Taba Heights , March 2011

Frog Fish (aren't they hard to photo!)

What with a few tourists being nibbled by an Oceanic White-Tip shark a few weeks ago and political unrest in major cities like Cairo & Luxor , it might not be surprising to learn that the occupancy rate for hotels in Taba Heights was lower than normal.  Of course, no marine life incidents have been reported recently and it was quiet and very peaceful  during my visit.

My visit was a 'Holiday with Diving' status trip , as opposed to a diving holiday! I went with an ol'buddy who I taught to dive some years ago, his son and our better halves!  The airline's as SUCH a pain these days, for the first time I decided to hire a wet suit rather than take my own (and carry the weight!).

We had planned to do only four dives , but my plans were reduced by 50% when on the second day, it transpired the wet suit on board was (despite assurances from Waterworld to the contrary) was used by another diver ... well he got to it first and there were no other hire suits on board!  So the second day was a 'lovely' boat ride along the coast of Taba Heights. Waterworld did (thankfully) refund the whole day.

So my TWO dives were :-

a). Mugabila , 47mins at max depth of 21.3m , and

b). Jack's Tables, 46mins at max depth of 18.6m

The better dive was the second dive at Jack's Tables, as the names suggests plenty of big table corals. Highlights on that dive were sightings of an octopus, a big green and red frog fish, stone fish and a devil scorpion fish.

The water temperature was 21/22 degrees C and the air temperature varied from 26 to 34 degrees, it was quite breezy on occasions , but that is not unusual in that part of the Sinai.

A very pleasant and relaxed trip ... oh, if any finds a fuji underwater camera (no , not mine) , my buddy managed to part company with his on a second Jack's Table dive!

Clown Fish (You always have to photo one!)

Red Sea Shark Attacks

You will probably have not failed to notice the recent reports from the Red Sea of shark attacks . Whatever is happening does seem leave an impression we are not familiar with. Stories below:-

Sharks attack Four Divers

German Tourist Killed by Shark in Sharm

Sussex Witness Account

Oceanic Whitetip Shark considers human swimmers as potential food source!

MDMA ~ Diving in Ecstasy

Turtle returning to the Sea Grass with Remoras

The MD Team are just back from diving in Marsa Alam. A quick few lines and some photos to set the 'dive report' ball rolling!  Phil, Heidi, Ross, Angela, Simon, Linda , Sue & I got back late last night after a week in Marsa Alam diving (again) with Emperor Divers based in the Marina Lodge Hotel. Most had booked the five day diving package of two boat dives for four days and two shore dives. A lovely warm contrast to home with air temperatures around 33 Deg C and water at around 27 Deg C.

The Dives sites were:-

1.  Marsa Morena (North Reef) : 58 mins at Max 23.8m

2.  Marsa Mornea (South Reef) : 61 mins at Max 17.1 m

3.  Marsa Shoni Kebir (North Reef) : 48mins at Max 26.5m

4.  Marsa Shoni Kebir (South Reef) : 48mins at Max 23.5m

5.  Marsa Shoni Soraya (North Reef) : 60mins at Max 21.0m

6.  Marsa Shoni Soraya (South Reef)  : 51mins at Max 21.0m

7.  Abu Dubab : 71mins at Max 15.6m

8.  Abu Dubab : 70 mins at Max 16.2m

9.  Torfet Ali (North Reef)  : 62mins at Max 25.3m

10. Torfet Ali (South Reef) : 70mins at Max 19.8m

Well Camouflaged Flat Fish (with Sea Grass-like eyes)

Giving an average dive time of just about an hour which seemed quite respectable. Underwater highlights of the trip (for me) were surface sightings of the Dugong, and some quality time with the Hawksbill Turtles at Abu Dubab, a reasonably shallow and now only a shore dive to help protect the marine life.

About time for a breath!

Above water, the Port Ghalib area continues to develop and the MD group made excursions to the more built-up North side of the Marina to extend our range of refreshment opportunities !
A Lebanese restaurant had lovely outdoor seating along side a water feature and TGI Friday's (well we enjoy local culture!) met our more Western needs!

Life is all Ups & Downs!

There were plenty of opportunities to debrief the dives over a Sakara in the evenings and to compare notes on the belly dancers moves!  Sadly (or may be not!) for the ladies , the Whirling Dervish dancer remained fully clothed , well give or take a whirling skirt or two , for the duration.

The Paparazzi and others hangers-on are such a drag!

