Dive Aqaba

[Searcaigh]

Anyone on hte board who has experience with Dive Aqaba www.diveaqaba.com

Their website looks good and am planning to travel there after some meetings in Amman in a couple of weeks time.

 

[Vassilis Vlachopoulos]

Anyone on hte board who has experience with Dive Aqaba www.diveaqaba.com

Their website looks good and am planning to travel there after some meetings in Amman in a couple of weeks time.

I did some diving with these guys few years back :

http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/red-sea/217158-anyone-been-diving-jordan.html

Back then, I had no other experience with the Red Sea. Last autumn I finally visited Sharm and Dahab, so I can now try to compare :

Dive Aqaba guys are ok, professional and cool. They run one (their own) boat and they are not in a rush.

The boat is less luxurious than the usual boats in Sharm (e.g. WC is elementary).
However, the atmosphere is very friendly and food is excellent (at no extra charge). I liked the fact that you see "return" customers - they all seem to know each-other. I also liked the fact that rec and tec can co-exist harmoniously.

Diving is relaxed and going beyond 30m was not a crime like in Sharm. One day I felt like spending the whole dive just under the boat at 8 - 10 m doing photography : No problem !

The reefs are good. Ok, not better than Sharm or RasMo but maybe better than some parts of Dahab-south (e.g. 3 pools). Re reef fishes, most species are present, but, generally, in smaller size.

Finally, Aqaba is a real town, with real citizens and real town activities (not just diving).

 

[Searcaigh]

Thanks Vassilis,

I have dived almost the length of the Red Sea from the Jordanian border down to the Farasan Islands on the the Saudi side of the Red sea between 86-97 and occasionally return to Saudi on business and stay the weekend to dive around Jeddah, but all of my old dive buddies are long gone.

I like the fact that you managed to spend a whole dive doing photography ..... do they allow solo diving in this case?

 

[Vassilis Vlachopoulos]

Actually I was accompanied by a DM who was looking for an opportunity to do exactely what we both did : spend as much time as we wished, exploring and photographying one single reef. So, we were "together" but each one was moving separately on his own pace.

Anyhow, Rod, the owner, (a british guy), is very keen in photography and he often carries a hell of amount of photo gear. You can see his "work" in the photo galleries of the site.

 

[Searcaigh]

Best laid plans .............

Well my two buddies who were coming over to meet me from Austria are ill with a cold / fever, not much I can do about that except vent my frustration here :depressed:

Anyway I am not canceling or postponing the trip due to the fact the next dates we can meet up will be in May, and that is too far off for me. So it looks like a normal solo trip for me and almost considered changing my flight to Philippines instead as I know there would be no shortage of buddies at PG.

Rod from Dive Aqaba assured me that I would have somebody to dive with, so I am off to Aqaba on Monday morning

 

[Searcaigh]

Update from Aqaba

Drove down from Amman on Monday which took about 3 hrs. Woke up this morning and as we were faxing my details to the Jordanian navy they cancelled all boat activity due to bad weather. About two hours later it was blowing a strong southerly - bugga

Well there's always tomorrow

 

[samaka]

I have never used that particular centre so I can not say anything about them. But I can recommend Red Sea Dive Center, Aqaba!

Check it out on Red Sea Dive Center Aqaba Jordan

...a...

 

[Searcaigh]

Shukran Samaka,

Two days of southerly winds stopped all boats going out, fortunately by day three all was good and I managed three dives, just about to leave now for another day out.

I have to say Dive Aqaba are very professional, and happy withy choice

 

[ChaosHokie]

So I dove a couple of times in Aqaba and I thought most of the dives were shore dives... Did they cancel those too?

 

[Searcaigh]

Yes there are shore dives in Aqaba, in fact almost same ones that the boats go to with a few exceptions.

The weather was really rough on day one, diving from even the shore would have been madness, and we did hear that some people tried and failed. On the second day some Belgians managed a shore dive, but not something I would be wanting to carry my housed camera under those circumstances.

I plan to be back again in June with my daughter. I have marked some key spots with my GPS for shore diving on that trip as I plan on long shallow dives for photographic purposes. Viz was easily 15-20M and from what I heard is even better in June.

Mind you I have a business trip to Amman next month, it might just stretch over a weekend