Sudan on Royal Emperor - long report!

[TVR]

The short trip report:

 Journey quite easy as long as you just laugh rather than getting wound up
 Royal Emperor is comfortable and all you need from a liveaboard
 Diving is very good – just like Egypt but more fish life, better coral and no other boats
 Don’t believe the hype – there are not sharks, mantas, turtles, etc on every dive
 Is it worth an extra £500 over a deep south liveaboard? Probably not in my opinion, but I am glad I went.

OK, if you are still interested, the long detailed report follows:

Friday 20 October: got back from a family holiday in Sharm the previous night. Very quick change of suitcase, some fresh clothes and double check of dive kit, then off to Heathrow for Egypt Air flight to Cairo. Bump into James Curtis-Smith, the dive guide on Royal Emperor who was returning after the Dive Show, in the check-in queue. Flight to Cairo comfortable, then transfer onto the Meridien Pyramids hotel.

Sat 21 October: trip to pyramids in the morning, then early afternoon transfer to Cairo airport for flight to Port Sudan. Delayed for 90 minutes, but then away we go. Aircraft not the newest, meal not the most appetising, but we get to Port Sudan unscathed. At this point, you need to take a deep breath and not get stressed. The baggage reclaim is like a scrum, then you have to queue to have your bag searched to make sure you are not bringing in anything like alcohol. Everything involves a lot of barging, pushing, shouting and frayed nerves, so it is easier to just laugh at it all. Took about 2.5 hours from landing to getting out of the airport. Then transfer to the Royal Emperor, arriving around 2am. Only 9 of us on the boat, so all bar 2 get a cabin to themselves.

Sun 22 October: up for breakfast then a check dive. Viz not great – probably 10-15m. Then a couple of dives around Shaab Suedi (afternoon and night dive). First impressions are that the coral is in good condition, the fish life is essentially the same as in Egypt but there is a lot more of it, viz is not brilliant, but water is damn warm – 31C.

Mon 23 October: first dive at 7am, then 2 further dives and a night dive. This was to be the standard for the rest of the week. Blue Belt wreck and then onto Qita el Banna, Merlo and then Shaab Shambaya for the night dive. The diving was very nice, as the previous day. The sites looked absolutely perfect as soon as you hit the water – but the question on everyone’s lips was “where are the sharks?”. It was at this point that we realised that the Sudanese Red Sea does not actually teem with sharks – yes, they are there, but you are not going to see them every dive. James explained that Feb/March/April are best for sharks as the water is much cooler (5mm full suit type temperatures) – the travel operator claims of sharks, mantas, turtles etc as being normal sights on Sudanese dives are somewhat exaggerated! However, the diving was still impressive.

Tues 24 October: Angarosh, Abington and Gota Shambaya for night dive. Very impressive reefs, but again, no sharks. Oh well…..time to just enjoy the coral and fish life that was there, rather than being disappointed about what was not there. There were barracuda, jacks and snapper in their hundreds, plus most other reef fish you would care to mention. Night dive was interesting – the water was absolutely crawling with sea lice and the small reef fish were going nuts feeding on them in the light of the torches. Highlight of the day though was not even a dive – we went to the reef at Mesharifa to snorkel with the resident manta rays. There were plenty of them, close enough to brush against you as they passed. Fantastic for those of us with cameras.

Wed 25 October: Shaab Ruumi south plateau (2 dives) then Cousteau’s Precontinent II for afternoon and night dive. Shaab Ruumi was awesome – and at last the grey reef sharks appeared. There was everything here – coral was fantastic, reef sharks that stayed around, huge napoleon wrasse, bumphead parrot fish, barracuda, jacks and the list goes on. The two dives on the south plateau were real highlights. The Precontinent II dives were enjoyable due to the history, but there isn’t really much to see. The reef is nice and allowed a relaxing driaft along at around 10-15 metres. I didn’t bother with the night dive as it was on the same site – also, had been averaging around 70 mins each dive, so was knackered by this point.

Thurs 26 October: early morning dive at Shaab Ruumi south plateau (grey reefs again!), then onto Sanganeb. Should have been 2 dives at Sanganeb but the weather had other ideas. Sudan does get rain, as we found out! The storm blew up in an incredibly short time, and the thunder and lightning appeared along with lashing rain and very strong winds. The roof canopy over the sundeck was ripped to shreds in no time, anything not tied down was blown all over the place and the sundeck was very quickly under a layer of water. Fortunately, ewverything was over within an hour or so, but we were behind schedule so it would be 3 dives today rather than four. Night dive was on the Aurora – an old schooner that had not paid its harbour dues and been scuttled just outside Port Sudan.

