Floods, fires, strandings and big pants
Come the end of the season 10 of us decided to treat ourselves to a trip to slightly warmer waters and find out what the Red Sea had to offer some hardy UK divers. 2 “extras” joined us for the trip, so 12 of us and 7 other divers made for a pretty full boat.
Saturday 27 October
On arriving in Sharm El Sheikh we had our first brush with Egyptian efficiency when a guy met everyone going on Tony Backhurst boats (and there were quite a few of us) and made us stand in random groups before collecting our visas from him in an orderly scrum. Those who hadn’t pre-purchased their visas felt very smug indeed as they wandered off to get their visas cheaply and quickly from the kiosk in the airport. Thankfully all our luggage arrived so once our passports had been thoroughly checked many times, we made it out of the airport and on to the bus to the port.
At the port we were subjected to the strangest customs check. We all had to get off the bus and walk through a scanner in the middle of a warehouse. Our large bags were also all scanned, but hand luggage was fine to leave on the bus…. At least we all know where to hide our contraband/bombs next time! After a drive of about 100m across the concrete we finally reached MY Cyclone – our home for the next week and were greeted with a nice cold drink and, most importantly, the first of many excellent dinners.
Sunday
Ras Katty Our first dive was the usual check-out dive with a nice big crocodile of divers being led around. Morgan and I dropped off the back a bit to investigate the Egyptian sea life, which is rather different from home, and practising spotting stuff. We ended the dive with some SMB practice and our first attempt to board another boat, well the hulls all look the same from underneath…
Carnatic By some sort of miracle we were the only divers on this great wreck. The way it had settled on its side meant that it was very atmospheric inside with some lovely areas to explore. It was also the first time we saw lion fish and blue-spot rays and which we got rather excited over. We didn’t realise that a dive without one or both of these creatures would be the exception rather than the norm… Needless to say Morgan and I spent so long looking at sea-life and admiring the wreck we were lapped by George and David making sure they saw the whole wreck at least once!
Giannis D This was a very different dive to the Carnatic as it was a relatively modern cargo ship and had lots of other divers on it. Right at the end of the dive most people left and so diver soup turned to fish soup which was so much better. The clouds of glass fish around the “H” frame at the end of the dive was particularly lovely and more than made up for having to get back into crowded zodiacs in a heavy swell.
Monday
Siyul Kebira This was a kind of guided dive, well at least until all the next zodiac-load of divers caught us up. Nevertheless we inspected the coral bommies closely to find all the life they hid, and there was a lot of it including lionfish, a tiny moray, lots of glassfish and a blue spot ray. Again we tried to come up on the wrong boat but Therese (one of the guides) caught us on our safety stop so we had a 50m swim at 5.5m to our boat. Great if unintended buoyancy practice!
Malick Reef There was quite a bit of current when we went down on this site and as Morgan and I don’t like to over exert ourselves we ended up (unintentionally) seeing one part of the wall in great detail. We didn’t actually make it much further than the end of our boat, well we wanted to be sure we came up on the right one this time before we made a habit of trying to visit other boats!
Gobal Island – The Barge This was a fantastic dive. It wasn’t nearly as atmospheric as some of the other wrecks as it was just a broken up barge, but there was so much to see that it didn’t matter. We saw our first crocodile fish here as well as many scorpion fish. Even George, the giant morey (as well as the mad Bulgarian), came out to join us for a bit of a swim. We also saw a boxfish, peppered morays, lionfish and some very impressive gorgonians which just about survived being knocked about a bit as people posed for photos…
Gobal Island – The Barge by night Another great dive, once we had fought with the current to actually get to the barge. The baby mackerel were “dancing” around the middle of the wreck, being herded by various torch beams. What is it about night dives that brings out the Luke Skywalker impressions…? I was most taken with a baby cuttlefish (who wasn’t as taken with me and kept trying to escape my torch beam) and some fantastic shrimps. The lionfish who just wanted to pose in the torch beam were lovely to start with but got a bit annoying when you wanted to look at other things and a bit alarming as they got closer with their poisonous spines.
Tuesday
Rosalie Moller Our only really deep dive when a lowly sports diver like me really had to watch their depth to make sure they didn’t go below 35m. It was an interesting dive as the wreck was so intact and relatively devoid of life so you could actually see it was a ship and make sense of all the bits you normally see scattered around. It was the only dive I got really narked as well, swimming off merrily in the other direction to the line in the firm belief that it was up there somewhere…. I wasn’t the only one to do this – must be a female things as Brenda did exactly the same!
Shag Rock, The Kingston This was an absolutely lovely dive starting on the reef to ensure we got deep enough not to reverse profile later in the day and then working up to the wreck. This was a proper wreck with most of the decking rotted away giving some lovely open swim-throughs. There were also some brilliant surgeonfish who were very possessive over “their” wreck, any diver who came too close or hung around for too long was likely to be bitten as Morgan found to his cost! A large yellow boxfish was hanging around at the stern and close by was a giant morey tucked away. A very dense shoal of sweepers were covering the bow of the wreck, looking for all the world like an antenatal fish meeting.
Thistlegorm This was the first of 3 dives on the Thistlegorm and it all started rather badly for me and Morgan. We decided not to join the group going inside the wreck and instead spent most of the dive battling the current until we found the lee of the ship right at the end of the dive… The end of the dive wasn’t much better as we came up the wrong line, ie one not attached to our boat. and as we were half way up a dive guide decided to cast the line adrift! Needless to say we were not amused at all, especially because the current and number of boats buzzing around on the surface made it very dangerous not to come up a line. Luckily we made it to the line we were meant to come up and got back to Cyclone safely.
