Diving - The adventure continues!
2022 Diving - An unplanned bonus! Red Sea Liveaboard - December 2022
14th December
The pre-Breakfast dive today was on Shark and Yolanda Reefs; The famous toilet wreck site.
We dropped in over Yolanda and quickly reached the bathroom department.
Our guide, Osama, visits the bathroom department.
Little had changed, unsurprisingly, since my last visit.
I missed the crushed car this time, trying to get a photograph of something, but I'd seem it before.
We descended to c. 30M (some to more) and then headed along there for a while before ascending and looking at shallower (still c. 20M) stuff.
Parrot Fish
Bigeye Emperor on the wreck
Then we headed onto Shark reef which was really pretty, loads of pretty coral and an abundance of reef life; Morays, Wrasse of many types, Anenomae fish, etc.
Coral Wrasse
Colourful Emperor Angelfish
We could see bigger fish (A shoal of Barracuda or Jacks?) out in the blue at times.
We finally swam away from reef and safety stopped a little way out, amongst shoals of blue fish. A jellyfish was spotted below us here too.
The morning dive was to Ras Ghozlani.
I couldn't actually remember anything about this dive and actually forgot we'd done it, having to renumber all the dives in my log book!
Divers descend to the edge of the reef.
One Spot Snapper
Slingjaw Wrasse
Surgeon Fish
Moray Eel...
...which then went for a swim.
Parrot Fish
Parrot Fish
Julian passes a coral outcrop
Anenomae Fish, big and small
Anenomae Fish, big and small
Fish around a coral head
Coral Grouper
Andy kindly provided his log details as "Dive along a long reef wall with some pinnacles and gorgonians. Once in the shallow reef was very pretty, alive with fish and some very healthy coral. Lovely dive."
After that we headed up to the Straits of Tiran and dived on Laguna Reef, the closest to the island of Tiran.
We set out in the Zodiacs (ours was very smokey and we were all happy that we used them infrequently on the trip!) and dropped down to about 10-12M.
From there, we headed along the reef wall for a bit, descending to mid-20s Metres, then headed up to shallows.
Loads of colourful fish in the shallows.
Not identified this fish, but it was unusual enough for me to photograph.
Box Fish
Goatfish galore!
Pretty things!
Another very vibrant reef initially with lots of life, notably some very large black and white box fish.
Video footage from a reef dive.
We ended up returning to the boat and here (for the last 10 minutes or so) there was a sandy bottom with little coral or life, but generally it was a nice dive, much like others in the area.
We night dived on the same site.
Andy, Paul and I set out from the boat (bizarrely the guides never joined us on night dives, seemingly the time when someone was most likely to get lost!), following a line laid to reef.
A light was left on the line at the reef end to help us locate it.
We had been instructed to swimw anti-clockwise around reef, which we did for around 30 minutes.
It was mostly uneventful, until near the end we spotted a turtle resting on the reef.
The turtle we disturbed on our night dive.
It wasn't too impressed to be disturbed, though, and swam away quickly.
It had been fairly warm on the dive and my log book reports that we also spotted a fish asleep in a hole in the ground and a large sea Cucumber!
Not all night dives are exciting, but the Turtle was a nice moment.
15th December
We were back in familiar territority on the 15th and 16th.
We started with another dive at Jackson reef, but no-one minded.
Various bigger fish were spotted on this dive, with Jacks and Tuna hunting in the blue and a number of us spotted what we thought was Black Tip Shark on the bottom of the dropoff at c.50M.
Eagle Ray above us.
Lionfish were seen on most dives.
We also saw the Napoleon Wrasse we'd seen on our previous visit and an eagle ray near the surface, well above us.
We reached the western end of the southern side of the reef and encountered a quite strong current.
I was thinking I'd have to come up shortly afterwards as I fell well behind the group and had to swim quite hard to catch them up once out of the current, but it turned out everyone had struggled and used a lot of air, so I actually beat a number of the group on this dive!
Paul actually got swept around the western edge, but managed to make his way back to us.
Dawn hovers on the safety stop.
After breakfast, we moved onto Woodhouse Reef via the Zodiacs, but got the less smokey one this time!
After rolling in, we very quickly saw a turtle swimming along.
A turtle swims nonchantly by.
After a while we stopped at the head of the gorge on Woodhouse's southern edge, as we moved on a few of us spotted a White Tip Shark swim below us, no doubt as to whether it was a shark on this dive.
THE Shark!
Huge Napoleon Wrasse
Bird Wrasse
Lovely reef in the shallows.
Plenty of life around
Andy, Paul and Dawn explore the shallows on our safety stop.
Slingjaw Wrasse
The roughest seas we saw, from the Zodiacs
We carried on drifting with the gentle current, a marked difference to the challenge on the previous dive, although we were warned that there would be current on the Eastern edge of the reef and we should surface before reaching that point.
There was lots of reef life, and the topology was impressive, but after a while reef fish look very much like other reef fish and coral looks like the other coral you've seen, so I (and others) were getting a bit 'reefed out' by this point.
We did spot a large Napoleon Wrasse, though, so with the Turtle and Shark it was a good dive for spotting life and the reef looked good and full of life.
To be honest, I'd been a bit underwhelmed on our previous visit, but I did enjoy this dive, one of the best on reefs we'd done, I felt.
Lunch came and went and then we had another enjoyable dive on Jackson, diving the South side to the East.
More Reef diving video.
To be honest, by this point Reef dives were starting to feel like dive-repeat-repeat.
I don't remember anything particularly remarkable about this dive and I didn't take my camera as both batteries had expired
Andy and I did the night dive on Gordon reef. My memory tells me that Dawn and Julian skipped it as well as Paul as they were struck down with a bug.
