First trip to Red Sea.

My partner and myself are traveling to the UK from Australia for a family gathering and then planning on going on to the Red Sea for our first diving holiday abroad. We are both current instructors with well over 3000+ dives between us. We have been on small liveboards but never done resort diving. We are also avid underwater photographers with a point and shoot set up and a D-SLR set up which we intend to bring with us.

I would love sugestions on both liveboard and resort diving. It will be our first overseas dive trip.

We are planning on being there from mid July 2011. Its a way off yet but will help me get through all the suggestions.

Your time and suggestions will be most welcome.

thanxs

Chris

Thanxs so far for all the info below. Adam, your trip sounds great but a year early. Would be interested if your planning one for 2011.

No question go livaboard, the shore diving can be patchy at best.

If you can get on it get on the Blue Pearl with Pia as the guide, an avid photographer herself and the best guide that I have met in the Red Sea.

Here.

Other than that I have always had a decent week with the Tornado fleet ( Tony Backhurst in the UK ).

Here

Itinerary - if Pia is on the boat I don't care - any Itinerary is fine.

Other than that "Simply the Best" though be warned the crossings out there can get a bit boisterous.

Paul C

Hi,

At the risk of sounding argumentative.....! (which I don't mean to be)

I actually think that often day boat/shore diving in the Red Sea can offer very good diving and photographic opportunities.

Diving for the day from say Sharm, will give you access to great areas like Ras Mohamed, Tiran etc. You can go there every day if you would like! Hotels like the Hyatt have the "gardens" as their house reef-you can dive on them 5 times a day if you like!

Many of the larger liveaboard fleets operate on a fixed schedule/itinerary-which means that the boat moves, regardless of what is going on in the area that you are in! As the boats tend to be larger/carry more people, there is a good chance that many of the passengers will not be photo oriented, and hence the boat cannot cater to your needs. Photographically I find that I need a few dives on a dive site to get my head around the best opportunities at the site in question.

You don't mention how long or when you plan to be there, I would suggest contacting Peter and Duncan at Red Sea Snapper. They offer shore or liveaboard bespoke trips and can help a great deal with planning and advice. If you are free in July-I have a boat booked!

Whatever you do, you'll have a great time!

Adam

The big tourist centres can have good diving, but they also have some desperately over-dived reefs. Dahab is quieter, but less spoiled (tho' less dramatic than Ras Mohammed). I found Tony Backhurst's "Wrecks and Reefs" northern Red Sea live-aboard package a great introduction to both live-aboard diving and the Red Sea. For the best diving you have to go by boat to the south, although the shoaling fish around Ras Mohammed in late spring/early summer are spectacular, and easily visited from Sharm el sheik on a day boat.

Tim

YMMV Adam, you may well have had a better time or seen better stuff shore based than I have.

Sharm in July can be most uncomfortable and a bit of a zoo to boot, Dahab is quite nice.

Ras Mohammed is spectacular _always_ but I am not sure about every day for a week - unless it is the July weeks when the schooling activities are spectacular.

Myself I just love the complete break from shore life that a live aboard in this area offers, if you want to just eat, sleep, dive, no phone access (yes what a result!), sit on the deck talking BS and drink the occasional beer of an evening then it can't be beat for my money.

If on the other hand you want to dive but have access to a multitude of restaurants and highly variable night life then maybe you need to look ashore.

So, bottom line, you need to make your choices based on your own requirements.

Paul C

P.S. Chris if you are available the week that Adam has booked then you can't go wrong in joining him. With a full set of shooters on the boat and the Itinerary flexible it will be a great trip. I will be there on another boat with Alex Mustard otherwise I would book up with Adam.

Hi Chris,

We will have trips in 2011! We are planning a full range of Red Sea trips going forward, as well as photography oriented trips worldwide.

If you can let me have an email address (pm me with it?) and I will add you to my mailing list. This will be the best way to keep you in the loop. Or drop me a mail at info(at)adamhanlon(dot)com

If anyone else wants adding-please feel free to do the same!

Adam

PS Paul what is YMMV?!

If anyone else wants adding-please feel free to do the same!

 

Adam

 

PS Paul what is YMMV?!

If my posts haven't put you off, I'd be interested as I haven't been to the Red Sea for a couple of years...

Tim

My partner and myself are traveling to the UK from Australia for a family gathering and then planning on going on to the Red Sea for our first diving holiday abroad. We are both current instructors with well over 3000+ dives between us. We have been on small liveboards but never done resort diving. We are also avid underwater photographers with a point and shoot set up and a D-SLR set up which we intend to bring with us.

