Hurghada Trip Report - March 08
By Symon on 13 October 2008
Sakaras
On arriving at Hurghada, I was picked up by a rep for Emporer and taken to Papas bar for a few Sakaras with Myx. After a 4 and a half hour flight and hardly anything to drink, water or otherwise, the first one went down rather well! It went up (to my head) pretty quickly too! 4 or 5 Sakaras later, and with the driver still waiting outside to take me the 2 and a half hours down to Port Ghalib, we thought it was time I left! The driver was still quite happily sat there waiting, (I don’t think I would have been!!) so we headed off, with me asking to stop for a wee every 10 minutes along the way!
It was quite late when we got to Port Ghalib, and Emperor Elite, and I was the last guest to show up, but I was shown around the boat with great enthusiasm by Gabriel, one of the guides. After all the paperwork was done, I was presented with a late supper. I then unpacked and sorted my kit out. Then as most of the guests had gone to bed, I decided to do the same.
Next day, I was awakened around 5 am by the engines starting up! I rolled over and tried to get back to sleep.. Then around 07:30 there was a ‘Morning!’ and a knock on the door.. This was the call for the first briefing of the week. I went up to a beautiful morning with a sea that could have been mistaken for the local mill pond, and introduced myself to the people I hadn’t met the previous night, and sat down for the briefing. We were briefed on all aspects of the week, what to expect and where we’d be going. We were then briefed on the first dive. As I was the only other person travelling alone, I was paired up with Jochen, from Germany.
Dive 1
Check dive at Ras Torombi – Surf temp 24 Bottom 23
We jumped in and swam around the lagoon with jellyfish everywhere!! Usual check dive nothing much to report here.. Other than I didn’t escape the jellyfish!! I turned around just after I sent my blob up and got smacked in the mouth by one!!! Well I assume it was a jellyfish! I didn’t even see it! I just felt the excruciating pain in my top lip and face! Not a great way to start the week!
I’d bought myself a Fourth Element Thermocline undersuit and rash vest before I went, but decided I’d try my 5mm semi dry on it’s own to see what the water was like. Well it was bloody freezing, so I made the executive decision to where the new suit for the next dives!!
We then set off for the 4 hour journey to the Brothers. The sea was still flat calm, so it was a nice leisurely sail down there…
Dive 2 – Big Brother – Surf temp 23 Bottom 22
We were told to look out for Thresher sharks round here, so we were all eager at the prospect of catching a glimpse!
The dive started well.. Nearly forgot my weight belt!.. Jumped in and my mask fell off! One of the crew jumped in as I was desperately flailing around trying to reach it as it was sinking, with a BC full of air!! I must have looked a right Muppet! Anyway, as this was happening, my new buddy had thoughtfully buggered off and was sinking away into the distance!!! Great! I thought! What a considerate buddy I have!! The guys on the boat kindly point me in the direction of his bubbles and I set off in search of him! I finally met up with him around 15 or 20m and we started round the reef and into an almighty current! This isn’t meant to be here I thought! It’s supposed to be going the other way!! It actually was at the surface, but the reef splits the current and the bit we were diving round was going the other way into our faces! Once we got around the corner of the reef, the current died down and we started going with it.. Didn’t see an awful lot, although there were lots of usual Antheas, some Tuna quite a few Cornet fish and loads of bloody Jellyfish! Every time I turned round I though one was going to drift into me again! The viz wasn’t particularly great, around 15m, so it made it harder trying to spot the very shy Threshers. Although typically, when we got back to the boat we were hearing stories of Thresher sightings around the south side of the reef.. Better luck next time!
