Egypt Livaboard September 2018
What a holiday, what a great time.
We all met at Gatwick South terminal, Sam, Nic, Kev, Cheryl, Keith, Dean and Loraine, starting with a breakfast/brunch to get into the mood.
Arrived at Hurghada, and the rep (Blue0two) said it would be a ten minute journey to the boat. Ten minutes later we were unloading from the bus and carrying our bags to the boat. Who would have guess it was so close.
Day one - Local Reef, Gota Abu Ramada,
3 dives including a check dive, and an incredible night dive one of those scenes you see on tele that takes months to film. The deck had plenty of room to get ready and the staff couldn’t have been more helpful, ensuring you were untied from the rack when you stood up when all kitted up. The dives were on a pinnacle with a few smaller pinnacles nearby. The first two dives were limited to 60 minutes and the night dive to 45 minutes. The first check dive included practice deploying a DSMB which everyone needed to carry.
So a few fish names, Red Sea Anemonefish aka clown fish. One of my favourites, Blue spotted Ray, Masked Porcupinefish, Red Sea Walkman, what a strange one that is.
The night dive was something else, this had loads of small fry that were just everywhere, so many it looked like you were in fog, they were followed by what looked like fusilier fish, and finally Giant Trevally. Rushing everywhere with the small fry dispersing as the Giant Trevally dashed through them the reformed.
Day two - Small Brother, 3 dives
Another great dive from the boat heading anticlockwise to the Giant Gorgonian sea fan then back to the boat with a sighting of an oceanic whitetip shark off in the blue. The second dive was from the rib negative entry to the cleaning station and then heading anticlockwise back to the boat. The third and final dive of the day was a fairly relaxing dive until coming back the boat with oceanic whitetip sharks under the boat just waiting to play, or at least allow us to take a few photos.
Day three - Big Brother, 3 dives
First dive was from the boat anticlockwise until 100bar then levelling up and returning to the boat, missed it on the way back due to the vis then found the jetty, knew we had missed the boat so headed back and further away from the reef until we were under the boat, hey, more oceanic whitetip sharks, and more photos, getting to be a habit, anyone would think they lived there. Second dive was uneventful, had a Thresher shark pointed out to me, out in the blue and fairly deep, impressive looking shark. The third and final dive was a rib dive directly above the Numidia and Aida wrecks, a couple of the divers undertook a penetration dive, the headed back to the boat coming up to 20m, 10m then 5m to manage the air, phew that was a long way.
Day four - Thistlegorm, Dunraven and The Alternative reef, 4 dives
We arrived early in the morning not stopping on the way for other wrecks due to the weather, guess a few others had the same thought as there were already 6 or so boats already there. If you count 20 people to a boat then there will 120 or more divers on the wreck. We took a Zodiac to one of the mooring lines down we went, made a note of the line as we would come back up the same line. As I had been to the wreck before, I fancied see the Locomotive first sitting off to one side of the wreck. Had a great big moray eel in it. Back to the main wreck, a swim around then back to the line, which was just being untied as this boat was leaving, so up another line to the safety stop, together with 20 other divers, not much room, eventually up to the surface to the expected chaos. Only got bumped between a zodiac and boat several times before getting back to our own boat. Not sure I will go back, too crowded. Second dive was Dunraven, nice easy penetration dive from the stern. The third and fourth dives were on the Alternatives, day and night dive. Pleasant enough reef dive.
Day five - Shark and Yolanda, Shag Rock, Siyul Is and Dolphin House reef, 4 dives
Not feeling too hot first thing in the morning, I decided to give the first dive a miss, one I love, but had done it several times before out of Sharm on a day boat. Once the divers were back, they gave me tails of very strong currents. Glad I gave it a miss. Shag rock was next, full of live, Giant Clams, Blue spotted Rays, Crocodile fish, Red Sea Anemone fish, and all the usual. Finally Siyul Is and Dolphin House for the night dive
Day six - Dolphin House and El Miniya
Having dived this on a night dive, turned out to be an leisurely dive of just over 60 minutes, even managed to spot a nudibranch, not seen a lot of these during the dives. After begin asked what we would like for our last dive we said a wreck. So off we went to El Miniya, a Russian-built Soviet T-43 minesweeper sunk during the Israel/Egypt war, just outside of the port of Hurghada. Lots of life as well, two types of nudibranch and a pipefish.
So finally laying out all the kit on the deck to dry then packing and home, via laying around the pool of the Marriot for the day until the flight home.
Thanks Keith for the lift home.
Safe diving.
Steve