Today we set out to spend a day snorkeling along the Haddah Beach. Unfortunately, unusually high winds prevented much water time, so….as we do….we pivoted to other sites.
We went in a driving tour of Ras Al-Sheikh Hameed, a beautiful sandy cape located at the junction between the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aqaba. The sand banks lie on coral reefs that are sometimes visible from the beach, especially on the western side of the sandy cape. They host an incredibly rich marine life which is not surprising as the world-famous diving town of Sharm Al-Sheikh in Egypt is just 30 kilometers away on the other side of the Strait of Tiran.
The beaches of the Ras Al-Sheikh Hameed are not only beautiful by themselves but they also offer stunning viewpoints on the Sinai Mountains of Egypt that are just 10 kilometers to the west. From the Ras Al-Sheikh Hameed the sunsets above the edges of the Sinai that fall into the Red Sea are particularly stunning.
We found so many shells and coral. You truly can’t believe how untouched these beaches are.
We then toured an unusual site. For more than 50 years, a war seaplane has remained abandoned at the remote sandy cape of Ras Al-Sheikh Hameem. The wreckage of a PBY-5A Catalina, an American military seaplane from the 1930s. It has laid on the beach since 22nd March 1960, when the retired American businessman Thomas Kendall landed near the Ras Al-Sheikh Hameed for a stopover during this trip around the world with his children and his secretary. They spent the night there but the next afternoon they were attacked with machine guns and automatic firearms by Bedouins who believed it was an actual military attack! Mr Kendall tried to start the Catalina but only succeeded to move it over about a kilometer where it ran aground on a coral reef. After more than 30 minutes of intense shooting (300 shots hit the aircraft!) and about 4000 liters of fuel poured into the Red Sea, the whole crew was captured by the Bedouins. They were brought to Jeddah but the damaged seaplane was abandoned on the beach, where it still lays but more and more damaged by the weather and people who dismantle it to take a souvenirs.
Tonight we are off to sleep with the Bedouins!!!
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