At Caves, a secluded spot where Sinai’s jagged mountains brush up against the shore, a natural drama was unfolding. The water’s entrance here is an ankle-deep ledge of rock and coral from which you step off into the clutches of the Red Sea. Beneath and behind you as soon as you enter, the reef wall recedes into a long, dark cavity which lends the spot its name.

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Above where the cave would be, I was sitting on a Bedouin-style kilim watching heads bob in the water. A group of divers was preparing to get out, but this was a more challenging task than getting in. Gusts of wind drove breakers against the shallow ledge. A short while earlier, some scuba divers had managed to get out, crawling and clambering to their feet, struggling under the weight of their tanks and the force of the waves. But the divers I now watched were of a different species: tankless, with colourful snorkels and beautifully long fins. Waiting by the ledge, they took off their fins and held onto them. A wave came and passed. Another came, and one diver rose with its crest and plopped ashore. The remaining heads continued bobbing, and with each wave a few more were deposited onto the ledge. As though by instinct, the word seals formed at the tip of my tongue.