Red Sea Liveaboard blog
Dolphinhouse
20th October 2023
I drove up the A1 to Newcastle airport on the Friday morning during Storm Babet, which made life interesting, for a TUI flight to Hurghada. Flights were expensive because unfortunately I booked during half-term for schools. The departure was delayed by about one and a half hours as the incoming flight was late, plus there was a length wait for two missing passengers before we could depart. Finally getting to the boat (Blue O Two M/Y Blue Adventurer) that night in the early hours of Saturday meant a very short sleep before getting up to start diving that same day.
Blue Adventurer is one of the older boats in Blue O Two's fleet and it came to light later that it had engine problems with one of its engines out of commission. This in turn meant that the itinerary for the week was curtailed and changed from what was expected. It also became obvious, from the billowing black smoke that trailed us as we sailed, that the other engine was also not in the best of condition. The itinerary change was a disappointment because I was looking forward to diving the Thistlegorm again, but we never got there.
All of the crew were really good and couldn't do enough for us, the cabins were regularly attended and cleaned, the food was also very good and wholesome. Having said that I did come down on the Sunday with a D&V bug which persisted until I left the boat to return home and I do know that others also had tummy bugs at this time. This did take some of the shine off my trip but it didn't stop me diving. All in all I did 18 dives of the possible 19.
Salem Express
White Tip
White Tip
Scorpion Fish
21st - 24th October 2023
Started the weeks diving with a weight check and equipment shake down dive (#1) at Ras Disha. A pleasant easy dive with a couple of Blue Spotted Rays for company. My dive buddy for the week was a guy called Ernesto who was from Equador - great guy but suffering a bit from jet lag for the first few days.
The next dive (#2) was Safaga - Hyndman Reef and the Salem Express which was a car ferry and passenger ship, laying on its side around 25m. Quite a lovely dive, not least because I love wreck diving. My next dive (#3) at Big Brother was a bit of a disaster, my BCD decided to start inflating itself without any intervention from me, which was disconcerting, to say the least. It has happened before with this BCD and I thought I'd had it fixed. Anyway, for safety I aborted that dive, put up an SMB and my dive buddy and I returned to the boat. I did manage to see a White Tip shark on that dive though.
Fiddled around with the BCD inflator hose back on the boat and it started to behave itself so good to go for the next dive (#4) again at Big Brother, notable for me only by the strength of the currents which gave me a good workout.
On we went to Little Brother for the next dive (#5) which we approached in the Zodiac and with a negative bouyancy entry, straight down to 30m. Lots of Barracuda as we did a slow climb along a wall. At around 15m, Abdu, the dive guide, turned around and looked at me, then made the signal for a shark. Why's he looking straight at me, I thought, unless .... Yep, sure enough, when I turned around a large White Tip was heading straight at me, around 20m away and at exactly the same depth. I thought I was about to become shark food but determined that I was going to get a picture of the culprit anyway. To my relief, at the last minute it swerved and went past and on its way, but a heart pounding moment, I can tell you.
The next days 1st dive (#6) was a pinnacle dive at Safaga - Tobia Soraya, a nice chill dive of 8 pinnacles and lots of life to be seen, including Moray, Puffer, Devil Fish and Blue Spotted Rays. This was followed by a dive (#7) at Ras Abu Soma which was a drift along a wall with much the same wildlife as the previous dive.This was followed by a dive (#8) at Safaga - Panorama, which again had pretty much the same wildlife as the previous two. The last dive (#9) that day was a pleasant but uneventful night dive. We were followed by Lionfish who used the light from out torches to hunt for prey, quite fascinating watching them hover above and the pounce on small fish and invertebrates, and of course, the ever present Blue Spotted Rays were out in force hunting too.