Day 2
Dive 3 Big Brother/Numidia – Surf temp 26 Bottom 22
Went out in the RIB towards the northwest side of the island and dropped in just after the wreck of the Aida. We then headed north and drifted towards the wreck of Numidia. It’s quite an impressive sight to come round the reef and see the silhouette of the forward mast pointing up towards the surface. She looks to be defying gravity, perched on the wall the way she is.. This is can be a pretty deep wreck by recreational standards, with the bows at the highest point and the stern way down into the depths some 80m down. The bottom of the main mast is around 35m and the way the wreck lies it’s very easy to get carried away and go too deep. Again, my buddy decided to go it alone and go to about 40m, but as I was on a mix of 31% Nitrox (Him being on air) my computer was screaming at me at 35m, so I just sat there and watched him go deeper!.. Sorry mate, but I don’t know you from Adam, and my kids might be rather annoyed at me if I decided to join you!
The wreck was covered in soft coral, and was truly stunning! I tried taking some macro pictures, but my photo skills let me down somewhat, and most of them came out slightly blurred and out of focus (it wasn’t until I got back to Blighty that I found the ‘digital’ macro setting, which seemed to work better than the ‘normal’ macro setting I was using.. Typical!!) We finished on the wreck and headed round to the eastern side along the wall until we got to 50 bar. I sent up my blob and as if by magic the RIB appeared.
Dive 4 – Big Brother Southern Plateau – Surf temp 24 Bottom 22
We entered in off the boat and dived round the southern plateau at around 35m, looking out for Threshers. Not much to report. Again, lots of soft coral. I finished earlier than my buddy as he was on 15l cylinders and I was on a 12l. He carried on with the guide following and I went up to the RIB. Surprise surprise, we found out that the others had seen a Thresher!!! D’oh!!
Dive 5 – Big Brother Southern Plateau – Surf temp 24 Bottom 22
Did a surface swim off the boat along the mooring line and dropped down on the reef wall and around to the southern plateau to about 36m to look for the illusive Threshers!. After much waiting, and squinting into the blue, we decided to head north back up the western wall. A Napoleon Wrasse soon appeared, swam about then disappeared again, so we headed off and hit the same almighty current that we hit the day before, but this time we were deeper and it seemed even stronger!! 30bar and a thumping headache later we managed to ascend and get out of it and into more sheltered water. We headed along the reef wall, my buddy slightly above me and closer to the wall.. I looked down and about 5m below me was only a Thresher shark cruising the other way!! It didn’t hang around, and after I’d frantically tried to get my buddies attention (without taking my eye off it I might add!) I then came to my senses and started fumbling with my camera strap trying to undo it. By the time I was ready, he was off into the distance! I did get a picture though, and you can JUST make out the shape of the tail… Honest..! Look! It’s there..!!! THERE!!.. Anyway, we stopped in the hope he might put another appearance in. Needless to say he didn’t, so we-I got to 50bar and made our way back to the boat, with a huge Barracuda swimming below us!
Day 3
Dive 6 – Little Brother North – Surf temp 25 Bottom 22
Dropped in off the RIB half way along the west side of the island and dropped down to drift with the current towards to southern plateau to look for sharks. Didn’t see any but as usual others in the group did! One Thresher and an Oceanic White Tip. Very nice dive, again, lots of soft coral
Dive 7 – Big Brother Aida/Numidia – Surf temp 31 Bottom 22
Entered in from the RIB and dropped straight on to the wreck of the Aida, the first supply ship to the light house which got to close to the reef and ended up some 60m under (deepest part). The bows start at about 25m so again, it’s very easy to go too deep. And being on 32% the 37m I went to goes to show it! Took some pics of the soft coral on the mast and then we drifted round to the Numidia. Had another look round her and then made our way to the east side of the island where we encountered another Napoleon Wrasse. Ended the dive and got picked up by the RIB.
Dive 8 – Big Brother South Plateau – Surf temp 26 Bottom 22
Dropped down with reef on left in search of Threshers! Two other guys had gone on ahead and after a while they had turned back and were swimming towards us, signalling that they had seen a shark! So we carried on with eyes out on stalks searching through the cloudy water. Nothing appeared, so we headed back the way we came. It wasn’t long before we saw one of the shy creatures swimming out in the blue heading the other way. It was gone as soon as it was there, so we carried on. Again, not long after another appeared. Maybe the same one? But that was soon gone too.
