Hurricane - deep south red sea wreck trip

[simon moore]

Hi all,

Just got back last Friday from this, so I thought I'd outline my views while still fresh.

First, the bad points:

1. I was told by Tony Backhurst the boat would be leaving from Hurghada. it wasn't. So that was a three hour trip to Marsa Alam.

2. Arrived at after midnight on top of a two hour flight delay from Gatwick - "we can't " said the check in staff for Excel (can you believe this ?) "find the dinners. "

3. When we got to hurghada, we were told by the TB rep to wait while another boat was dealt with. So we waited, and waited, and...
After the entire airport was empty and even the baggage boys had left us alone, I managed to find the rep's mobile number. "Oh" he said " I wondered where you were".

4. Peter Collings was the tour guide. I'd never heard of him. It turns out he's about as knowledgable as you can get on the topic of Red Sea wrecks. Quite why Tony Backhurst didn't use that as adding value on advertising/booking escapes me.

5. Difficult journey back - one big plane out, not big enough going back. Around 20 were foced to return to Manchester. "Dont' worry" (said the cheerful Hurgahda check in staff) "there might be a bus to take you from Manchester at midnight to Gatwick, arriving around 06.00 Saturday morning." Yeah, right.

6. And when we finally got to Gatwick, we had some luggage from another flight, and they had some of ours.
So much for anti terrorism measures.


Ok, that's off my chest. now the good bits:

1. Some unbelievable diving. Highlight for me was the Russian "spy" ship. Intact and upright at around 20 mtrs. Like a rat up a drainpipe as we zipped through the corridors/down into the engine room/along the companionways etc.

2. Some stunning reef diving - Elphinstone and Daedalus. Oceanics and threshers (the rebreather boys alleged hammerheads at 70m ( and confirmed the Elphinstoine "sarcophagus" is nothing of the sort)) plus all the usual smaller suspects.

3. One quite staggering coral garden at a place called, appropriately, "Heaven". We floated around for an hour or so over the most beautiful hard coral formations I am ever likely to see.

4. The food on the boat was first class. And I'm fussy. Breakfast, lunch and dinner of a consistent quality. Curry, roast beef, roast leg of lamb ( although it looked a bit large to be a lamb leg...) and top quality fish in the evenings.

5. The crew could have been better. We got dropped at the wrong site twice and floated around a bit before calling the dives. And they weren't as keen as they might have been helping us de kit/kit up/sometimes too keen. I guess the right balance comes with experience.

6. Peter Collings made the trip. Knowledgeable, enthusiastic, humourous and helpful. Booked up for months in advance I'm told, and I can understand why.

7. And "hello" to the Skegness sub aqua bunch, who helped to make it so enjoyable. I still don't understand what's wrong with going to 50m on a single 12 !

Was it worth £1K ? I guess the answer to that is, if I had the time, would I be back on the plane tomorrow? The answer is "yes". I fact, I've already provisionally booked a week in November next year doing the "mid" Red Sea wrecks.

And my thanks also to Fiona B for her pre departure guidance on this, my first liveabord trip. As advised, I took loads of chocolate for Sonia, only to find she was on holiday that week. So I had to eat it all myself. Belgian truffles on the top deck at night under the milky way was, I am ashamed to say, an added bonus.

Atb

[DanE]

I did this trip back in October and thought it was top notch We didn't get the travel problems that you did, though. Our club are regulars with Peter, although this was my first trip with him (and my first live-aboard)

Did you dive the SS Turbo? That was my favourite.

dan

[Ant P]

Originally Posted by simon moore

6. Peter Collings made the trip. Knowledgeable, enthusiastic, humourous and helpful. Booked up for months in advance I'm told, and I can understand why.

That is excellent news. I am booked on his Northern Red Sea Wrecks trip on Excel at the beginning of January

You're right that Tony Backhurst don't seem advertise heavily that he is on the trip. I only put two and two together when I was on his site www.deeplens.com to try and get hold of his book and saw that he was escorting trips. And then when I looked back on the TB site I saw the link for the Peter Collings escorted trips. I guess they just sell themselves.

Roll on January.

Cheers, Ant

[Fiona]

Hi Simon

I am sorry you had such a bad time with transport I haven't come across these problems before. With regards to the flights there are no winter flights to Marsa, I think I mentioned in one of my PM that the boats are berthed in Marsa when you said the flight was to Hurgarhda.

I am also surprised that you haven't spotted Peter Collings name on the TB website, he has produced a couple of books on Redsea Wrecks, he sent me one a few years ago when we were looking at going on one of the trips.

Just looked at the site, for some reason the information about Peter which was previously on the old site isn't there now.

However I can please it hasn't put you off going again as yet I haven't decided on my trip for next year.

[Darren27]

I was on Hurricane the week before you.


The boat never managed to get all the cylinders filled in time, often the group would be entering the water staggered, pairs jumping in as their cylinders were ready. We were only managing to get 3 dives a day. 1st around 7 am last around 7 pm. Could not have done any more even if we wanted too.

Peter Collings, very knoweledgable about the wrecks and reefs, Pants as a dive guide. When my wife asked him why our cylinders were not ready after a three hour surface interval, he replied, "what do you want me to do go down stairs and blow in the compressor?", when she replied that that wasnt a very good answer he simply said "fill out a complaint form if you like", we did, it was very long! He spent the whole week mouthing off about club members he didnt like. He would insist on playing his choice of music and when asked for something different or to turn it down would get very annoyed, in one case he called a club member "a stroppy cow" before storming out of the saloon.

No hot water for the whole week, boat crew would only put one rib in the water, even when all 22 divers were diving. Were totally incapabale of mixing nitrox. Never maganged a fill within 1% of the requested value (always 32%). Asked for air for a deep dive and got 34%, asked for a pony of 32 and got air. Hurrican is meant to be a technical facility, very scary!

Boat itself is very nice, cabins big and food good. If Grant and Sonia were on board then things may well have been different.

[Fiona]

Darren

Sounds like you didn't have a very good time, I hope you have spoken to TB about this. If you haven't I would suggest you do. Some years ago I went on a cheaper end liveaboard for NewYear and we had some problems and he gave us a discount on a futrue trip.

[Mr T.]

Hmmm,

I'm sensing divergent views and experiences here....

Two important aspects missing from all the above retellings: the words 'Maldives' and 'Scheduled Flights'

LOL Simon: ironic, given the nature of your job, that the delivery style of the 'cases for and against' - the prosecution and defence, so to speak - was conducted with all characteristic brevity of a judge addressing a jury

[Scubanut]

I was informed during the Diveshow that people have had to travel or wait for another flight owing to Excel dropping a clanger. Seems to happen to often for my liking though.
Shame about the Hurricane though, I would defo speak to TB though. If you don't then they won't be able to rectify the problem, which also means that it could get worse!!!!

Hope SWMBO doesn't read this, she is going to speak to TB about a trip next Sept for us!!!!!!!

Gary
aka Scubanut

[SCUBA Chick]

Originally Posted by Scubanut

Hope SWMBO doesn't read this, she is going to speak to TB about a trip next Sept for us!!!!!!!

Too late

Scubachick

[DanE]

Quite shocking to hear these experiences - so different to the trip I took. The staff on the boat were very attentive and we had no problems with cylinders being ready for dives.

I would agree with the Nitrox mixing though, although it usually wasn't far out from 31-33%.

How have things have gone downhill so rapidly?
dan