Red Sea 2005

The holiday started for Ian & Fiona with a week at the Amaraya Club Hotel at Marsa Alam and this is where we all ended up for a very civilized last day and a half, after the week on the liveaboard MV Hurricane.
Having the pool much to themselves throughout the day and with a couple of shore dives and a trip into the desert on quads their stay there was all that it was meant to be, a nice relaxing week, before joining the rest of the group onboard. The only downside to this was, as they were transferred to the hotel, they met the group going onto the Hurricane for the week before, and joked about them looking after the boat for the next week, and not to scare off any decent animals they might encounter, so on the last day change over at the Amaraya the same group came up to them complaining about the boat being faulty, rough seas, grumpy crew and dive guides and not getting out to the sites they hoped, and that they were putting in a strong complaint about their trip.

So that left Ian & Fiona with a dilemma what do they say to the 14 excited holiday makers coming out the following day, discretion seemed to be the better idea, wait and see what happens.

They arrived at the Hurricane before the rest of the group to find a marine engineer busying himself on repairs and the crew preparing the boat for the next lot of eager divers, after bagging a room for themselves, they met Joe and Karin the dive guides had a chat for a while. The main briefing was going to be when the rest arrived but there was no talk about not getting to the sites on the itinerary so things were looking good.
A couple of hours later the others arrived,along with the other six who made up the complement of 22 onboard, they all stowed their gear, then met for drinks, and for the weeks briefing do's and do not's onboard and on dives, Joe & Karin and our third guide Khaled were, fair, firm and informative on what was expected from us, and this was to be the trend throughout all the dive briefs putting everybody at ease knowing that the crew was looking out for us and were there to help, and how they help, from putting our fins on and off, carry our gear, filling our bottles, supply us with hot drinks after dives, as well as keeping an immaculate ship and food that wouldn't be out of place in a top class restaurant, not to mention being exceptionally friendly as well.
All retired eventually, ready for the weeks diving.

The next day we awoke to the usual glorious Egyptian sun and more to the point a flat calm sea.
The Hurricane with excited divers onboard head off to the first dive of 19, the first being the usual orientation dive, for everybody to get their weight sorted and gear checked, this was done 1/2 an hour out from Marsa Alam harbour at Um El Rus, the vis wasn't the best but the sealife was great, with Lion Fish, Puffers, Moray Eels, Blue Spotted Rays along with all the other brightly coloured smaller fish and corals, but things were about to get much, much better.

Next dive site was to be Elphinston, this was not part of our itinerary which was to dive Deadalus Reef,
Rocky Island, St Johns and Zabagard, but this turned out to be a huge bonus, after shortly dropping
of the rhib on the north face, most of the divers were met by a whale shark cruising along feeding on
the plankton bloom, second dive and a whale shark!!!, it couldn't get better? oh yes it could. A third dive on Elphinston and for those few unfortunates a hunt for the well departed whale shark, not all was lost though, a good sized
Hammerhead Shark and White Tip Reef Sharks was seen as something of a consolation as well as a fantastic drift dive along the wall of the reef in 32 degrees of water temperature.

Over night we headed out to Deadalus Reef, at 7:30am we were dropping off the rhibs on the north face for the first of three dives here, strong currents pushed us round onto the west side from here we drifted round the shear wall, covered in beautiful soft corals and some spectacular gorgonian fan corals, again fantastic life around, Hammer Heads, Reef Tips and Thresher sharks seen. The third dive was further down the west side at a spot called anemone garden, this by itself was spicular with the anemones starting at around 6 metres dropping down to 30+ with hundreds of anemone fish of all different markings, further back towards the boat was a huge formation of mushroom coral.
In between dives some of the group went onto Deadalus and climbed the lighthouse, bought the T shirt to prove it, and drank tea with the staff who look after the lighthouse.

From here it was down to Rocky Island for more stunning walls, free swimming Moray Eels, Sharks and a myriad of other sealife, after the second dive here it was onto Zabagard Island,for a further two dives one being a night dive,the first dive was a pleasant change with a shallower sandy bottom, with swim through's dappled in sunbeams coming through the gaps in the coral and a very friendly sea turtle ambling along munching on coral and not seeming to mind the hoards of underwater 'paparazzi' snapping away at him / her.

The next six dives were spent at a group of reefs called St Johns, too many to mention but all fantastic, albeit more swim through's and caves or a wreck of a puffer covered in corals, huge shoals of Banner Fish and Fusilier Fish, but undoubtedly the best site and most memorable for most was Habili Ali, when we were joined by a Manta Ray, who stayed around for a good 20 minutes or so flying effortlessly around feeding on the plankton, accompanied by a few remoras, a magical moment.
That was the icing on the cake for the holiday.
The last two dives not to be left out were as every bit as good as the rest, with Bat Rays, Guitar Shark and Crocodile Fish seen, so ended the diving probably with mixed feelings, on one hand after all the amount of diving it was time to stop, but on the other hand, with all the dives being as good as they were, and being so well looked after over the week,not to mention the great company, it would have been easy to go back out and do it all again. (a huge thanks to Billy for organizing the trip)