During the surface interval I was up on deck and looked out just past where the RIB was moored to the boat, and I saw the distinctive outline of an Oceanic White Tip Shark appear on the surface to feed! It was swimming backwards and forwards for some time, coming up to the surface from time to time to grab a fish! You could easily see the Pilot fish swimming along with it! I got a bit of video, but it wasn’t too clear. We debated going in for a snorkel, but it was appearing at differing intervals and places around the boat. One of the guides jumped in with a snorkel, but he didn’t see it, so quite glad I didn’t bother!
Dive 9 – Little Brother South Plateau – Surf temp 27 Bottom 22
Went over to Little Brother in the RIB for the fourth dive of the day, and dived to a depth of around 33m. Lots of soft coral and Gorgonians one in particular had 3 pipe fish taking shelter behind it. Other than that, not a lot to report.
After the last dive of the day some of us went over to the island and went up the lighthouse to have a bit of a nose. Great view of the surrounding reef, but those Egyptians don’t know how to keep things neat and tidy with bits of old rusty equipment strewn all over the place! And some manky cats padding about. We had some tea and had a chat with the light house keepers, bought a T shirt, and then went back to the boat.
Day 4
Dive 10 – Little Brother South Plateau – Surf temp 26 Bottom 22
We left our mooring at Big Brother and headed over to the southern end of Little Brother. The first dive of the day, and as it happened the subsequent dives for that day, were in off the boat and onto the southern plateau. We headed round with the reef on the right until we came to the corner and hit a very strong current coming from the west! We turned back and straight away saw 2 Grey Reef sharks above us! It was an awesome sight to see the silhouettes against the blue surface! Even with the heavy thermocline distorting the image.. We carried on drifting back towards the Eastern side of the island and got picked up by the RIB. Very nice dive!
Dive 11 – Little Brother South Plateau – Surf temp 29 Bottom 23
Jumped in and descended to look for the sharks. We headed back to the corner where we first saw them and we were continuously hampered by the current coming the other way! But it didn’t seem to bother the big school of Black Snapper just sitting there holding their shape in the torrent! We turned back and I was immediately pointed towards the surface where about 4 or 5 silhouettes were cruising the other way! I started filming thinking WOW! Look at those sharks! However, the longer I looked the more funny looking the sharks got!! I soon realised they were enormous Tuna!! About 1.5m in length! We carried on and soon saw the Grey Reef Sharks patrolling backwards and forwards quite close to the boat and it was becoming apparent that there were a few of them appearing all over the place! One look around and I must have counted at least 6 of them! Unlike the Threshers these sharks are pretty curious and don’t mind getting close! The current was becoming quite an issue and it was getting increasingly hard to stay in one place! Our air soon went down so we ended the dive. I took lots of video and pictures on what was a great dive!
Dive 12 – Little Brother South Plateau – Surf temp 26 Bottom 23
All I put in my log for this dive was.. Loads of sharks! Amazing!!! .. However, I do remember this one, so I’ll do this from memory! The 2 buddies I’d been diving with decided to give this one a miss because we were planning to do another dive later in the afternoon. So I went in with a couple of quite hardcore guys from Denmark! By this time the current was horrendous, and we found ourselves finning like f*** just to stay in one place! We were quite shallow by the standards of previous dives, about 17m at most, but for most of the dive we couldn’t really see the bottom, so we didn’t really have any perspective of the distance we were travelling until you looked at the reef wall and realise you’ve been finning like crazy for the last 10 minutes and you’re still level with the same outcrop!! None the less, the sharks were still there and still getting close! At one point I was quite close to the reef and a Grey was swimming towards the small gap between me and the reef! I started filming him and it suddenly occurred to me that he might take offence to being cornered between me and the reef.. I carried on filming regardless of my own safety! (Ha ha) thinking at least it would look good on camera if he went for me!! When he got to the point where he was between me and the reef he bolted down out of the way leaving me thinking ‘phew!’ So after much finning we headed back to the boat, which proved tricky in that current! It was like trying to hit a moving target! Swimming across the current trying to gauge where you’re going to end up! Miss the boat, and it could be a long hard swim back!! We had to do the safety stop holding the keel of the boat, where a large barracuda had the same idea! The next trick was to get from under the boat to the ladder!!! That was a job I can tell ya!
