BDE vs St. Johns

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Just got back from a wonderful trip on the JP Marine and will put down a brief report.

The pick up and the transfer to the boat was pretty seamless. I was picked up at hurghada airport and dropped off at a nearby hotel where some others were too. After about an hour the minivan arrived with one of the guides ,Peter and away we went

The boat
The boat ,though basic did all it had to in my opinion. The rooms were neat and clean and cleaned every day. The salon was comfortable and the dive deck large and spacious. Diving was mostly off the two zodiacs ,on earth of which gave some trouble one day. But they managed to work around that by borrowing a zodiac from a nearby boat.
The food was plentiful and tasty. No complaints on that front. I’m pretty focused on my food and for being out in the ocean for a week I thought they did a pretty good job.
There was no bar on board but you could buy beers at 2 Eur a pop for a large stella(Egyptian lager)and keep them in your room and stock cans in the fridge on a daily basis as you needed. As for spirits most of us carried our own from duty free .
Water, tea coffee and soft drinks was available at all times.
The highlight of the boat was the crew. The dive guides , the zodiac guys , the mechanics and the kitchen staff were all kind ,generous and a whole lot of fun. They made the trip all the more memorable.

The diving

We did 1 day at marsa shouna, 1 day at brothers(apparently a govt regulation now), 2 days at Daedalus and 1 each at elphinstone and Abu Dahab .
The visibility was on the whole fantastic with 30 m being pretty much the norm.
We had difficult conditions at brothers and elphinstone which currents and swell but the others were all pretty calm and relaxed
At brothers the other group managed to see a longimanus and a manta but I didn’t
We saw at least 50 hammerheads at Daedalus over the two days. That was pretty special!
We saw one hammerhead at elphinstone and I thought the reef was pretty spectacular.
So were the swim through and small caverns at Abu Dahab
Overall very satisfying although a few more longimanus or mantas couldn’t have hurt!
Overall there were 18 dives incl 2 night dives. I skipped the night dives as they got into my beer time!

Overall great diving , great people and great value for money! I would definitely do the Jp marine again. I saw many boats docked which looked a lot fancier and had bars and beer on tap and all that. But that said I had a blast , the diving was mostly great and so were the people!
 
Thank you for the report.
JP Marine is still on my shortlist.

I read some reviews which were not so great- an "authritarian" guide was mentioned, but it seems like you had a great time.

How were the other guests? Very international?
 
That sounds great. I had similar thoughts on the JP Marine. We never saw any hammerheads as were there in December, but got lucky with the Oceanics. Did you get close passes by the hammerheads at Daedalus?
 
Thank you for the report.
JP Marine is still on my shortlist.

I read some reviews which were not so great- an "authritarian" guide was mentioned, but it seems like you had a great time.

How were the other guests? Very international?

The two guides that were on my trip (Peter and Ellia)were firm while giving out briefings butotherwise
pretty chilled out. Authoritarian is hardly the word I would use.
They did lay down certain rules in a firm tone...like no diving once you have a drink...deco limits,no diving after missing briefings and such.
All very necessary I thought. But otherwise pretty relaxed and let everyone do as they wanted.
Iteastotally upto you if you wanted to follow the guide or go off with your buddy
Great guys and great dive guides overall.
There are three other guides who work on the boat on rotation.maybe one of them was that I don’t know

We had 28 guests from 13 countries : Russia, Malta, England, Switzerland, Germany, Spain, Poland, France ,Belgium, Netherlands, Mexico, Sri Lanka and India (me).
The crew of 11 was all Egyptian
 
That sounds great. I had similar thoughts on the JP Marine. We never saw any hammerheads as were there in December, but got lucky with the Oceanics. Did you get close passes by the hammerheads at Daedalus?

Very very close on one of the dives...schools of 10-12 ...pretty stunning!
On other dives not so close
 
Very very close on one of the dives...schools of 10-12 ...pretty stunning!
On other dives not so close
Thanks once again for the great tips! They were spot on!
I struggled with the currents on just 2 of the dives, one of which was pretty scary! But otherwise it was all fantastic
 
Thank you for the trip report. It is definitely tempting!
What was the budget per head for this cruise?
 
Thank you for the trip report. It is definitely tempting!
What was the budget per head for this cruise?
The liveaboard was around 750 Eu....I had to rent gear which was 144
Nitrox has a small extra charge
 

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