[Scubee]

I hadn’t got much time to get used to the idea of going on the liveaboard – I only booked it in mid January. The opportunity arose, and I grabbed it with both hands.

I was really pleased it was a BA flight. I hate the thinning out of kit, then realising that the choice you made wasn’t the right one. If it was kit, possibly useful, I took it. Even my Greenforce went in, just in case I had a brainstorm and decided to do a night dive. Getting there wasn’t all plain sailing though. I pride myself in never being late but on the one day I had to be up early, I overslept. I don’t know if I slept through the alarm or it didn’t go off. After the week I’d, either was possible. I was woken at 5am by my lift wondering where I was. Anyway, we made it to Gatwick only 20 minutes later than planned, and still had time for breakfast and shopping before boarding.

Finally arriving at Sharm, we all located luggage and trooped to the bus which took us to the boat. Whirlwind is a lovely boat. She is big, spacious and sparklingly clean – very obviously a fairly new boat. We were doing the wrecks and Reefs itinerary, but we knew that there had been one or two problems with the army, and the weather.. ho hum – we will dive what we can dive.

The first dive the next morning was at Stingray Station a simple 10-15m check dive and we were accompanied by a huge napoleon wrasse. Apparently a regular visitor there. It was a lovely dive. However, the crossing down to Abu Nuhas later on was anything but lovely. The wind was up, and so were several breakfasts. A couple of hours after arriving, nearly everyone was recovered enough to dive. We should have been doing the Carnatic – and I was looking forward to it. However, the surf was up that side of the reef, so our two wreck dives were replaced by two reef dives. The reef is probably the most boring one we dived all week. Not surprisingly, I couldn’t muster the energy to do a night dive, so at Beer O’Clock, I had one.

The wind dropped a lot overnight, and we managed to get in on the Giannis D for the pre breakfast dive. The current was ripping stern to bow which gave safety stops an interesting flagpole effect. After breakfast, we went a little way off to Siyul Reef. It was absolutely cracking. About 10 minutes after I got back on the boat (last again!) we headed off to the Barge. It is in fairly shallow water (about 15m) and well encrusted with corals. Its inhabitants include the biggest, ugliest Moray I have ever seen, as well as stone fish, lion fish, crocodile fish. I really enjoyed the afternoon dive, and as we were told it was a cracking night dive, I decided to forego beer until later. The barge at night is lovely. However, by the time we got in, so had the divers on two other boats – Typhoon (who followed us around nearly all week) and Greenforce. This made it a really busy dive, so I gave up after 25 minutes but I had seen a load of interesting things, including an unidentified eel. Typhoon left early the next morning, which meant that we had the Ullysses to ourselves. The nudibranchs on the wreck were rather lovely – it was a bit unfortunate that I had chosen to take the WA lens instead of the macro. The reef the ship is wrecked on is absolutely pristine. I didn’t want to come up again!

Round the corner, and the subject of the next dive lies the Kingston. It was pretty cool. Sadly, a Napoleon Wrasse was tucked into it looking decidedly poorly. However, it was covered in beuatiful corals which provided plenty of food for all the surgeon fish there.

We then had the opportunity to do 3 dives on the Thistlegorm. Afternoon, night and early morning. The only other time I have dived it was in 2002, and I was surprised at how much it seems to have deteriorated. Still – it was a pretty good couple of dives and the new mooring system didn’t prove to be too much of a problem.

We went from the Thistlegorm to Small Crack where, after a visit by a couple of dolphins we dropped in on a huge feathertail ray snuggled into the sand. Another pristine reef and we worked our way back to the boat in time for lunch.

The afternoon dive was the Dunraven. Which was when my BCD decided that, at 6 years old, it had had enough of use and abuse and refused to hold any air that went in through the pneumatic system. Kit maintenance coming up I think. The Dunraven is an awesome wreck. I declined the option to go in, preferring to explore the outside, and found nudibranchs and other little stuff. Trying to explain Black Coral to my buddy was an interesting experience!

We went then to Shark and Yolande. My buddy doing the typical hovering over one of the toilets! Jackfish Alley was allegedly a good dive. However, I got left behind, not only by Whirlwind divers, but also Typhoon who jumped in shortly after we did. I got a bit lonely with only Typhoon’s rebreathers and twinset divers for company, so for once, I was first back on the boat. My buddy was reminded how distinctive force fins are underwater, and it is difficult to mistake me for someone else!

The final two days diving was in Ras Mohammed. We did Laguna Wall, Jackson, and finally, Gordon. Talk about save the best till last. All three of those dives were awesome. I really didn’t want to leave Gordon, managed a 64 minute dive before I felt guilty about exceeding the one hour limit.

We returned to Sharm, got the bus (eventually) to the hotel, spent the evening falling asleep in the Camel Bar, and spent Saturday by the pool and discovering that the hotel had free wireless internet so managed to catch up with one or two things.

Whirlwind is a great boat. The trip was lovely, and the guides we had (Skez and Katie) were excellent. The saftey on the boat was the best I had ever seen. Many boats talk about check in and check out the water, but this is the first tiem there has been appropriate control over it. Not only by the Skez and Katie, but also the crew - We were told there were 3 ways they checked we were all back, but they forgot to include the fact that the crew also counted out the correct number of post dive refreshments! The food was plentiful and high quality. I even ate the fish because it looked so good. I can thoroughly recommend getting on this boat if you can, and hope that when you do, you have Skez & Katie looking after you.

I will post up some pics when I have thinned them out a bit – I took about a zillion.



Post Script........

The only revolting thing about the whole week was that two people on the boat had brought marmite (I have no idea why they would bother... i didn't feel the need to take peanut butter!). In an effort to be open minded, when I was offered toast and marmite I thought I would just confirm my dislike for it… well, I get cross when my son says he doesn’t like something without trying it, and it had been many years since the stuff passed my lips. It will be many years before it passes my lips again.