Eilat, Day 2: Coral World

On our second day in Eilat, we initially planned to parasail, but it was a bit too cold, so we headed to Coral World, which Adam remembered as the Undersea Observatory when he was in Eilat 20 years ago. As with many aspects of Eilat, that too had changed. I will let him explain how the city is different, below, after the following Coral World photos. In the meantime, enjoy our virtual aquarium.

To the right is a photo of Adam listening to a personal audio guide, which explained a great deal about the coral reef and its inhabitants. In the background is the undersea observatory.

Here is a picture of Adam observing the fish.

And here is a photo of us after we viewed the fish from the observatory.

And now, the virtual aquarium:

left: doublebar bream; right: antenna butterfly fish.

left: emperor angelfish (juvenile); right: green turtle (adult).

left: sergeant major; right: soft coral.

left: school of sergeant major fish; right: another doublebar bream.

left: emperor angelfish by bubblegum coral; right: female scalefin anthias by disc coral.

left: two unknown fish (we forgot to write it down); right: picasso triggerfish and sohal surgeonfish.

left: growing bits of coral with cube trunkfish in foreground; right: brain coral and lunar fusilier fish.

Adam writes:

Eilat has changed a lot (get it? get it? groan, groan) since I was last here 20 years ago with my parents and grandparents. First, the white undersea observatory in the picture above was the whole of the observatory experience back then. There was a plank with a guy selling tickets and that was it. No explanations, no tanks of fish from other parts of the Red Sea or Mediterranean, no gift shop, no amusement park ride (yes, there was a moving-chair movie we suffered through).

The park now covers several acres, and equipment pumps seawater in and out of the tanks fast enough to replace the water entirely every five hours or so. There are outside and inside tanks. The park also gave us a digital phone-type device into which we could punch a three-number code to hear about different types of fish or ecological systems. Highly cool.

Across from the Observatory is now a fairly sizable hotel. When I was last here, it was a sandy lot in which we met a Bedouin who gave my sister, Ruth, and me one-minute camel rides. This time, we had to wait until we got to Petra to ride the camels. But that's on a different page.

Now, rather than a bedouin, Eilat has a place called "Texas Ranch" that apparently offers half-day and full-day camel rides. We are so incredibly sore from our ten-minute ride (described on the Petra page) that neither of us can imagine what the trip would have been like had we taken the long, painful camel trip.

Monica writes again:

After Coral World, we headed back to the hotel and stopped at that most kosher of ice cream stands, Ben & Jerry's. Here is a picture of Monica enjoying a cup...

... and another picture of the (Hebrew) list of phenomenal flavors.

Anyway, so ended Day 12 (March 25). To continue your cybertour, click here.

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Last updated on July 7, 1999.