Now Tuesday, mid-way through the week, the next dive (#10) was at Small Grifton. A relaxing drift dive but nothing spectacular. Second dive (#11) that day was the El Miniya wreck, a Russian built Soviet era T-43 class minesweeper which lies on its side at 19m at the top, 26m at the bow and 32m at the stern. Well colonised by many species of fish, there is something to see wherever you look. Unfortunately when I'm diving a wreck I only have eyes for metal. Next to it there is also a fishing trawler on the sea bed, which we had a look at.
Our third dive of the day (#12) was at Fanous East, a pleasant shallow dive. In the distance we saw a Guitar Shark but the photo I got was not very clear. My buddy spotted a well camouflaged Scorpion Fish on a ledge in a coral pillar which I would have swum straight past, I'm terrible at spotting such things. The final dive (#13) at Umm Gamar, a night dive, was very interesting. We found huge bait balls of tiny fish, moving in unison in a roughly circular, flowing mass that you could actually hear. I guess it was the scales rubbing together of so many fish moving close to each other. Tuna were herding them and kept diving through the mass to take individuals to eat. It was mesmerising, so much so that I forgot to take any pictures or video!
25th - 27th October 2023
Early morning dive (#14) on Wednesday was the SS Cartanic wreck. This is the second time I've dived it, last time being back in 2011, but it still retains its fascination for me. A British steamship which ran aground on a coral reef (Abu Nuhas) and broke apart the following morning with the loss of 31 lives in 1869.
We were delivered to the wreck site by zodiac, with the occasional glimpse of Dolphins as we went. The wreck is well colonised with coral and fish, making for a lovely dive.
The 2nd dive (#15) that day was to the Chrisoula K (a.k.a. MV Marcus) and again, it is the second time I've dived it, having also visited it in 2011. It was a Greek freighter and is known as the Tile Wreck due to the cargo of over 3000 tonnes of Italian floor tiles. It sank in 1981 after crashing into the same reef as the Cartanic.
Another zodiac trip, accompanied by Dolphins, delivered us to the dive site where we dropped to 22m to the wreck. There were plenty of places to penetrate, and swim through in the holds containing the tiles.
Third dive (#16) of the day and the third wreck dive was again at Abu Nuhas and this time the Giannis D which we reached by zodiac with Dolphin escort. I've never dived this wreck before so I was quite excited to do it. When it was built in Japan in 1969 it was called the Shoyo Maru. It was sold to a Greek shipping company in 1980 who renamed it Giannis D. In 1983 it left port in Yugoslavia with a cargo of timber bound for Jeddah via the Suez Canal. It hit the reef going at full speed. All of the crew were airlifted to safety and it remained on the reef for several weeks until a storm caused it to break in half and sink.
We penetrated to wreck through the bridge at the stern and went down to the engine room where all of the machinery, pipes and instruments are visible as if ready to go. From the engine room we eventually found the way up through the large open salon and then out. Unfortunately I had taken quite a lot of photographs that day and by the time we penetrated this wreck my battery had gone, so sadly no pictures inside.
The night dive (#17) that day was 'Dolphinhouse' at Shaab el Erg reef. Again, the Lionfish took advantage of the pools of light created by our torches to hunt for prey, but other than that it was pretty uneventful.
We remained at 'Dolphinhouse' for what would be my last dive (#18) of the holiday (I didn't do the last one), but it turned out to be a pretty good dive. Just one word - DOLPHINS! Some adult, some young, they swam through us, around us, below us and stayed around for at least 5 minutes, letting us get lots of video footage. Absolutely awesome!
The video on the right shows what I mean. It is also responsible for delaying the publication of my blog because I messed around with it for a long time thinking it was a faulty video, but it turns out it was the Firefox browser I was using.
When you click play the sound starts immediately but the video doesn't until about 10 seconds in. As the clip is only 17 seconds that rather spoils it. However, it plays perfectly in MS Edge so if you have the same problem in Firefox then use MS Edge instead to see it all. P.S. If anyone knows of a fix for this in Firefox please let me know.
SS Cartanic
Chrisoula K
