SCUBA DIVERS Beware! No Good, Very Bad Day x2

Consider this a Public Service Announcement to Divers worldwide! 

I realize how privileged we are to have the experiences we have had - and I tend not to complain about the small things that do not go as expected - "it's all part of the adventure" is part of my usual mantra.  However, when things go so bad for no good reason other than to try to scam us out of our money, I feel like it is my duty to inform others.  I absolutely love Egypt and all it has to offer.  The potential for greatness is still so close to the surface for those who want to put in the elbow grease. I want this country to get back on its feet in a really positive way and it starts with honest business practices.

I wrote this in early May of 2017, but chose not to publish it because we were promised by Dr. Ashraf Sabri, the owner of Alexandria Dive House Dive Shop in Alexandria, Egypt that he would make up for everything that went wrong on our first visit to his business on May 6, 2017.  I gave him the benefit of the doubt, assuming that he would be smart enough to turn a very bad dive day into a very special, memorable day for us as he had promised.  Because today, on June 3, he actually managed to make a bad experience worse, this post is being published and shared with as many dive groups as I can, and I hope that you will help me spread the word!  (My first blog post did hit over 1,000 views in the first 7 days - hoping this reaches even more people )

Warning: Do NOT dive with Alexandria Dive Shop! (Check out Trip Advisor, too - we wish we had. MANY FRAUD ALERTS for this business!) https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g295398-d4236620-Reviews-Alexandria_Dive-Alexandria_Alexandria_Governorate.html#REVIEWS

Why did we have such a bad experience you might ask?...I guess we got suckered in by the charm of this business owner (LESSON LEARNED!) Here is our story:

This past fall we were introduced to a very interesting man named Dr. Ashraf Sabri.  Besides being a medical doctor, an author and having lived in France for many years, he also owns a dive shop called Alexandria Dive House Dive Shop (which he told us is the only "authorized" dive shop to be allowed to dive on Cleopatra's Palace).  Gary, as an experienced and certified dive rescue/recovery diver in the USA, offered to work for him for free (in exchange for free air) as long as we live in Alexandria. We were hopeful that we had made a connection to someone who would be able to set us up with water sports.  Many of the international teachers at the school where I work were keen on diving Cleopatra's Palace. Many others have been wanting to rent a nice boat to have a party on the Mediterranean. The school also has a pool and we thought it would be a nice connection to have some dive instructors come on campus to certify others or to give try-it dives to students.  

It seemed sure to be a win-win for everyone - Dr. Sabri's dive shop would have a steady base of customers as American teachers move in and out every few years, bringing with them many friends and families who come as tourists each year. Also, the parents at our school are well-connected and well-traveled.  It seems very likely that if the school connected with a good dive shop, they would surely send their friends and relatives there as well.

It was not to be.

Gary and I had talked about diving on Cleopatra's Palace since last fall.  We were told March is the best month for water clarity - but March came and went, then April did the same and we decided we just could not wait any longer.  Around the last couple days of April, Gary put out the notice to our friends here that he was planning a dive for May 6. 

 Dr. Ashraf had told Gary that he needed electronic copies of passports sent to him 4-5 days in advance in order to get the necessary permits to dive on this archaeological site. Five people wanted to go, so Gary sent them copies of the 5 passports, hired the driver and then we waited until May 6. (Many others are certified, but said they would wait to hear good reports from us before trying it out)

On the day of the dive, everyone was on time to depart at 10 am and drive the 40 minutes to the dive site.  When we arrived, an older woman with good English greeted us (We believe her name was Josephine, or something similar) and asked why we had 5 people as they were only expecting 2!  Gary showed her the emails he sent along with the electronic copies of the passports.  She then informed us that taking any underwater pictures would cost us an extra 25 Euros.  In addition, they needed the physical copies of our passport as well.  The kicker? No one had mentioned bringing them, so none of us had them. We were told that needing physical passports was a brand new "routine" that started on May 5.  However, having the physical passports was non-negotiable.  We were told the Coast Guard would not let us leave the harbor without the passports.