Thistlegorm by night This was a much more civilised dive. There were only the 12 of us on the wreck and there was no current so it was the perfect dive. It was strange looking around the ship with the water carriers etc on the deck but very interesting too, plus we got to chase fish with our torch beams which is always fun. We were amazed to see a small and very leggy sea spider moving around one edge of the wheelhouse and inside the wheelhouse was a sailfin tang looking as elegant as always. On the ascent we were accompanied by a batfish and then there were lots of fusiliers in the boat lights just waiting to be caught for dinner.
Wednesday
Thistlegorm Our diving on the Thistlegorm ended in a fantastic way when a small pod of dolphins swam past the stern. Luckily they were in no hurry and cameras were at the ready as they was the biggest things we saw all trip.
Dunraven Unfortunately Morgan hurt his ear so spent the rest of the day sunbathing while I joined Pam & Keith, two of the “other people” on the boat with a similarly slow speed of diving and interest in sealife… The wreck had a nice little swim-through where the propeller had broken and a couple of resident pipefish just next to the propeller. It was then a swim along the reef for a stonefish spotting competition, which I am proud to say our little group won!
Small Crack A lovely reef dive which just got better. There was a very red bubble anemone about half way through the dive with some feisty clown fish not liking us coming too close, but they are just to cute and photogenic I couldn’t resist! The dive ended with a swim through the Small Crack which was lovely, like an underwater valley with lots to see on both sides and a nice gentle slope up to a convenient safety stop depth. It was then a swim along a sandy bottom with lots of lionfish and back to the boat.
Dive 15 Three crazy people (George, Alex S and Mark Vowles) decided to do a night dive in the current. They came up raving about it but the rest of us were happy to watch them from the desk with a cold beer…..
Thursday
Shark & Yolanda Reefs This was a lovely dive which started along a long reef wall going down to 100m – one to watch that depth gauge on! There was lots of life along the wall but the most memorable bit of the dive was the huge number of baths and toilets scattered on the sea floor at the end of the dive, along with lots of blue spotted rays. It was great ascending above the debris and watching peoples’ “mature” reactions to being faced with a load of toilets at the bottom of the sea…
Thomas Reef, Straits of Tiran This was a very pleasant, relaxing dive along another reef wall with tuna and barracuda patrolling out in the blue. There were also huge numbers of anthias and goldfish tucked in the coral, lots of angel and butterfly fish gently swimming along and even a long nosed hawkfish hiding behind one of the many gorgonians. The only slightly scary part of the dive was swimming over a large, deep and dark crack…
Jackson Reef, Straits of Tiran This was another lovely, relaxing wall dive where we drifted along the reef, ascending slowly up to 7m, well apart from my little blip when I was concentrating on taking a photo of the only turtle we saw on the trip rather than my depth! There were also tuna out in the blue and cornetfish and unicorn fish floating at the surface. We spent a long time watching a parrot fish enjoying cleaned until the cleaner wrasse got a bit too enthusiastic!
South Lagoon, Straits of Tiran Our last night dive of the trip so we made the most of it by staying down for an hour. It was a fairly flat, sandy seabed with some coral outcrops which attracted most of the life, apart from those pesky lionfish which just followed out torch beams around. On the way back to the boat we saw the strangest mantis shrimp in a burrow in the sand and spent a long time trying to work out what it was before giving up in favour of dinner…
Friday
Woodhouse Reef, Straits of Tiran This was Morgan’s 100th dive of the year – not a bad location for it! It was another pretty wall dive with loads of fish including hundreds of anthias and other coral fish. There were also the, by now usual, unicornfish, tuna and cornet fish.
Ras Um Sid Our last dive was very close to shore and it was bizarre looking up and seeing snorkellers. It was a lovely, relaxing dive with nothing we hadn’t already seen but just a chance to savour “holiday diving”. We ended the dive by Morgan almost hitting divers and the zodiac with the SMB (on purpose!), but that didn’t stop them heading back to the boat without us. We weren’t too worried at that point as the zodiac was pretty full and we just assumed another one would come to get us. After 15 minutes or so of waiting we realised MY Cyclone was on the move without us…not good. Just as we were contemplating finning to shore a zodiac raced out to get us. There were many apologies, apparently the captain was a little too keen to get back to shore! We were just glad that we were close enough to shore we could have got there if we needed to…
Non Diving bits
This article was meant to be about the diving as that was the aim of the holiday but some things cannot go without a special mention.
First up is Chris’ thermal underpants/trunks. Well they were certainly big enough to keep all the important bits warm, as well as most of his torso. I think the picture says more than I ever could…. At the other end of the spectrum is Jim in his speedos – it takes a very brave man to wear speedos! Next is the jinx Morgan and I seemed to be under for the holiday. Not only did they try to leave us behind, but we also suffered flood and fire in our room, which was serious enough to make our ever-smiling crew look a little concerned…. Talking of the crew, the dive guides and boat crew were fantastic and always cheerful and helpful, they helped to make a great holiday. My stomach is still rather round after eating so much of the fantastic food we were constantly fed on the eat/sleep/dive cycle… In addition it has to be said that there was a fantastic group of divers on the boat so here is to the next trip!
Hannah.
