It's January, it's cold and that can only mean one thing ... Its time for the January Warm Water Rush 2006, the intended target this year "Hurghada in the Red Sea".

The group this year was made up of a mix of old timers (that we just can't seem to get rid of!) and newbies making the "playing the host" role a little easier for Mark and Maya.

The week started, well, absolutely terribly ... With an almost break down at the top of the M40 and an actual break down at the bottom of it. So that was it with Highways Agency support, and our luggage offloaded all down the hard shoulder the challenge was on to find a way to get all 20 people to the airport. In a "Challenge Anneka" style Mark and Paul set about calling every taxi company in the area to bail us out, and fifteen calls and £270 later the 3 rescue taxis arrived. Ahhhhh was that a swift journey, but hey they got us there and with 30 seconds to spare before the gate closed.

Once on board we checked that we had all the important things, like Gez and Rog (of course only because they had the Raspberry Smirnoff !) ... Ok, and relax ....

Once on firm ground the usual assortment of ruffians from Regal and Emperor were there to meet us, again only because they wanted their assorted requests of contraband - Mini Cheddars / Ribena / Cider / New Mobile / Cadburys and so on. Then it was off to the hotel, the Sulten Beach this time, and wow it was nice (probably too nice for us).

After our sign in and briefing session at the dive centre on the first morning, and much consoling of Irena our Emperor guide (well i'd cry too if I knew I was stuck with our lot for a week - he he he) we were off for a great weeks diving. The list of funnies from the boat is almost endless but the ones to make the grade have
already been swiped by a large department store as potential new family games for Christmas.

My personal favourite, although a little painful was the aptly titled "see how many people you can get in a 12 seater mini-bus" game - the clue of course is somewhere in the title, but hey we managed 22 - ouch !!!

Whilst the "bobbing for tubby" game - was a real crowd pleaser and wow if ever there was an award for timing, Roger's six pack is superb in this photo, and hey the camera never lies.

On the odd occasion we did stay in the hotel for more than 5 minutes we did honour the great British tradition of being polite by always "bringing a house warming gift" whenever we visited each others room - as you can see in the photo we were pretty good at this one - although the manager did wonder where his 1 table; 2 chairs; 5 ashtrays; 2 potted plants; 15 bedslats and 1 very large tree had disappeared to, when we visited Ray and Becks room.

Although the laughs kept rolling in the evening and the odd beer was consumed, during the day the whole group really did focus on and enjoy the diving, with the whole week passing trouble free and smoothly. The best day being that spent at Abu Nu Hass, where the Carnatic dive resulted in Mark, Irena and Old John spending over 15 minutes hovering in what must have been the worlds largest shoal of silver-sides - awesome.

As the week progressed the sightings list, besides the normal plethora of reef fish, included Dolphin (above and below the waves); turtles; napolean wrasse (and boy was the one of them huge !); white tip reef shark and loads more besides, including one vary rare pregnant Maya-Fish.

Ok, yes we know you're waiting for it ... Yes of course Mark put on one of his famous Belly-Dancing outfits for the last night, but this time we even managed to persuade Regal Rep Mark to don one too.

So we really did end the week in style, well we thought we looked good anyway !