Fri 27 October: three dives on the Umbria today. 155m long, 18m wide, Italian supply ship, scuttled by its captain in June 1940 to avoid capture by the British just as Italy entered WWII. There are 2 big advantages to this wreck – firstly, there is no bomb damage so it is completely intact, and it lies in 30m at its deepest point but breaks the surface at its shallowest, so very long dives are possible without incurring deco penalties. The wreck is fantastic – forget the Thistlegorm, it does not even come close. I initially thought that 3 dives on the same wreck would probably be enough – but I could happily have done double that. All the holds are easily accessed and the cargo remains largely in place – primarily detonators, bombs, bottles of wine and a couple of cars. The wreck is also covered in hard and soft coral and lots of fish life. These were three fantastic dives to finish off the week.

The last night involved a few beers on board whilst moored up in Port Sudan harbour. We then left the boat at 1:30 on Sat afternoon for our 5pm flight back to Cairo. The flight actually left early so we got to Cairo 45 mins ahead of schedule – and it was very easy with minimal queuing or hassle. Overnight in Cairo, then mid morning flight back to Heathrow. To be honest, the travel to and from Sudan was pretty easy. And looking at the distances involved in doing one of the trips sailing down from Egypt to Sudan, I would still do it this way rather than by boat – however, if Sudan Airways has a bad day, maybe I would change my opinion!

In summary, I thoroughly enjoyed the trip. The diving was very good, it was much easier than I thought it would be (no currents, only a couple of dives deeper than 30m, only went into deco a couple of times), the Royal Emperor is a comfortable boat and the dive guide is excellent. Also, we had 4 days where we were the only boat in sight and had the dive sites all to ourselves. Dives were all long – minimum was 50 minutes, maximum was 80 minutes. I dived air all week, just making sure I spent a good 15 or 20 minutes at less than 10m at the end of each dive. There is no chamber in Sudan, so not a place that you want to get bent.

However, I have arrived home feeling slightly disappointed. The diving was not really that much better than is readily available in Egypt, yet it costs 50% more than a week on a southern Red Sea liveaboard. Maybe at a different time of year, there would have been more pelagic sightings and more of the “wow” factor. It was nice to be the only boat at most of the dive sites, and the coral and fish life was better than in Egypt – but I can’t help thinking that Sudan maybe a little bit too hyped up. If you go, you’ll have a great time, but if you have dived the Egyptian Red Sea several times and go to Sudan expecting to be blown away, then I think you’ll be disappointed – it is good, but not so much better than Egypt that you would really notice a massive difference. I guess if I hadn’t gone, I would be wondering if I had missed out, so I am glad I went, but I don’t think I’ll bother again.

[uwila]

Sounds like you had a great time. Any chance of a link to any piccys?

Thanks for a good report.

[TVR]

I haven't downloaded any pics yet, but will deal with this tonight I expect. I'll pop up a link once done.

[Tazzie]

Sounds good despite the lack of sharks etc on every dive! I'm off on her on the 15th November, Deep south rather than Sudan but I can't wait!! Many thanks for the report, it's getting me more and more in the holiday mood!

[Red Sea Shadow]

Thanks for the report.

I believe the best time to experience sharks in Sudan is between mid March and mid May. For mantas, it's November.

I'd like to add that Sudan is done out of Port Ghaleb in Egypt now.

[alexmaclennan]

Thanks for taking the time to write up. We're going to the south Red Sea next Sept on the Tranquillity/Serenity.

alex

[Ding Dang Doo]

Nice report...

sorry it wasn't 'better' than expected...

look forward to the pix.

Pete

[arfy]

I was on the Royal Emperor in March this year - we had sharks at quite a lot of the sites, although unquestionably the best place for these were Sha'ab Rumi and Sanganeb. Sha'ab Rumi south especially is fantastic, tonnes of action going on.

The Umbria is an absolute belter of a wreck dive - given the scarcity of divers it definitely matches, and perhaps even beats, the Thistlegorm.

The main difference for me re the sharks is that in Sudan they definitely come closer, whereas my experience in Egypt is that they tend to keep their distance a little. We saw quite a few greys, a few hammerheads and white-tips (not oceanics, sadly !).

Overall I thought that the diving was pretty impressive. Certainly many of the sites compare with the likes of the best diving in Egypt (Bothers, Elphinstone etc). The coral was probably in better condition overall.

One thing not to miss out on is a trip into Port Sudan. We went in twice, once in the evening, at which we inadvertently got involved in a tribal ceremony and were made 'special guests', and once in the day - the markets are interesting (if you go you'll see what i mean) and the locals friendly.

All in all a worthwhile trip, and I would definitely go back. However, Egypt offers better value overall.

[TVR]

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[TVR]

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