 1am. That isn't saying much, however, as the bar only started to fill up around 11:30.


(Iced T appearing at Paddy O'Briens))

We'd arranged a tour for Meg and Drew to go up to Petra - freeing Lee and I to hang out on the beach for the day. Which we did. (Ok. That wasn't the plan. We were going to dive. But I forgot my PADI card. Again.) The beaches at Eilat are NASTY. Covered in dirt, people swimming in their dirty y-front underpants, glass bottles broken everywhere in the sand, and in the water as well. But PACKED - both with families and 20-somethings alike. All perfectly happy to risk severing an artery to get in the water. The beach was also lined with numerous open air cafes - each blaring their own flavor of tasteless beach music. Lee and I tried to get away from that as much as possible, and wound up on a lesser-used part of the beach. We discovered why it was lesser used when we went for a swim - the bottom was rocky and unstable. Coming back from a nice cooling-off session, Lee had a bad run-in with a sea urchin. 4 darts to the big toe and an agonizing afternoon ahead, we decided to move to the more crowded section and get in the water where there was a sandy (if covered in glass shards) bottom and no sea urchins.


(It LOOKS nice, doesn't it? FOOL!)

Meg and Drew were supposed to be back around 5, but we got a text saying that they wouldn't be back until "8pm, at the earliest". Which wound up not to be true (thankfully, as we had to drive back to Jerusalem that night). Apparently they had the good fortune to be stuck with four large, lazy, slow Argentinians - who held up their entire tour! Shopping, wandering aimlessly, not listening to the tour guide....their adventure to Petra had a very colorful story attached.

Next up: Uhm...I am not sure. Let's see what else we did with Meg....

*Both Hebrew and Arabic don't have equivalent Latin letters, so most words in English are spelled phonetically, which means many variations in spelling - especially as there doesn't seem to be a country-wide standard for things like this.