Like A Virgin.
When Steven asked to write this article for the web
site, I thought, what more can there to be said about
Red Sea diving holidays that has not already been
said?
Most committed divers that you talk to have been
there; “done” Sharm, bought the proverbial
t-shirt etc, etc. The diving magazines always have
a Red Sea feature gracing their pages somewhere. So
I thought, how about the viewpoint of someone who
has never dived there before- a Red Sea Virgin!
I have been diving for about 15 years now, having
recently rejoined BSAC following about 10 ‘dry’
years bringing up a young family. In my early diving
years I mainly dived the UK with one trip to Aruba,
in the Caribbean. The past 3 years or so have been
some Mediterranean trips and the usual UK inland dive
centres- Stoney and Gildenburgh.
The Red Sea trip was booked back in September and
seemed a long way off, especially with Christmas fast
approaching, so apart from paying, it was put to the
back of our minds a little. Then suddenly it was January
and we only had 3 weeks to go.
Steven had been to Egypt diving before, albeit several
years ago, but this time had booked a liveaboard,
as the idea of reaching the dive site before all the
day-trippers appealed to us. Steven has always suffered
from seasickness; so most people (especially his family)
were amazed that we were actually going to live on
a boat for a week. But the tour operator - Tony Backhurst
travel, assured us that Excel, being a 36m steel-
hulled vessel, was one of the most stable liveaboards
in the Red Sea.
And so she proved to be. Our large double cabin,
with ensuite shower room was on the lowest deck, and
being closest to the water, at times movement was
almost indiscernible.
Excel accommodates up to 20 guests, but there were
only 16 of us and luckily none of them proved to be
the any of the ones we saw at Gatwick or on the plane
raucously fooling about with their mates. Our one
dread was that we would be the only couple onboard
with the rest of the boat filled with blokes from
a single club all set on rufty- tufty diving and après
dive!
It turned out that we were the only actual couple
on board, although there was a mother and daughter,
a couple of guys who lived at opposite ends of the
UK who had been at university together and two girls
from a Welsh BSAC club.
Being January we wore 5mm semi-dry suits and took
2mm shortie undersuits which we started wearing on
the second day as most dives were about and hour long
and this just kept the end of dive chill off, although
the water was a consistent 23°C. Although there
was a selection of wetsuits, drysuits, hoods and shorties
worn!
Nitrox fills were available as either a full weeks
package or just on a pay per fill, which is how we
had it. We usually had one Nitrox dive and then had
our cylinders topped off with air, which still gave
us a slightly higher O2 content than air.
Our first morning was absolutely knackering! Having
travelled the whole of the first day, we were woken
up at 5:30 am by the two 825hp engines starting up
for the hours passage out to the Gota Abu Ramada reef
off Hurghada. Following a fairly restless first night
and given the two-hour time difference, this was a
shock to the system. Our cabin was the most forward
and the engines still seemed extremely loud, but then
the winch to lift the anchor chain, which was above
our cabin on deck and was even louder.
Before we knew it, 6:30 am came and Sonia with the
immortal words ‘morning, briefing time’,
which you came to dread every morning, waked us all.
Kitting up and diving from the spacious dive deck
was very easy, you felt like the dive assistants genuinely
wanted to help you kit up and weren’t trying
to maximise a tip at the end of the holiday, which
is of course is exactly what happened. Personally
I was grateful to be helped out of the cradle holding
my cylinder once I was kitted up and also to have
my fins taken off my feet and handed to me at the
end of a long dive!
We did three dives each day and four when we did
a night dive as well. We were in the water at about
7:30 every morning for the first dive. Entry to the
water was either by giant stride, but more often than
not by RIB transfer to the far end of whichever reef
we were diving so that we could take a leisurely swim
back with the current to Excel and climb up one of
the two skeleton ladders. However, if you needed to
cut short your dive for any reason and did not reach
the boat, the two RIBs were always launched when divers
were in the water to pick anyone up who needed a lift.
This was a very reassuring aspect of the diving, knowing
that wherever you popped up, you knew a RIB would
be along shortly, even if you came up into the current
or a large surface swell.
So what did we see? Before we went, we had convinced
ourselves that we would see sharks on every dive,
especially as our itinerary was taking us the Brother
Islands (22 miles out to sea) and Elphinstone Reef,
both of which are famous for their pelagic visitors.
So when we got to our fourth day of dives and still
had not seen any, we began to feel a little disappointed.