Back in the van we went. Due to construction, the return trip to school to get our passports took 1 hour - then another 40 minutes back to the dive site.

Once back, they told us that the government was restricting water travel until 2 pm because a dignitary from Israel was in town and they needed to keep things secure.  (We are now quite sure that was false and they were just trying to delay as 3 of the 5 reviews on Trip Advisor said they were also scammed out of a second dive!) We now had a little over an hour more to wait. The owner, Dr. Ashraf Sabri,  was now at his shop and he seemed very apologetic and offered us juice or tea on the house.  He also sat down with us and explained what we would be seeing and told us some of the history of the area.  Since another man was with us from Switzerland, the owner and the woman also spoke a bit in French to make sure everyone understood. We were told the visibility isn't the best so we would need to swim with a partner. On our first dive we would see a World War 2 plane, some broken columns, some headless sphinx, some sunken islands, and lots of pink.  He said we would be down 45 minutes to an hour because it was a very shallow dive.  On our second dive we would see the footings of the Lighthouse of Alexandria - one of the 7 wonders of the ancient world. He told us that the Citadel was 1/4 of the size of the base.  He said the base has many rooms in it and once housed soldiers.  He said this was outside the harbor and would have better visibility.  This dive would also be close to 45 minutes long.

As it got closer to the time to go, they wanted us to attach our BC's to our tanks.  My air tank was empty.  The woman argued with me that it was likely that I had a faulty gauge because she checked the tank herself.  When we insisted, she then came and removed the tank from the BC and turned on the air - to learn that the tank was indeed EMPTY!  She then tried another tank - that one had a faulty O-ring so would not work either.  Finally, the third tank was fine.  One of the regulators did not have a bite piece on one side, the fins looked like they had bought them at Walmart - cheap plastic kind you would buy for kids,  and the BC's looked as if they were from the 1960's, faded with many had missing straps and other pieces.  We were only diving about 20 feet deep, so we were not overly concerned about our safety, especially because the air did seem like good air.

We risked injury by climbing over their very rickety dock, climbed aboard an old boat and were off.  However, the two people who spoke English and French stayed on shore!  We were on our own with Arabic-speaking only dive guides! Also, we learned that two Egyptian university film students were coming with us - for a total of 8 divers plus 2 diver guides.

We first had to stop at the Coast Guard station to hand over our passports. Without putting our passports into any sort of plastic bag just in case they dropped into the harbor - they jumped from the boat to the shore with 6 passports in hand and handed them over.  After about 15 minutes, permission was granted and we got to the dive site.

Gary and Cassandra were first down the line.  We were told to wait at the bottom and not go too far away or we would not be able to see each other.  No truer words were ever spoken!

I was assuming visibility similar to Lake Michigan - where you can see clearly about 6-8 feet, and some detail to about 12 feet.  I was wrong.

As Sarah and I descended the line, I realized we would not be able to make out any details more than 2-3 feet in front of our face. We held hands not wanting to drift apart and not be able to find each other. Once at the bottom, we realized we were at a small rounded reef.  We looked around and could not see Gary and Cassandra anywhere in sight. When the instructor arrived, he had all of us link arms in order to stay together.  I did not realize it at the time, but Gary and Cassandra and two others were not linked with the rest of the group.  That "reef" we saw was actually a part of the airplane and Gary and Cassandra had decided to explore it while they waited.

The university students were linked with instructors and seemed oblivious to the fact that we were also trying to see things.  They pushed their way through the group in order to get their film - kicking us in the head, sometimes getting tangled in our gear.  We learned later that this was their first-ever dive - and they were trying to film at the same time.  No wonder they were kicking our faces, kicking the bottom and stirring up even more silt, and getting their equipment tangled with ours!

After just 15 minutes the dive master told us to surface and swim to the boat.

