The second day of the Red Sea Diving Festival began with underwater photographers set out to capture imagery to enter into the shootout.

The deadline for entries is 10 am on Friday, so the pressure is on!

Uncharacteristically, the weather forecast for Eilat was for a storm with strong winds to arrive late morning and to blow for a day or so. As it is important to be able to retrieve the images from the underwater gallery, the organizers chose to put a limited display on.

Rigging and installing the exhibit is a fairly lengthy process, but the images look stunning when they have been hung.

It was really great to see lots of divers pause and check out the images. The area they are located in is popular with the local dive schools, so there were lots of people enjoying the imagery in such a unique location.

The Festival has been running a competition for the funniest underwater picture on its Facebook page and the images were judged and announced, Gili Sarhangi took first prize with a topical take on current affairs!

The second prize was awarded to Amit Liber for his humorous fin surfing image.

And Noga Ratz’s image of sheltering under an umbrella while wearing dive gear was dived third place.

The evening was devoted to a series of talks, covering subjects as diverse as freediving, underwater filmmaking and macro photography.

There is a live stream from the talks on the event’s Facebook page.

The weather is proving somewhat challenging, with strong winds and some heavy rain. Eilat typically enjoys the sunshine on around 360 days a year, so rain and storms here are a rare occurrence. Harvey Livschitz, who had the misfortune of teaching me to dive many areas ago, always liked to state that the “sea always wins.” It looks like we may have a couple of days proving that his adage is always correct!

Reports: Day 1
Reports: Day 2
Reports: Day 3
Gallery: Red Sea Diving Festival Shootout Results
Reports: Day 4