Sharks had been spotted by one or two buddy pairs
on almost every dive, so on the penultimate diving
day, we decided we would be in the first group to
enter the water, as this tended to be when the sharks
were sighted. And we were rewarded by this battle
plan! It was 7:34 am when we entered the water from
the RIB at North plateau of Elphinstone Reef. We dropped
straight down to 30m and waited. Not for long though,
as there, about 7-8m deeper than us and about the
same distance away, we saw a Grey Reef Shark. It was
probably not there for longer that 30 seconds but
that was enough to excite us and of course on our
return home to say ‘oh yes, we dived with sharks’.
Our 8-year-old son was suitably impressed, but disappointed
that it wasn’t a Great White! Or that Steven
didn’t have his camera with him that dive.
By the end of the trip, everyone had seen their own
sharks, either Grey Reefs or Threshers. We also saw
Spinner Dolphins from the boat on several occasions
but unfortunately didn’t get to dive with them.
Hawksbill turtles on two other occasions were another
highlight, their apparent slow motion when swimming
is remarkable.
Steven had some good photo opportunities with lionfish,
which were very prolific on most of our dives. The
Clearfin lionfish tended to be within the corals and
you only saw their white, porcupine- like spines,
whereas the Common lionfish, which had more feathery
spines, were away from the reef a little more. On
one occasion, Steven was concentrating on one particular
lionfish, which quite happily swam out towards him.
We think it could see its own reflection in the supplementary
wet lens on the camera port and from my vantage point
just above, I could see it was only about 30cms away
from Steven, but about 2m away from the safety of
the reef. It must have then suddenly realised as it
made a Tom & Jerry like dash back to the reef!
We dived two wrecks; both perched at very steep angles
on the reef of Big Brother Island. The Aida which
sank in 1957 and the Numidia which sank in 1901. The
shallowest parts of both wrecks are at about 25-30m,
with the deepest parts sitting at 85-90m, consequently,
only a couple of the divers who were using trimix
could penetrate the deeper parts of the wrecks. Both
wrecks were fairly intact, with only the wooden parts
eaten away, the inside housing large shoals of glass
fish and the rest almost covered in beautiful soft
corals in rainbow hues.
The abundance of sea life is amazing, with the saying
‘fish soup’ constantly springing to mind
when you swim through clouds of bright orange antheas.
Numerous Cornetfish, which get quite close if you
stay still and try to get into every photograph. Colourful
Parrotfish asleep on the reef during the night dive
and cute little masked Pufferfish, which wrap their
fins around themselves when they sleep.
Steven started his rebreather
diving at Elphinstone, and from my viewpoint
it was amazing to see how much closer he could get
to fish with the rebreather, while I on the other
hand, looked on with my noisy open circuit equipment.
We saw some very large Moray Eels, the coils of which
looked like car tyres, but seeing one swimming was
a first for me and quite amazing.
Bluespotted Stingrays,Crocodilefish, Bluefin Tuna,
Barracuda, Butterflyfish, Angelfish, Scorpionfish……..I
could carry on and on, it probably being easier to
note what we didn’t see! In fact I almost didn’t
see any of the Scorpionfish because they were so well
camouflaged.
Back on board Excel, there was nothing we could fault.
Our cabins and bathrooms were always cleaned and the
beds made while we were on our first dive, with breakfast
ready as soon as the last divers were out of the water
and dressed. Although meals were buffet- style, there
was also a waiter to clear your plates away and refill
your glass. The food was excellent and very varied,
prepared by the chef in what was probably a very small
galley for 16 guests and 13 crew. He excelled himself
one evening by baking and decorating a birthday cake
for one of the guests and even putting a candle on
the top.
Evening entertainment consisted of slides, videos
or DVD’s and for most people, consumption of
various bottles of duty free. The atmosphere on board
was very relaxed and if you felt shattered, it wasn’t
a problem heading off for an early night.
Our last day consisted of 2 dives, leaving the water
just after midday, to allow a good 24 hours before
our flight home. We then endured a 3- hour mini- bus
transfer back to Hurghada, where we were booked into
the Marriott Hotel. A hot bubble bath and Egyptian
cotton sheets felt like absolute bliss, but our land
legs did not return for a couple of days and standing
in the hotel bar that evening I literally had to hold
onto a chair to stop swaying.
So was it everything I expected? Absolutely. And
more. It boosted my confidence in my own diving, as
setting up your kit and diving 3 times a day for 6
days makes everything feel like second nature. Also,
the actual diving was fairly demanding, with currents
and sea states not being quite what we expected.
Helen Ball.
