We left from Bristol Airport early afternoon and arrived at Sharm-el-Sheikh in the early evening with no logistical problems, we managed to get seats all together on the plane and got there early enough to get the limited availability extra luggage allowance (WHY do golfers and skiers get the extra automatically but divers have it on first come first served?).
After being taken to our boat (The MV Orchid, run by “Flowers of Sinai”) we were given our brief of boat rules and said goodbye to our shoes for 6 days. Nitrox (for the suitably qualified) and 15 litre tanks were available for an extra charge. We all chose our cabins, dumped what gear we needed on board inside and had the rest stored out of our way elsewhere. After dinner and a beer session, we went to bed. Throughout the week, we were served excellent meals by a single cook; who turned out masterpieces in a galley about the size of two of the changing cubicles at Howells School pool (any non members reading this will just have to join our club to find out what I mean!)
Our plan was to do a before breakfast, mid morning and afternoon dive, with three extra night dives during the week – except for the last day when we would have to stop diving at lunchtime to go back to shore. A total of 20 dives possible during the week – although getting up early enough to dive at 7am was too much for one person. Throughout the week, we saw so many creatures that it would not be feasible to mention them all, only one or two are mentioned for each dive.
Most people dived in 5mm wetsuits, but one chose a 1mm lycra. Our first dive was at Ras Katy, a site close to shore, often used as a night dive site. It is a good check dive area, but still full of life nonetheless, there was a huge moray eel there for starters. The lycra diver took only the one dive to decide on adding his 3mm canoeing suit alternative on top on the lycra.
Further out we visited Shark and Yolanda reefs – famous for a ship that sank with a load of toilets on board. I had dived that site before and remembered the warning given at that time (don’t try sitting on them because some have morays inside and their eyesight isn’t good enough to tell the difference between a diver’s bum and food!). There was a bit of current so the drill was “in and straight down, don’t spend time on the surface”. There are often barracuda at this pair of reefs but we didn’t see any this time.
Dive 3 – Seven Reefs where we saw our first Titan trigger fish. These can be territorial so do not approach if they appear to be in their “lair”. If you do want to approach titans, the best thing to do is make sure that you can swim faster than your buddy!
That night we heard about the bombings in Dahab – miles away from our boat’s home port and we were at sea anyway. We were unaffected but knew people at home would be concerned and we had no way to let them know we were OK.
Dive 4. Breakfast dive on the wreck of the Dunraven, which sank on its way to Bombay in 1876. Upside-down but still an easy wreck to penetrate.
Dives 5 and 6 were both at Small Crack, but in different directions as the current changed over lunch; then dive 7 was a night dive in the lagoon at the end of small crack. Here we saw some red lobsters and an octopus
Dive 8 was on the wreck of the Kingston, aka Sarah H (nicknamed after a dive guide). This is an upright ship, reasonably intact but with the masts broken off and to one side.
Dive 9 Later a drift dive at Shabna- lots of small fish and the coral was in perfect condition.
Dive 10 & 11 was on the Thistlegorm a WWII victim- arguably the best and certainly the most popular wreck in the Red Sea. A torch is needed to penetrate the holds (not for navigation but to see what would otherwise be missed). You can see motor bikes, jeeps, trucks, Lee-Enfield rifles and Wellington boots! There is a theory as to why wellies were needed in the desert but it is just speculation and I won’t repeat it here. There are also two railway freight cars off to the side. The Thistlegorm went to its anchorage in the Red Sea a day early and was the victim of a German aborted bombing raid whose commander decided they might as well jettison their bombs on an enemy ship rather than in the sea. A strong current on this one so we decided to have our 4th dive of the day (also planned for the Thistlegorm) during the day and not at night as originally planned.
Dive 12. Next day, our breakfast dive was on the wreck of the Carnetic. This is so covered in coral that it is better to call it a “wreck shaped reef”. One of the things we say here was a cleaner wrasse in operation. These fish set up cleaning stations and eat parasites off other fish- completely immune to the creatures who under other conditions might consider them lunch but instead queue up to be cleaned!
Dive 13, the wreck of the Marcus, aka Chrisola K, and another good penetration wreck.
Our afternoon dive was at Stingray Station, not named after the inhabitants. On this dive we were troubled by a rather aggressive Napoleon Wrasse (the largest of the parrot fish family).
Divers used to feed these creatures hard-boiled eggs. This is bad practice not only because continually feeding fish causes them to lose the ability to find their own food but also because Napoleons cannot digest eggs and just get clogged up. On this dive we found another reason not to – this wrasse just kept making attacks on us expecting to be fed – in fact it kept trying to eat the (egg-shaped) toggle on end of Chris’ BCD dump! I was all right; I just kept shoving my (large) camera housing in its face every time it came at me with its mouth open.
Breakfast dive, and dive 15 saw us back at Shark-Yolanda, and this time the barracuda were in evidence. Just past the toilets, we spent some time studying a hawksbill turtle.
Dive 16 saw us at Ras Za’ater where there was a rare red anemone and another turtle – this time a loggerhead – that swam with us for a while.
Dive 17 at Ras Ghozlani saw many smaller fish and a red-toothed trigger.
Dive 18 was a night dive that I didn’t do, so nothing to say.
Dive 19 was unusual and one that the company claims is unique to them. After the 7-day war with Israel, the Egyptian army through the Israeli tanks over the cliff and FoS claim to be the only dive company that knows where. Certainly, in the number of times I have visited Sharm, this is the first time I have heard of this site. We also saw a sleeping octopus and a Moray with a fishhook in its mouth- despite our concern for the environment no one attempted to remove it! Before surfacing we played a couple of games under water – take off your fins and do an underwater running race, and a pile-on-sausage (one diver lies on the sea bed, another lies on him/her and so on so there is a stack of divers lying on top of each other).
Our last dive was at the Temple, another gentle dive used for night dives and checkouts.
Back at shore, we went to a Moroccan restaurant and had a meal (in which someone was challenged to eat two chilli peppers that most people declared inedible) and then went to a divers’ pub. The flag that had been presented on the last club trip there was still on the wall so we climbed up and added a fresh set of autographs. We had seen so many wrecks in the Red Sea we decided to join them by getting wrecked ourselves before getting a taxi to the hotel.
After a last morning relaxing, we caught our plane home to land at Bristol at 1am in 5°C rainy weather!
Written by Steve Lander