 

I would love sugestions on both liveboard and resort diving. It will be our first overseas dive trip.

We are planning on being there from mid July 2011. Its a way off yet but will help me get through all the suggestions.

 

Your time and suggestions will be most welcome.

 

thanxs

 

Chris

 

Thanxs so far for all the info below. Adam, your trip sounds great but a year early. Would be interested if your planning one for 2011.

Hi Chris,

We are planning to run a Schooling Fish Safari in 2011...

Drop us a line with your requirements / question and we can advise you on availability or design a bespoke package for you.

All,

We are currently working out a deal with a new RIB operator in Sharm. This will be of interest to those who either are travelling with non-diving partners / family or who want to zip out , do a dive and be in the bar by lunchtime....17min to Shark Reef!!!!

We are going out on it in the coming weeks to take photo's of The Lara. This wreck lies at 73m on the back of Jackson Reef - Tiran. At this time of year the only option is a rib!! (due to wind and swell). Full tec and photo kit should be a good test of their new rib!!! Will post a report once the details have been ironed out...

Rgds

Duncan

PS Paul what is YMMV?!

Your

Mileage

May

Vary

Sean

Your

Mileage

May

Vary

 

Sean

Don't forget the Deep South.

I personally think Sharm is now far too overcrowded.

Next Red Sea trip I take will be shore based, down at one of the Souther Eco Dive Villages. Wadi Lahami probably.

Unlimited house reef shore diving, come and go as you please, it's ideal for photographers.

Also the trucks go shore diving a couple of times a day, and they have RIBs for the offshore stuf.

Sean

Don't go on this boat!

Don't go on this boat!

Is that Fraser? We went to do the salvage of all the personal belongings off it, Wriggling into cabins and getting the safes out...left the 42 inch plasma behind though....great fun...not for those on board though!!! Also all my kit stunk of desiel and hydraulic fluid....

Is that Fraser?

No it's another boat. Frazer went straight down (in pieces). I saw this last week further South, near the Elphinstone.

Frazer went straight down (in pieces).

Fraser had its stern on the sand and its bow poking out of the water (in 10m of water)....the roof of the saloon had separated from the rest of the boat and was connected by electrical cables. It still had a line on the mooring. The swell was rocking the boat so we decided not to attept the inside on day 1 and just spent the day clearing up stuff around it. Can of beer and bottles of wine first of course! ( I also have a nitrox analyser if anyone wants to buy one, 1 not so careful owner!!!). We then used a livaboard to pull the boat forward in an attempt to properly sink it(remove air pocket from bow so we could get inside. They tried but it did not work. However they forgot to re-tie a line when they left. We arrived back the following day to see no boat....a 10 min search later and we found it at 30m. We then proceded to clear as many cables to allow access to the cabins and then had to fight out way through and chain gang everything to the bow where we sent it all up on liftbags and dive crates to the boat we were using. Ithas since been broken up by the sea....

.......

 

I would love sugestions on both liveboard and resort diving. It will be our first overseas dive trip.

We are planning on being there from mid July 2011. Its a way off yet but will help me get through all the suggestions.

We have a team of 20 divers, and we use to rent whole liveboard for 7-11 days dive safari every year. Now our fifth safari is coming, after 4 weeks from now...

Our safaris have so far covered divesites in south, wrecks in north, Brothers and deadalus in mid, etc.

Based to these experiences during last five years, I'm happy to give some recommendations for you, so that you will get best value out of your trip.

Especially for yo as very experienced divers, I definetly propose to avoid bulky tourist shore diving, as you would see just "standard reef scenes" with some amount of dead corals. No, you need more.

Our experience has been, that the absolutely best choice is to go for Liveboard. And there are very many of those, with very wide quality difference.

Therefore, my recommendation for you is following:

- Operator: take Emperor Divers. They are very professional, high quality, and prices are ok compared to value you get. (www.emperordivers.com). And if possible, select either gold or platinum class boat.

- Especially I recommed routes, which normally start from Marsa Alam (or even from Hamata in south), but sometimes also from Hurghada. Emperor provides transfers you from Hurghada airport to these harbours as a part of package.

- My favorite routes are northern "Get wrecked!" route; those wrecks are great even if you have seen many wrecks before... Another extremely nice is "South & St John's" with really nice reefs with caves/cavern diving and big fish.

On the another hand, very often I see that Brothers and Daedalys are praised, but in my mind those were the most boring places. Just very similar walls with every dive.

If you want to see some videoclips from our last trip, please have a look to my video channel (link here). Those videos are from divesites via route "South & St John's".

Hope this helps!

Cheers,

Kai