The Emperor Team were excellent and our principle guide MSDT Hannah "Montana" knew the sites well gave detailed briefings and added  fun & smiles. She and colleague Chris presented a very professional but natural image .

Keeping a Low Profile

Thanks to all the MD buddies for making the visit so enjoyable , it was so good I nearly found myself staying another night ....but that's another story!

Hannah "Montana"

Red Sea Liveaboard ~ September 2011 tbc

Sheila is planning a Red Sea Liveaboard , Northern Itinerary (Wrecks & Reefs) , dates and details to be confirmed in the order of £1100. Interested? Aiming to select a date in September 2011

Red Sea Dive Trip ~ November 2010 (Date TBC)

As promised , I am researching some options:-

Option 1a. Marina Lodge, Marsa Alam
Some of us have used this Hotel a few times, it has a built-in dive centre and dive boats (day diving) moor right alongside the hotel grounds. I'm not impressed with the immediate cost estimate from Scuba Travel (I think there will be MUCH better deals) .... "As a Rough estimation you would be looking to pay around £975 per person with the group discount of 10 % this price would include Gatwick flights transfers and 7 nights Half Board basis with a 5 day diving package (boat dives )".
UPDATE: Scuba Travel have come back with revised figures:-
Rates both from the Marina lodge and from the Airlines if you were to depart on the 10/11/10 the times would be as follows ~

LGW SSH
09:20 16:55

SSH LGW
17:55 21:55

All of the prices would be based on 2 sharing on a half board basis for the divers the cost would be £775 and for the non-divers the cost would be £615 ( both of these prices are subject to availability).

Option 1b. Marina Lodge, Marsa Alam
Same as Option 1a above but with Longwood Holidays. It seems their prices are £1270 FOR TWO, but excluding diving. 10 boat dives with Emperor are £205 (good price). This equates to £840 per diver and £635 for a non-diver (subject to any hidden charges I haven't yet found!)

Option 2. (Concept Only!) St Johns, Liveaboard.
London Scuba are promoting a Southern Red Sea Trip in September (wrong months - hence concept only! £1095 per person on Sea Serpent. Not everyone is a liveaboard lover (many are!) . For more info CLICK HERE. It's an option to see if they will run this trip in November.

Update 22nd May:

All plans on hold , not sure on who's 'in' and who's not!

Taba ~ Frog Fish Fables

All-white Frog Fish

Just back from another jaunt over to the Red Sea at Taba. Taba is situated right on the Egyptian / Israeli border . The marine border is marked in a low key way by having two Egyptian Police Officers sitting in a small dinghy , probably the worst posting there is!

Moray Eel

It was a bit of a lazy holiday in diving terms, with just five dives (2x shore dives, 3x boat dives), my diving buds were Paul and Andy. I have trained them both in the past and previously signed-off Paul's MSD and some specialties for Andy, so it was nice just to do some relaxing dives.

Traditional 'turning-left' signal!

We dived with Aqua Sport who have dive centres at the adjacent Hilton & Movenpick Hotels, both right on the waters edge. We saw frog fish on every dive , several frog fish on some dives. I learnt that photographing them was easy as they just sit still for you ....but that it's not easy to get a good photo of fish that are so highly camouflaged that they are hard to see in the view finder and the final shot! The solution is to find the plain coloured ones which curiously seemed harder to find (or they were just less in number!).

No dive complete without a clown fish pic!

The dive time limit at Aqua Sport is 45 minutes , although with such personal service my average dive time over the five was 48 minutes. Most of the staff we met and dived with were Egyptian , although Karina , a German Instructor led the boat dives.

Say "Arrrrh" for the camera!

The coral was not the best I have seen in the Red Sea but it encouraged a close look to find interesting marine life and in that regard there was plenty to see.

Soft Coral Snacker!

Hurghada Dive Sites

Red Sea Dive Sites Index

Just for ease of reference I thought it might be useful to add some dive site maps to the blog. Rather than put them all on one post I'll add them to past (and future) posts and jut use this post as a sort of index page ! To locate the others either use the links below or or use the 'Label' :-

Red Sea Dive Sites.

Marsa Alam Dive Sites Click HERE

El Gouna Dive Sites Click HERE

Taba Dive Sites Click HERE

Dahab Dive Sites Click HERE

Hurghada Dive Sites Click HERE

MD back from The Red Sea!

This is a 'quickie' post as we only got back to the UK late last night but as the week was extraordinarily successful it derserved a few immediate words.