Dive 13 – Little Brother South Plateau – Surf temp 26 Bottom 23
Dropped down with the intention of staying shallow on this 4th dive of the day, however, what with fighting the current both horizontally and now vertically with down current in some places, we ended up going to 32m! The sharks were still there, about 5 in total. However it wasn’t long before they disappeared, but by this time I was totally dived out so we were out of the water after 26 minutes!
The Captain was getting very anxious to get going as the calm weather we were having was going to break and the forecast wasn’t looking good for the crossing over to Daedalus. The crossing would take about 10 hours, so we were looking at a rough trip! Proper southern Red Sea conditions! It turned out to be not too bad though, and everyone but me turned in early. I ended up falling asleep up on deck!
Day 5
We woke up on the southern side of the very remote reef of Daedalus. All you can see is the old lighthouse and the old dilapidated jetties jutting out from the buildings built on top of the reef. The weather was slightly over cast, and there was a fair wind, so it wasn’t too warm! We kitted up about 06:30 regardless, although personally I was freezing my bits off! And by this time it was a real struggle to get my kit on! Who says all this warm water diving is easy!?!? LMAO!
Dive 14 – Daedalus North wall – Surf temp 28 Bottom 23
We took the RIB for the 5-10 minute rough ride over to the north wall to look for Hammerheads. We dropped down in the blue to about 27m and waited for them to arrive. We were told that if they are there, they would send a ‘scout’ to come and investigate us and then go back and get the rest of them. So we waited and waited but there was no sign of anything but blue.. The viz again was around 15-20m so our eyes were out on stalks to try and catch a glimpse! After around 35 minutes most of the group started to head south around the reef on the eastern side. Just as we started to follow, one of the guys behind me excitedly pointed towards the top of the reef. I looked up and just through the bubbles of the divers in front of me I could just make out the silhouette of a Hammerhead swimming away from us! The guys in front were too far out to get their attention and to tell them what was directly above them, so I tried to catch it on my camera but it was too far away and it didn’t come out anyway. Having seen that they were about, the 3 of us stayed where we were but moved closer to the reef. Again, one of the guys saw 2 below us, but by the time I looked they’d gone. We were getting pretty cold by this point, so we decided to head round and follow the others. We were soon being followed by a shark appearing from the blue, but it was only a Grey Reef.. I say ‘only’, but by this time Grey Reefs were old news!! I started filming it anyway, and as I was looking into the display of the camera a fusilier swam up directly in front of me! To say I crapped myself would be an understatement!! With that we finished the dive.
Dive 15 – Daedalus North West wall – Surf temp 28 Bottom 23
Again, we waited in the blue for the hammers to appear, but not show! Apart from another Grey Reef again. We headed round to the west wall where there was loads of soft coral so I attempted to take some more close up pictures.. Without much success!
In the afternoon a couple of us went over to visit the light house and have a nose about. Again, the place was in a pretty bad state of repair, with machinery lying about and the usual manky cat!
Dive 16 – Daedalus West wall – Surf temp 29 Bottom 23
Going in from the RIB we drifted along the western wall checking out all the nooks and crannies along the reef. We came to the anemone garden where the wall is covered with anemones with the obligatory clown fish in residence. We stopped for a while for photos and then ambled on again to carry on my macro practice! A nice relaxing dive to only 24m was a welcome change!
