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Awesome boat, dolphins, turtles and a giant blue humphead parrot fish... MY Emperor Infinity, Northern Red Sea Safari Easter 2006
20 went north from Hurghada on a, not so standard, tour of the Northern wrecks and Reefs of the Red Sea. So before the days and dives blur into a big blue mass of lovely memories I though I better pen them down... sorry this will be a bit long...
Good Friday (14th April 2006):
Check in at Gatwick was a breeze for a change. Regal Diving used the charter company Astraeus for this trip and Astraeus had offered us additional luggage allowance of 10kg for £20 and /or 25kg for £50 return. All the rebreather divers and photo/video buffs had taken advantage of this offer.
A huge luggage mountain of AP and gear gulper boxes, tubs of sofnolime as well as various other suitcases and divebags rolled towards the check in staff in the Gatwick North at 07:30. We split into several queues as the sofnolime owners had a bit of explaining to do, flashed our prepaid excess luggage receipts at the nice lady behind the desk, deposited our bags on the conveyor belt (would she buck at the extra 5 kg or so my bags were over... no she didn't! - pfeeeeww) got emergency exit seats (leg room, yessss!) and went for breakfast. As easy as that. Fantastic!
Plane was 3 hours late to take off from Gatwick due to a fault with the emergency lighting, but in the end we got to Hurghada for 19:30. Nice big bus waiting to collect us, so no humping of boxes onto minibus roofs. Just stuff them in the luggage compartment and take a seat. Ace. Usual drop of other passengers at other hotels than on to the Hilton Resort.
Hurghada
I had arranged to purchase my sodalime locally, so stayed on the bus to head into Hurghada. Access to the Marlin Inn was unfortunately now blocked for road traffic as a new pedestrian area had been created outside recently and some sort of outdoor concert was going on. Got dropped as close to the hotel as possible, collected my lime which kindly came accompanied by 'trolley and boy' to take me to the 'bus stop' for the local minibus (Many Thanks to Ahmed for the great customer service). Boy told driver where to drop me and deposited me in bus. So far so good. One other passagner present. Once this passenger had got off driver wanted to turn into a taxi.. and would not be persuaded otherwise, so I got off in the middle of town [grrr] lugging my 18kg tub of lime .
Got onto next bus. Stated destination, negotiated price.. no, I am not paying 10 euros, nor 10 Egyptian pounds.. oh, ok then 5 E pounds... off we go.... why is the sea on the right hand side? We are heading to the wrong Hilton on the other side of town.. that's why... oh goodie.. driver doesn't know one Hilton from the other (and there are three)... after third lap around Hurghada town centre we pass back by the Marlin Inn... the driver is jokingly referring to my safari of Hurghada, but I am slowly suffering from humour loss... I'm hungry and need a drink! Another passenger kindly explained to the driver where I was heading... another round of price negotiations - this is Egypt after all - and finally we are on the right road. Text messages flying between mobiles to check I'm still alive (yes) and ETA (no idea) as the boat is not at the jetty but on a mooring and they need to sent a Rib to collect me... around 21:15 I get to the Hilton Resort. Ten minutes later I had lugged my tub to the jetty and could see the Rib approaching (me and my plans...) oh well, at least they had kept me some dinner. Nice welcome on the boat as some of the crew knew me from my last two excursions to Hurghada (is that good, or bad, I wonder, if people remember me.... in this case it is good .)
MY Emperor Infinity
The boat is FABULOUS! It's not moored at the jetty as it is tooo big. More like a floating hotel than a dive boat. With dive deck & platform at the stern. Separate lounge with ample seating, TV and Hifi etc, followed by dining room on the main level midships. Kitchen and double cabins forwards of the dining room.
Twin cabins & master double cabin below decks - all on-suite. Separate saloon on the second level aft of bridge. Large shaded rear sun deck and 'frying pan' on top level and in front of the bridge. Even with 20 divers on board and a large number of staff you could loose people on this boat.
The Tour
Dive guides Gary and Carol had also brought their inspirations along for the ride and where keen to give us a great week. Decided to head against the flow of the other boats and do the Thistlegorm first as the weather seem to be favourable.
Check out dive at Umm Gamar... jumped in and was wayyy too heavy. Dumped weight belt and handed it back onto deck... better. Those 7 L steels seem to weight a ton! Down shot... got to 5m to see my middle display filling with water - up the shot I shoot and out. Bye, buddy!
Whilst the others are on their dive I fettle... disconnect flooded displays, dig out old kidney and fit to unit. Retest everything.. all well now. Drain display and pack into plastic bag for attention when back at home.. hohum.. Ready for the next dive... wind picking up.
Rough crossing to the Thistlegorm, but this boat is really quite stable and so the crossing is not too uncomfortable. Though the jaccussi started expelling its water contents, spraying half the sun lounges and then progressed to sliding across the deck.
Thistlegorm
Only boat on site of Thistlegorm, so moor up and do a night dive there and stay on-site overnight. Very pleasant dive through the holds. Taking a fair bit of video, but am breathing like a train and am feeling uncomfortable.. seem to be breathing water spray.. not nice, especially as no bubbles are to be seen... so where does it come from? Complete dive and survey unit. Can't find any leaks. Am too heavy too.
Check out DSV after dinner. No fault. Oh well. Remove 2kg head weight. Am now 'weightless ' - now there is a first. Off to bed. Rough night on site. Wake up as engines start up and we head off somewhere. Close portholes to see big white horses going past. Guess the weather is not so nice any longer...
