Any opinions on this itinerary?

[InTheDrink]

Looking to back to Egyptian southern reefs in May this year. Did the 'big three' (brothers, elphinstone, daedalus) last year and loved it, especially the plentiful longimanus. They were awesome.

Considering (actively) the itinerary (deep south route) below:

Fury Shoals
Shab Sharm
St John's
Gota Kebir
Gota Soraya

Anyone done this and any comments on it relative to the 'big three'? Hanging out with longimanus again is high on my agenda so the opinion of anyone who's dived or been diving these areas recently would be really great.

Thanks,
John

 

[hg frogman]

I went there four times. Last was two years ago.

I quite often saw shark action at Habili Ali, Habili Gafar, Gotta Soraya and Gotta Kebir (which are all in St-John's reefs, and parts of the normal deep south route). These are (mostly) circular reefs with drop-offs (Habili Ali is quite long and narrow and Habili Gafar is a kind of conic tower) with black corals and huge sea fans for some (depends upon the site) and nice soft corals.

I saw grey sharks quite often (up to four at the same time at Habili Ali) and some reef whitetips. Also three times one hammerhead cruising at 20 meters. And once a pod of dolphins while scuba diving. But no oceanic whitetip.

There has been an accident last year at St-John : a French woman bitten by an oceanic whitetip bled to her death. After this, there have been rumors that these sharks have been fished after the accident. I don't know if these rumors are true.

Some other dive sites of this trip have a very interesting topography, with a maze of towers, or easy caves. Overall it's a very nice trip, though I tend to prefer Brothers-Daedalus-Elphinstone that has less variety but a bit more colours IMO (plus I like the Big Brother wrecks very much). But personal preference is very subjective.

Hopefully others will post more recent reports. Two years is a lot when it comes to sharks presence.