BRYCE'S RED SEA TRIP REPORT

 NOVEMBER 2004

The trip started with a mini-bus at 5a.m, bit early I though as like most others I did not sleep well the previous night, fear of oversleeping and missing the bus I guess, anyway when we got to Sharm we were taken to the port and aboard the Excel, met the 2 dive guides and had a beer, nice tidy boat, plenty of room for 20 divers and cabins were fine.

First thing the next day we head out to Ras Katy for our first dive, dive guides knocked on the door with a comment I was to hear too often at this early hour for the next week "dive briefing in 10 minutes", just time to drag myself up on deck for some tea and then kit up on the back of the boat,  time down was 06.15, this was a nice easy dive and a chance to make sure kit and weights were all o.k., I could not get over the difference between this and U.K diving! warm clear water and so many bright vivid colours, diving made easy and I soon found myself at 25 mts with near perfect visibility, after the dive we climbed back on board and were helped out of our kit by the ever helpful crew.

Next dive at 10.15 was the wreck of the Dunraven built in 1873 sunk in 1876! again perfect conditions and lots to see, max depth was 29 mts, following on from this at 15.15 was another wreck dive on the Ghianas D a huge wreck surrounded by brightly coloured fish who seem oblivious to the divers around them, on one occasion a shoal swam all around me and it felt like I was in the middle of a Disney cartoon. There was an evening dive that I was too lazy to do but was enjoyed by all who had the energy to take part.

Between dives there was lots of good food to eat and loads of time to chill out on the sun decks, as the week progressed there was usually 4 dives a day with a good mix of reefs and wrecks, I think my favourites were the reef dives as the colour and composition of the coral is really magnificent.

The most exciting dive for me was at Gobal Island, we did a drift dive on the reef at about 20 mts for almost 60 mins, this was the perfect lazy man dive as the current took us gently along with no finning at all, after being picked up in the Rib we were returning to the Excel when 2 Dolphin came in close to the boat, at this point we all put masks back on and dived in to have a nice play with the Dolphins for about 5 mins, they would dive very deep then come up at us very fast only breaking away at the last second, they seemed to enjoy the fun as much as we did.

Another dive site that stood out was the Thisslegorm, a huge wreck that seemed to be a time capsule for the war years, diving into the holds we could clearly see rifles, Bren gun carriers, motorcycles and loads of welly boots!

The whole week was nicely divided between wrecks and reefs and all the diving was warm and enjoyable, the last night was spent on land which after the swaying of the boat all week took some getting use to again, that night in Namma Bay we found the best pub in the world, it was a Bedouin bar and instead of seats outside there were small beds to lay on, the beer was cold, the night was warm and in my imagination all the women that walked by were hot!

Sometimes life really is great and this was one of those times.

Cannot wait to go again!