Brother Islands on MY Hurricane

[John Gulliver]

Five friends and I came home last Friday morning after a wonderful trip on MY Hurricane to Elphinstone Reef, Brother Islands and Daedalus Reef. This was my fourth attempt to get to the Brother Islands over a period of 10-12 years, so it was not before time. The boat, which was voted liveaboard of the year 2004 by Diver's readers, lacks nothing as regards comfort, the food, the crew, the diveguides (the almost legendary Sonia Gögl and Grant Searancke, whom some of us met when they worked on the Excel during out "Deep South" trip in June 2003) or the organisation of the diving. We did 18 excellent dives during the trip and saw lots of sharks (whitetip, grey reef and hammerhead), including schools of 4-5 hammerheads, among other things. The visibility was very good everywhere, at times at least 50 metres. For me personally, the highlights were the close contact with the hammerheads at the northern tip of Little Brother and the north side of Daedalus, but the dives on the Aida wreck on the northwest side of Big Brother and at the anemone garden at Daedalus are not far behind, not to mention close contact with a turtle in the seagrass ar Marsa Shoura. I can strongly recommend this itinerary, which is marketed under the fitting name "Simply the best" by Tony Backhurst. You can see some of my photos from the trip here: http://johngulliver.smugmug.com/gallery/558057

[Mark Chase]

Hi John How you doing M8,

Great picks thanks for that. T'is indeed a great trip out the the Brothers, I am glad you made it this time. Next time I go I am hoping I can get some He to allow me a look at the deep bits on the Namibia.

ATB

Mark Chase

[SCUBA Chick]

Excellent John! We are also hoping to get out to the brothers sometime soon. You couldn't have picked a better boat to do it on

Off to have a look at your pics now.

Scubachick

[onthetrain]

Gr8 pics john, thanks for sharing

[Jim Shaw]

Nice piccys John,

I did the brothers last August, and can't wait to do it again in 10 weeks time

[Noel Johnson]

John, Nice report I'm glad you finally made it. We went 2 years ago (Just after one of your "It didn't happen so we went somewhere else" trip reports if I remember correctly) and they were everything I had hoped for.

Glad you enjoyed it finally.

Noel

[Roobydoo]

Hi John


Great photos!! We are off on "Simply The Best" at the end of July... Can't wait after your taster......

Steve

[JAG]

Nice pics shipmate.

Need to think of an angle to present this trip to the missus. Could you let us know what kind of depths were involved please?

All the best,

Ian

[John Gulliver]

Originally Posted by JAG

Nice pics shipmate.

Need to think of an angle to present this trip to the missus. Could you let us know what kind of depths were involved please?

All the best,

Ian

The shark dives involved hanging in the blue at 25-30 m until they appeared, which usualy didn't take many minutes. My deepest dive was to 51 m on the Aida wreck at Big Brother. I just did a quick descent to 51 m, took a couple of photos and then ascended to about 30 m for a few minutes and then spent the rest of the dive on the wall at 10-15 m. All the wall and reef dives were mainly spent at 10-15 m, 'cos that's where all the best stuff is. I also spent two dives (2 hours) at 3-10 m in the seagrass at Marsa Shoura looking for the dugong. I didn't find it but I did see, and photograph, a big turtle. By the way, it's not unusual to see sharks, even hammerheads, at 5-10 m, although all our sightings were at around 30 m.

[Tim Ingmire]

Hi John,

some very nice pictures there. Given your previous experiences I was almost expecting to see that you'd been diverted to other sites again. How many people were on the dive boat? It seems to me that boats like Excel and Hurrican have too many divers on board which means a lot of em in the water. How did you find it?