Soon after the last dive we were off on our way towards Elphinstone. Again the weather was meant to be rough, and this time it was! So rough infact that we had to put dinner off until we arrived! Again, due the sea state we were unable to go to Elphinstone, so we had to settle for the mainland and Abu Dabab… The guides were very apologetic, but it obviously wasn’t their fault! So I don’t think anyone was particularly bothered.
Day 6
We woke up with a much needed late start and to a sunny, but windy morning. From memory, Abu Dabab is a shallow reef ‘system’ with a large sandy area between two long coral reef blocks a few hundred(?) metres apart, with a max depth around 15-16m. The likelihood of missing one of the reefs or the outcrops in the middle of the sandy area was quite high, so most of us chose to be guided on this one..
Dive 17 -Abu Dabab – Surf temp 25 Bottom 24
We took the RIB and dropped in on the wreck of Heaven 1, a liveaboard that some time ago, caught fire. Luckily when the guests were diving, so no one was hurt! There wasn’t much left of her, being made of wood, but there was still a lot of wreckage lying around. The 2 engines were still in place in what was left of the hull, but not much else. We headed off round the one of the pinnacles where the guide saw a shark.. There was much debate on what it was, from an Oceanic to a white tip reef shark! (Slight difference!!!) Anyway, I didn’t see it.. We carried on and came across an amazingly bright red anemone guarded by 2 anemone fish, and the very first Blue spotted Ray of the trip. The guide then took us towards the high built up labyrinth of coral walls and swim throughs, which were fantastic! We ended the dive back where we started over the Heaven 1.
We then headed over to Ras Shona for the last dive of the week.
Dive 17 – Ras Shona – Surf temp 24 Bottom 24
We dropped in off the RIB into the choppy water. We were told to look out for the Dugong (Sea Cow) that frequents the area to feed off the Sea grass. The viz was pretty bad, about 5m, so that was against us already, but we were told this could be good, as the Dugong ruins the viz when it feeds, kicking the sand up! None the less we didn’t see it! We did see a very nice Peppered Moray tucked away in the crack of a small rock though!
On a whole it was a fantastic week! The guides were very flexible and no problem was too great or too small! The Itinerary was very flexible also and we were regularly asked as a group about which sites we wanted to stay longer at.. We were always well briefed on the dives, and told what to look out for, and where to find it. The boat was in very good order, and always clean and tidy.
The only slight gripe I/some of us had was with the Nitrox fills.. We were doing some pretty deep dives, and I was nearly always close to my PPo2 of 1.4, which isn’t too bad, but when you do lots of repetitive dives, it does increase the risk. It wasn’t a huge issue, but it would have been better to have a lesser o2 mix for the morning dives. When we asked if we could lower the mix, we were told that we could get a reasonable depth on 30% at 1.5 PPo2 so there was no need to go less.. I think they thought we might be trying to be a bit gung ho and go too deep. That’s fine, but I wasn’t personally intending on breaking any depth records, I just wanted to be able to do the deep dives without having to worry about the o2 and how deep I was.. It just made me more aware of depth, which is no bad thing I guess!
The diving in the south, as you have read, can be fairly tough! With repetitive dives going pretty deep at most sites. You could say well don’t go as deep, but when the rest of the group goes straight down, and there’s not always any reference, it’s hard not to follow or to get carried away! There can be some big currents down south, and it’s quite easy to get caught out. When the current hits the reef it can split it and send it in different directions. Not a big issue if you turn and go with it, but it can screw your dive plan! The RIB is out on most dives, so you only need to send up your SMB and they’ll come and get you..
I wasn’t sure what to expect with regards to the big stuff in March, and although we did see some, I was hoping for more sightings.. Especially the Hammerheads.
Water temp for March was around 22 deg. Not warm enough for just a 5mm. I’d advise at least 7mm. And if you feel the cold, wear a thin hood!
Contact
Author:
Symon
Email: info@travel-dive.com
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