Back on the boat, we then headed further out into the harbor and we all thought we were headed out to dive on the footings of the Alexandria Lighthouse - one of the 7 wonders of the ancient world.  However, we stopped at another location and our dive master jumped out and talked to a military guy who was there.  After another 15 minutes, our boat turned around and appeared to be headed back.  Remember, no one on board can talk to us to explain what is going on.  We were back where they had dropped off our passports, so we assumed that since it was now 4pm already and getting late, they would just get our passports back and head in.  Instead, we waited another hour - for what, we did not know but we assumed they needed permission for us to go on our second dive.  Having spent 6 hours already - with only 15 minutes in the water, none of us wanted to dive anymore.  The sun was so low that we would not have been able to see anything under the water - so we all stood up and started taking off our wet suits.  They knew enough English to realize that we had had it and wanted to go back. We finally arrived back to our home around 7 pm.

Dr. Ashraf Sabri apologized when we returned to shore and blamed it on government inefficiency.  He gave us 1/3 of our money  back and promised us a free dive with him as our guide on his nice yacht (which is currently in dry dock for repairs).  True, government inefficiency was a portion of the problems we encountered, but it did not account for the 
1) lack of communication about how many divers they were expecting, 
2)the poor communication about bringing our passports with us, 
3) arguing with us about the empty tank, 
4)not telling us anything about an extra fee to take a camera until after we arrived, 
5) the poor decision to not put any English speakers on-board for us, 
6) Unbelievably unsafe dive equipment
7) and to only allow us 15 minutes underwater where we never saw any sphinx and could not even make out the shape of the plane or the mask that was supposedly in the cockpit. 

We hope the owner will be true to his word and make it up to us.


JUNE 3 UPDATE:  Something told me this was going to be another really bad day.  After many WhatsApp messages with Dr. Ashraf this past week, and Gary even riding his bike to the dive shop to make sure everything was set - we met our driver at 10 am and headed back to the dive shop.  They were expecting us, but that seemed to be the only thing that went right. Dr. Ashraf Sabri was not even there to meet us.  He had also failed to tell us that his yacht was not yet out of dry-dock.  He was sending us with the same non-English speaking diving guides as he had the first time.  AND, the kicker was that they wanted us to PAY full price ("full AMERICAN price" as there is no list of what a dive actually costs!) for a second dive. Oh, and they insisted we had to pay BEFORE we went on the dive.  We said we would just do the one promised FREE dive, but were told we HAD to do both dives because their boats only do two dives, not one!   The woman in charge again argued with us, the customers,  and then got Dr. Ashraf Sabri on the phone who also argued with us and tried to make excuses why WE should pay more and it should not have to come out of HIS pocket.  At that point, 3 of us then decided we would rather NOT dive at all if that were the case. We were not willing to PAY to go on a very old run-down boat with people who can not even talk to us, and  risk another FULL day ruined.  We called an Uber and returned home to sit by the pool and write reviews for Trip Adviser and other travel sites to warn others not to be suckered in by the very charming, snake-oil prince Dr. Ashraf "Snake" Sabri.  The two who decided to stay returned home around 4 pm.  We were told they were left to just sit at a table for THREE MORE HOURS after we left.  The woman argued with them about the amount they would pay - trying to charge them MORE than we were charged the first time. For some reason,  this time the paperwork they had to fill out was different and the hard-copies of the passports (that were so important that we had to spend 2 extra hours to go home and get last time) were not needed!!  The same old boat pulled up to the frame of a dock with a few loose pieces of wood to walk on and they got on board  There was an Egyptian couple from Cairo who also went on the dive who were able to speak English and were helpful in translating.  They were also given very obvious preference on the dive.  The dive itself was on the footings of the Ancient Lighthouse and only lasted 21 minutes and the second dive was at a location that had a lot of old pottery, both dives outside the harbor.  The visibility was better at this location, but the footings were just huge blocks of marble.  For those who are divers, you will get the significance of this.  They did the SHALLOW dive first and the DEEP dive last!  The poor business practices of this dive shop and its owner was too much to ignore.  Fortunately we have had almost a year to learn to appreciate Egypt overall - but anyone who travels to Egypt and has experiences like this is sure to never recommend visiting here to anyone else.