Tim slumped over to the table and sat down opposite me with his breakfast of beans and potato pancakes

‘Hey,’ he gasped in one breath.

‘HI!’ I said breezily to him, winding him up. “You look rough.”

‘I AM!’ he raised his voice at me monotonously and I lighted my cigarette. As I laughed I looked out at Saudi Arabia, and a sparkling view of the Red in between.

It was about seven in the morning when we left the hotel against its dusky, bronzed matte-sky. All of us had started on the camels, as we made the arduous journey to a quiet dive site – Ras Abugalum. Popularity for the sport gradually dwindled during the afternoon, particularly among the males. Risk of testicle mutilation was too high. They preferred to dehydrate walking over the mountains. Even put up with being crowded and almost trampled by disorderly and aggressive camels. Tim and Pat were attempting to get my camel’s attention. It retaliated with a nip at the air with its mouth toward their heads to ward the pests away. I laughed as they ran off, cursing.

We arrived at some makeshift tents with mats laid out by other divers from yesterday. We needed to load off the tanks from the camels and line them all on the mats. I found Tim and Pat so they would hold on to my stuff before I’d try finding a tank and my suit. But we just sat there and looked out at the beach, our entry point.

‘It really is a blue hole.’ Tim and I rolled our eyes and suddenly burst into laughter at Pat’s level of awe at the water. “Thought it would be more of a red colour.” Tim felt the need to test Pat’s intelligence every so often.

‘As the name suggests?’

‘Exactly!’

‘Maybe we’ll see red when we get in.’

‘Whoa! We’ll see red? Well that’s just a stupid thing to say.’

Tim just hangs his head in defeat. “Exactly. To see red would be stupid.”