Apparently two of our three mooring ropes broke overnight and we went to moor up in the shelter of Shab Ali reef for the rest of the night. Wake up at 0630 to find we are back on site. Better get ready to dive again... drink coffee (thanks Mike!).. roll out of bed.. grunt 'Morning' on dive deck.. put on suit and unit.. jump in.. WAKE UP! brrr.. 'tis cold in a 3mm wet suit... Another tour of the holds. Vis dark, but nice and clear. Lots of fish at bow. Nice. Still breathing wet.. must work out what it wrong.. too much like hard work this. Especially as current had picked up again. Notice small slow bubble creeping past my face on ascent... hmmm... Back onto boat, breakfast, then more fettling. grease all hose o-rings and connections.
Vacated site early afternoon as winds still high and head back to Shab Ali. Next dive: finally a dry breathe. Much better.
Quite a decent night dive there with large red nudibranch posing as bits of carpets (not Spanish dancer, have a checkerboard texture with pinkish lines around squares of darker red - no idea what they are called). Early night. Boat leaving site at 0530 to head across to the Rosalie Moeller.
Rosalie Moeller
Another rough crossing, but at least in glorious sunshine. Arrive on site late morning to find one other boat present. Get ready for another dive. Lovely wreck, though not as much fish about as last year. Straight into the engine room. Next level down is dark and confined, but houses the engine telegraph and other interesting items, so well worth a look. Take more video then back out and along deck for a leisurely stroll back to the shot. Sitting out stops at the mast watching the fish. Lovely. Out after 70 minutes and ready for lunch. Another dive early evening then left site to moor around the corner from Bluff point.
Gary offered a rib ride to the island for a wander about, so a few of us went along and watched a yellow sunset from the beach, before returning to the boat. Saw a bird of prey with what looked like a borken wing on the beach in the shelter of a small cliff, and a nest with an egg in it and two distraught parent birds circling overhead on the other side of the little island.
Decide not to do night dive on barge. Too many other boats present.
Left site early to dive the Ulysses on the north of Little Gobal Island.
Ulysses
Dive on wreck of the Ulysses - very similar to Carnatic. Explored wreck, then headed along reef. Saw a turtle near end of dive in the shallows and spent some time videoing it.. had immense buoyancy problems, but put it down to being in shallow water.. was odd though that my Over pressure valve kept blowing off all the time.. though I never tweaked why...
Went for a snorkel after lunch just as a pod of dolphins passed the boat. Were offered a Rib ride to catch up with them and three of us took up the chase. Unfortunately another rib full to the tubes with Italian divers where also pursuing the pod and a yacht also later joined in, so we gave up in the end. Did manage to get a few minutes of playing with the dolphins and video them - made my trip that.
Sat out second dive on Ulysses and opted for a spot of sunbathing instead.
Leave site early morning again to head to Abu Nuhas..
Ghianis D
Sat out early dive on Carnatic as ADV kept freeflowing during pre-dive checks.. now I know why my buoyancy was all over the place yesterday!
Took ADV to bits, cleaned it as much as possible and greased everything. Seemed to cure the problem. Unit finally in fully working order. Must be ready for the season ahead now...
Great dive on the Ghianis D. Again explored the engine room, then headed to the stern where we saw a large Napoleon wrasse and a few batfish being cleaned. Back to the bridge for a nose about inside when a large group of day boat divers descended on us. Last ones from our group up the shot and back to base.
It would have been a pleasant afternoon on deck if it hadn't been for the overloud music blearing from our lovely British neighbours on the MY Cyclone. Some people just have no manners. Pity.
Giftun Island
Skipper decided that we needed to head back towards Hurghada, so we left Abu Nuhas and moored in the lee of Giftun Island.
Was dithering a bit as to whether to bother with a night dive or not, but decided to go in the end. What a great dive that turned out to be. Spent some time following a huge moray that was free swimming. Also saw a small cuttlefish and a couple of squid. Another smaller moray also passed us on the way out. Very pleasant. Meet a couple of the MY Cyclone divers, but luckily they had moored further away around the corner this time.
Early morning dive was on a newly sunk wreck a short rib ride away, which I gave a miss in favour of a bit of a lay in... I'm on my holidays after all!
Final dive was a drift dive along Giftun Island wall. The early part is not much to shout home about, but the corner is simply spectacular with huge fan corals, several morays, lots of shoals of goat fish and banner fish. To top it all we saw a huge Napoleon wrasse in partnership with a giant blue humphead parrot fish - not normally seen this far north, according to our guide. Had a great dive following and watching the two as they munched their way along the reef and managed to get back to the boat after 90 minutes in time for lunch.
Final leg back into Hurghada was spent breaking down kit and washing everything to then hang up to dry. This week has passed incredibly quickly and although I spent more time fettling and did less dives than usually on these tours I had a great time and enjoyed myself.
All luggage made it back on to the plane home and we left Hurghada only an hour or so late.
The boat crew and guides very simply fab.
Many Thanks to Emperor Divers and the MY Infinity staff for making this a really great trip and providing all the rebreather tanks.
PS Water temp was between 21 and 24 degrees mainly depending on depth. Got a bit cold on the longer dives in my 3mm wet suit with 2 layers of diveskins underneath, but usually only got really cold once on deck as the dive deck is undercover in the shade. Typical, that we had so much wind the first year I left the drysuit at home...
Air temp was hot (36 degrees in sheltered sun) with a cold breeze during the day, and cold (15 degrees ish) with a cold wind in the evenings and at night.
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