It's an odd sensation - hauling equipment that allows you to swim and breathe underwater while walking across the land where pharaohs once ruled and civilization was born, an ancient world where the wonders you'll behold on land pale in comparison to the sights you'll soon see underwater. And Sinai Divers holds the key to adventures above and below water. On a map, the Sinai Peninsula looks like a cork of land wedged between Egypt and Saudi Arabia, keeping the Red Sea from pouring into the Mediterranean Sea. At the peninsula's tip is Sharm al-Sheikh, home to Sinai Divers, the most experienced and longest-running operation diving the Red Sea. Belying the desert above, the oasis that is the Red Sea's underwater world is composed of incredibly clear water and an artist's palette of colorful hard and soft coral-covered drop-offs that run down to 800 feet. Schools of large pelagics abound, as well as mating sharks, thousands of tropical species, whale sharks and wrecks that span the centuries. It's not unlikely to spy Roman amphorae on the bottom, and you won't want to miss the world-famous Thistlegorm, a World War II wreck. The dive sites visited by Sinai Divers are famous among globetrotting divers. Ras Mohammed, Ras Zaatir, the Brother Islands (now opened after more than a year's closure), Fury Shoal and Shabb Mahmoud. And Sinai Divers southern Egypt expeditions will take you to dive sites few have ever seen. Sinai Divers offers two ways of going diving: land-based or live-aboard. If you choose the land option, you can work out of either of Sinai Divers' two land-based sites: Naama Bay ( where you'll stay at the Ghazala Hotel) and dive day-boats (Sinai Divers has four dive boats) from the Tiran Straits to Ras Mohammed; or at the five-star Conrad International Resort in Ras Nasrani. More widely known is Sinai Divers' live-aboard operation, however, serviced by four live-aboards: the Ghazala, the Ghazala Voyager, Ghazala Explorer and the Ghazala Adventurer. These comfortable live-aboards offer everything you need to ensure your dive trip goes off without a hitch - in style and comfort as well. Sinai Divers has a full line of new Scubapro equipment and Alladin computers, and they offer Hi-8 video camera rental as well as Sea and Sea and Nikonos 35-mm cameras and strobes. E-6 processing is also available. As for when to plan your trip? Well, according to Sinai Divers' owners Rolf Schmidt and Petra Roeglin, that depends on what you want to see. During the March through May period, the water temperature rises, and that's good for mantas and whalesharks. June through October is our best time of year for all kinds of fish activity, including pelagics at Ras Mohammed and Tiran. And then December is shark-mating time. There just isn't a bad time to plan your trip of trips. When the waters go pond-still at sunse, and the light reflecting off the surrounding red mountains turns the dark blue water the color that gave this body of water its name, you'll want to be there. And if you're going to dive the Red Sea, dive it with Sinai Divers - they hold the key to a diving adventure the likes of which you'll remember forever.For more information, contact Tropical Adventures, 800-723-2679; fax: 206-441-5431; e-mail: [email protected]