The Tornado Fleet "M.Y. Whirlwind" provided us with an excellent platform , with the largest cabins (with separate 'en-suite' showers), the best and most varied food and most spacious dive deck I have experienced in my Red Sea liveaboard travels. With Nitrox 'on-tap' and sufficient spare & large (15L) cylinders to meet every need, a Course Director (Thomas) and another instructor (Susie) as 'resident' tour guides and a caring crew we were almost guaranteed the wonderful time that we had.

Special thanks to Shiela for doing all the organising. Organising dive trips is often , if not always, a lot of work , trying to accommodate everyones personal preferences and can sometimes be a very thankless task. So well done Shiela for seing it through and bringing it off so well. We had a truly harmonious trip and really enjoyed the company of five divers who we had not before (Justin, Chris, Alan , Mick & John) . Everyone got on superbly well. The week was something of a record-breaker for those of us who have been on a number of previous liveaboards in the Red Sea, twenty-two dives were offered and many of us (the newly formed "22 Club") did them all! Twenty-two dives in a week can be quite tiring especially with the morning briefings at 6.30am! So it was even more credit to those on board who had constant smiles on their faces. We all made some new friends this week.

All the usual wreck suspects were on the intinerary, the Carnatic, the Gubal Island Barge, the Dunraven, the Kingston (aka Sarah H) , the Ulysees, the Ghiannis D , the Chrisoula K, the Thilstlegorm and the Rosalie Moller. We also dived many reefs and on all the Tiran Island Reefs (Thomas, Gordon, Woodhouse & Jackson).

Literally thousands of photographs were taken and no doubt a few will be posted on this blog (lets' not forget the 2009 MD photo competition) as soon as we can all check them through and add posts & comments. There will be a Red Sea Trip Debrief at which there will be a 'photo-share' and , hopefully, a showing of the 'official' trip video!

Please post, add photos & comment at will! There is so much more to say & show! And, to our new dive buddies, check the blogs header (top of screen) to see how the comment process works!

For now, thank you to all who came for making it such a special week.

Small Summary of Own Dives:~

22 Dives Completed on Trip (of which 12 were Wreck Dives)

1082 minutes (18hrs & 2 mins) underwater

Average Dive Time 49 minutes (Max allowed time: 45mins for night dives, 60mins for others)

Photos from the Red Sea (Dahab)

I would like to take this opportunity to show off some of the photos i took last week whilst on holiday in Dahab. It was a great week of sun and sea.

I only did two dives which were the The Bells/Blue hole and The Canyon. The Canyon is a split in the sea bed which goes from about 18m down to 50m. We entered through a large hole at about 25m and dived down to about 30m before ascending through the canyon passed the hole which we entered through and up through an enclosed section to a smaller opening at about 18m. Fun dive and plenty to see.

The Bells/Blue Hole was the second dive and gets its name from the sound of divers' cylinders banging on the walls as they descend a semi-closed chimney straight down to 27/28m (the entry point for this dive) before popping out onto a wall that continues straight down to the deep dark depths. The dive then continues along the wall ascending slowly in stages, until at 7m we swam over the reef and into the Blue Hole and across the bottomless abyss (a 56m hole in the reef) to the shallow reef on the other side where we exited. Another very nice dive and for the first section, myself and my buddy were escorted by a friendly Cornet fish which must have been over a metre long. Apparently it was using our bubbles to hide from its prey along the wall.

So on with the pics, anyhow...

Once A Diver Always A Diver ~ Taba Egypt

Once a Diver , always a Diver, at least I think that was what my instructor said! And as Leopards don't change their spots I thought I'd give it another go!

Just back from a week at Taba, Egypt. Taba is in the Gulf of Aqaba, Red Sea, near the border with Israel. From Taba you can easily see Israel, Jordan and Saudi Arabia. I managed to tuck-in six dives with a Dive Centre that serves the area "Red Sea Waterworld" . It was hardly their peak seaon which meant they took out a full sized day boat with only three divers on board! Despite so few day boat divers they were happy to take the boat up the coast to Fara'un Island , a small fortfied island with some nice dives off it's shores. The watchers became the watched as a submarine like glass-bottomed boated glided above us..

The dive guides were able to give a more personal service than may have been the case in busier times of year and I averaged 52mins per dive, with max depths ranging from 18m to 29m.

Very nice casual break with some good diving but with sites not as spectacular as those seen in Marsa Alam .