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DIVING DESTINATIONS
THE RED SEA OR NOT THE RED SEA
THAT IS THE QUESTION
Feature and Photography Paul and pamela Warwick
Divers have so many diving destinations within
easy reach of the UAE, so why choose the Red
Sea? As most seasoned divers know, the Red
Sea is one of the best dive areas in the world,
with warm (minimum 26˚C), clear waters
and an abundant marine life supported and
nurtured by the geo-thermal heat, which also
heavily influences the strength and direction of
the currents. Sharm El Sheik, Marsa Al Salam,
Dahab and Hurghada are all well known
resorts which provide great shore diving and
daily safaris to the more distant sites – but
have you ever thought about a liveaboard –
we did and it turned into a week long diving
adventure.
The trip was organised by Mick Smith, the
owner of Dragon Divers in Protaras, Cyprus
who took over the Emperor Superior (Gold
Class) from Emperor Divers for the week.
You don’t have to go through a dive centre as
most companies will take individual bookings
directly or through an active travel agent. Why
Emperor and why Dragon Divers?
• Well Dragon Divers because Pamela and I
continued our training up to Master Scuba
Diver (MSD) with Mick and I started my
PADI professional training with him. We
have lots of friends still in Cyprus who
were on the trip. They also run a Red Sea
trip annually.
• There are lots of liveaboard companies
operating from the Red Sea, providing
more or less the same itineraries. Bottom
line is, Emperor gave us the best deal on
the itinerary which we were able to select
because we had booked the entire boat.
We received a fantastic quality of service.
Our boat was large (38 metres), well laid out
with wet and dry areas and masses of space
on the dive deck and dive platform as well
as two supporting Zodiacs. The cabins were
spacious and twins in general, although a few
of our single brethrens had to endure bunks,
which is great except if you are in the top bunk
and the boat is pitching, rolling and yawing all
at the same time, which it did on a number of
occasions during our trip!
24 merry souls assembled in Hurghada on the
Friday, arriving at the airport from different
parts of the world and headed towards
Emperor’s Marina base at the Hilton. Some
of us had never met before, but we all had
one thing in common – a love of diving. As
all our divers were PADI Advanced and BSAC
Ocean Divers and above, we only had two
guides, Lina and Ahmed, both of whom were
excellent and allowed us to dive with relative
freedom. Ahmed in particular was extremely
knowledgeable about all the dive sites and
despite some “dodgy” weather, ensured we
dived safely every day of the trip. Enriched
Air (NITROX) was free to anyone with the
prerequisite qualifications and we would
recommend it to anyone thinking of taking a
trip with Emperor. Everyone on our trip was
qualified and it certainly helped with tiredness
when you were fitting in 3 or 4 dives a day.
Don’t forget your camera!
With final kit checks, a couple of spares and a
good night’s sleep, we set off on the Saturday
morning of the itinerary to the “Famous Five”,
which although planned, would be subject to
weather, sea conditions and of course the
mandatory activity risk assessment. We were
looking forward to getting up to 22 dives done
over 6 days (flying times permitting).
THE DIVING
Our general route was to take us north
towards the Sinai Peninsula and the Ras
Al Mohamed National Marine Park before
heading South to The Brothers in the open
sea and then north again back to Hurghada.
DAY ONE. The first dive site was not far from
Hurghada at Abu Al Nugar for a dive check
before moving further north up to Bluff Point
and The Barge.
DAY TWO. This was “Wreck Day”, firstly
on the Rosalie Moller a WWII wreck which
was sunk almost at the same anchorage as
the Thistlegorm, but two days later. Then the
Kingston, a 19 th Century Sail/Steamer which
sunk in 1881 and then the famous Thistlegorm.
Thistlegorm. No trip to the North Red
Sea would be complete without a trip to the
Thistlegorm. It’s one of the top ten wreck
dives in the world. Sitting between 17 and
34 metres, it is an easy recreational dive. We
arrived in the early afternoon and managed to
get an afternoon dive, a night dive and an early
morning dive in and we were almost the only
boat there – the day boats had left to get back
to their home ports and we left before they
arrived back the next day. Amazing is not quite
adequate enough to describe the dive, literally
going back in history 70+ years and imagining
this cargo laden vessel with motorcycles,
trucks, cars, spares, ammunition and a
locomotive, (yes a locomotive) all destined for
British troops in Alexandria during the Second
World War and all still intact, including tyres
and naval artillery shells the size of small cars.
DAY THREE. We went to the Ras Al Mohamed
National Marine Park where we dived on reefs
near Shark Island and Yolande Reef as well as
72 DIVERS FOR THE ENVIRONMENT, SEPTEMBER 2013
SEPTEMBER 2013, DIVERS FOR THE ENVIRONMENT 73