Southern Red Sea live-aboard suggestions

Thinking about the Red Sea next July. Thinking more about the Southern region, would love to see Oceanic White Tips. Prefer Aggressor or Peter Hughes quality or nicer, but budget is an issue. Of course must be good with photogs. In perfect world 16 divers or less. Any and all suggestions to destination and carriers welcome.

Thinking about the Red Sea next July. Thinking more about the Southern region, would love to see Oceanic White Tips. Prefer Aggressor or Peter Hughes quality or nicer, but budget is an issue. Of course must be good with photogs. In perfect world 16 divers or less. Any and all suggestions to destination and carriers welcome.

The Daedalus-Rocky-Zabargad itinerary is excellent for Hammerheads and Oceanic Whitetips, however July isn't the best time for sharks as they seem to prefer a little cooler water temps. I was there in May which was fantastic. Especially Daedalus where we saw Hammerheads on the majority of the dives and Oceanics were circleling the boat al the time we were there. Rocky was suprisingly good as we saw a school of big hunting tunas (hunting fusiliers) and the ocasional Whittip reef and Gray reef sharks. Zabargad has some of the most beautuful soft and hard coral reefs in the Red Sea, with lots of small caverns and caves, not to mention turtles as well. Highly recomended! We were aboard the Blue Pearl which is a great boat, and of corse Pia the austrian guide is really doing a graet job on that boat.

The Blue Pearl and Pia have been my boat and guide of choice for many years. I agree that July is not the best time to see Longimanus in the Red Sea though August last year was good at Elphinestone.

Thanks for the input what sets this boat apart from the rest???

Thanks for the input what sets this boat apart from the rest???

Pia. The best guide in the Red Sea...

Check out Oonas Divers ( http://www.oonasdivers.com/ ) and contact Lydia Lodge ( skype: lydia-oonasdivers ) for details and bookings.

Tim is correct Pia is the best in the red sea.

She is also a top class photographer herself and is very sympathetic to our needs.

You can't go wrong if Pia is on the boat.

Paul C

Thinking about the Red Sea next July. Thinking more about the Southern region, would love to see Oceanic White Tips. Prefer Aggressor or Peter Hughes quality or nicer, but budget is an issue. Of course must be good with photogs. In perfect world 16 divers or less. Any and all suggestions to destination and carriers welcome.

July is a bit early for oceanics, but this year they were plenty in summer months as well. On contrary to what other posts say – summertime is hammertime in Egypt, especially Deadalus north is good. Not huge schools like in Sudan in spring, but normally small groups of sharks.

The days with 16 or less divers on a nice, steel hulled boat are over. Nowadays all boats take 18-20 divers or more. So takin' that into account, I personally prefer the Royal Evolution which is a super comfortabel dive platform (Peter Hughes afiliated). Not cheap, but Red Sea liveaboards are very reasonable compared to the Carribean ditos. Royal Evolution has some of the best staff in the Red Sea onboard – from the captain all the way down to chefs, boat drivers and deck hands. Normally they do 14-day trips from the south of Egypt down to central Red Sea destinations in Sudanese waters. But in summer time they usually do three or four trips in Egyptian waters only. They're alone (I think) to cover Brothers-Deadalus-Rocky Island-Zabargad in a 7-day itinerary.

www.royalevolution.com

good luck

Thanks for the help. Seems Pia and the Blue Pearl are not available during our window of travel so still looking. Really we hate to go all that way and not max our chances to see the Oceanics. Will keep looking but if the timing is not right we may just have to suffer through Komodo or Sipidan, lol.