Sharm El Sheikh 24/06 - 1/07

[kuki9591]

Just returned from a fantastic week in Sharm, great weather, great diving, great people, great everything.

Day 1

Checked in at the Ocean College dive centre and met up with the dive guide Marc, he told the group that we would spend the first two days diving local. This did not go down too well with the group, many requested a transfer, several of us made it clear that if we dived two days local we would purchase zero extras for the entire week, we were promptly told we would only do one day local diving.

Dive 1 – Ras Katy

Uninspiring dive, very little life, group were returned to the vicinity of the boat within 20 minutes to drop off the air monsters then the guide returned to the boat and left us to our own devices, after 30 minutes dive time I signalled my dive buddy to join another buddy pair and I surfaced, no point staying down to stare at sand and rocks.

Dive 2 - Temple

Much like the first dive, but that’s local diving for you.

Day 2

Dive 1 - Jackson Reef

A personal favourite of mine, upon jumping into the water, the reef was full of life, fish everywhere, big fish everywhere, turtles close by, big schools of fish, I did not want the dive to end, others in the group saw hammerheads, but not me sadly.

Dive 2 - Woodhouse Reef

Like Jackson, a very vibrant reef full of life, did not see anything large, not even a moray, the dive was full of colour from both fish and coral. A great feature of diving Tiran today was the lack of other dive boats, at most I counted eight. I have never seen Tiran so empty.

Day 3 – Dunraven day

Dive 1 - Shark and Yolanda

Within seconds of jumping in, I knew this was going to be an exciting dive, big schools of snappers, potato cod and unicorn fish, there must have been thousands and thousands of fish in these schools. Looking out into the blue, I could see something reflecting light, the guide then started fining in that direction, as we got closer, we could see it was a large school of barracudas, a gap started to appear than a 2.5 metre Oceanic Black Tip shark came through, sadly it had not feasted whilst we were there, but it was a terrific sight all the same, the guide followed the shark taking us out in the blue even further, after guzzling lots of air following the shark, the guide returned us to the reef just by the wreck of toilets, those of us with air left continued the dive around the tower, but nothing there could compare.

Dive 2 - Dunraven

Having done this twice before, was not really excited, but we were the first dive boat on site, but second in the water. It had been a couple of years since I last dived this wreck and this was my first time with a camera. We penetrated the wreck next to the prop and followed the body of the wreck, there was bunch of Italian divers blocking the exit points, but a few clunks of noise by the guide got their attention and they moved. When we got out, we pulled into the reef and followed it round, the guide told us to continue the dive on the reef and surface when done.

Day 4

Dive 1 - Jackfish Alley

Jackfish Alley, enough said!!


Dive 2 – Shark and Yolanda

Pretty much the same as the dive yesterday, sadly no sharks, but a great dive all round

Day 5

Dive 1 - SS Thistlegorm

I’m not a morning person, but even I can get up at 4:15 for this dive, from the distance I could see a boat that was moored up, I knew that was the site of the Thistlegorm, I was somewhat surprised that a flotilla of liveaboards had not beaten us to the wreck. As we entered the water, the group from the other boat were coming out, we had the entire wreck to ourselves for the majority of the dive, we did the usual first dive tour around the outside, the prop looked more impressive than ever before, the anti air guns looked bigger than before, I was like a little child with my camera, taking pictures everywhere. Upon surfacing, about 10 other boats had moored up, still a low number.

Dive 2 – SS Thislegorm

Penetrating the wreck this time, we entered via the empty hold, and then continued into the hold with all the interesting bits, I felt excited to be staring at the motorcycles, truck, rifles and other cargo, it’s a great privilege to dive the Thistlegorm. The site was a bit more congested that the first dive, but still quieter than previous visits to the site.

I have had a fantastic weeks diving, have been very fortunate to be on the boat Seagull which had plenty of space and approx 16 divers on board. The guides we more relaxed than previous trips, allowing us to leave the group and explore the sites by ourselves. None of the sites were congested like previous visits. I would give this trip the 5 star rating. My forth trip to sharm and I would be confident to call it my best trip to sharm.

Mike

[B]

great trip report... sounds like a fabulous trip....

[Red Sea Shadow]

Glad that you had fun here. Thanks for the report.