I left both my computer and watch on the boat, so I had to rely on Andy to tell us when to surface, but it was a shallow (7.5M) and short (40 minute) dive, so no harm, no foul.
16th December
In a reversal of the usual practice, we dived the previous night dive location in daylight for the first time the next morning.
This was Gordon reef and I recorded it as 'a funny dive'.
It was very gloomy initially.
Our briefing had said we'd dive in and then turn left along drop off, but in fact we went right! Presumably the current was different to expectation.
Banner Fish shoal
After 20 minutes, I was feeling I was happy to abandon the dive and have another coffee (hot this time, they never turned the hot water urn on early enough!) and some breakfast.
Gorgonian.
Some people spotted an Eagle Ray pass by at c. 10M, but I never saw it.
Freckled Hawkfish in regular, resting on coral, pose
We turned around and ascended and then started to see more interesting coral formations.
I went off to photograph a lone Trevally and some of the coral and then came to the shallows, c 10M, close to boat with lots of interesting coral heads and loads of fish.
Blue Fin Trevally
Osama found us a Torpedo Ray (looks nothing like a Torpedo!) under the boat.
This odd thing is, apparently, a Torpedo Ray - Less like a Torpedo is hard to imagine!
Parrot Fish
There was loads of life here and with air to spare, Paul, Andy and I hung around here until we reached the 60 minute mark.
Butterfly fish shoal around the boat as we surfaced.
On balance it was an enjoyable dive, but made so by the last 20 minutes, offsetting a dreary first 40.
Maybe I just needed more pre-dive coffee!
After I'd had some and breakfast, we moved onto Thomas Reef, a new one for this trip.
It proved to be another dive where we went down to about 30M, looking out (in vain) into the Blue for something exciting.
Colourful Parrot Fish
Busy coral head in the shallows
Anenomae and associated fish.
After that, I was down to 100 bar and we swung back in ascend up to the wall.
It would have been better to spend all the time above 20m, but people are obsessed with trying to see something pelagic, which is pretty much a hopeless task in Sharm in December.
Maybe it sounds churlish, but I've pretty much had enough reefs by now, but our constant requests to dive the Million Hope wreck were countered by the argument that it would be too windy and that did seem a fair point on this final day.
After lunch, we dived a site called Ras Umm Sid.
We descended down until we reached the edge of a deep canyon, starting at around 35M and apparently reaching down to around 100M!
We spent a fair time at depth on this dive,then back up to the reef top where we spotted schooling Jacks out in the blue.
Andy, in a Santa hat we all wore for the dive!
Browsing Lionfish
On the safety stop, there were Barracudas surfing the reef edge above us.
There was loads of life, especially in the shallower water, but much like other reefs we did, we spent a disproportionate amount of time looking for pelagics (we never saw) at depth.
Andy, Vanda (his Hungarian friend) and I did the night dive.
None of the others in our party did this dive, deciding to start drying their kit out first, but having missed two dives on the Thistlegorm after cutting my hand I was keen to get dives in and I enjoyed the night dives.
The second Spanish Dancer of the trip.
Scribbled Filefish
We dived on the reef under the hotels here, spotting numerous interesting things, including another Spanish Dancer, a Porcupine fish, a Scribbled Filefish (I like these but didn't see many on this trip), a Lionfish and Andy managed to find an Octopus which we'd been told to watch out for.
The Octopus was rather shy - He's in the hole in the rock.
As we returned to the boat, there was a big shoal of fish around it again.
Huge shoal of tiny fish attracted to light under the boat.
It was an enjoyable dive to end the week on.
17th December
Going home days are always a bit of a drag from any holiday.
On a diving holiday, unless you rent kit there, you need to get everything dry before packing it away.
Luckily things dried surprisingly well in the shelter of the bay we'd moored in the previous day and continued to do so as we headed back to Sharm El Sheikh.
The 'Snefro Love' back in Sharm
By 11, we'd packed our dried kit away and were bussed down to the Old Market area.
Some of the other people had booked hotels for the day, so it ended up with Jo (one of the Bermudan divers) and the 5 of us wandering around.
The Mosque in Old Market
We sat and had a couple of beers and a chat for an hour or so in a bar and then went to a fake watch shop where some people did some shopping.
Then we found another bar/restaurant and had lunch and then did some more shopping.
Andy and I had been keen to try and find a book we'd seen on the boat, but which was very expensive online and he found the last one in a dive shop!
Local transport.
I bought the 'professional' version, which was similar, but in a different format and intended for dive guides. Either way, they were a lot cheaper than the online prices!
Eventually, we climbed into a couple of taxis and made our way back to Marina, collected our gear, said our farewells and were bussed to the airport.
We checked in our luggage without problems, but I had my hand luggage checked 4 times within the airport, which I can't pretend didn't get tiresome - I appreciate they take security seriously, but after the second check I can't see anyway that you could have bought anything else in!
While we were away, Britain basked in a cold spell and flights to Bristol and Manchester were cancelled, but luckily our Gatwick flight got away OK and we got back to the UK on schedule.
Paul dropped me off, but after dropping Andy as well he unfortunately had an accident and badly damaged his car - A sour note to end his holiday.
Generally, it had been a good trip. The injury to my hand was unfortunate, but thankfully (mainly to the Turkish doctor) didn't impact the holiday too much and has healed almost completely by mid-January.
The team (less me, of course)
That said, while I enjoyed the diving (all 27 dives), if I went to Egypt again in the next few years, I would try and find an itenary that featured more wrecks and less reefs.
Still, it had been a lovely way to round off my diving and 2023 in general.
