Egypt - Brothers Islands - Is it safe to dive?

[emelimelo]

Greetings,

Would anyone be able to comment on scuba diving in the Brothers Islands in Egypt I wonder?

It would be great to hear about your past experiences with regards to the safety measures taken by liveaboards and the dive site management; and also the interactions with sharks...

The Islands are known to be one of the best places to dive, yet incidents happened recently in Hurghada and in 2019 in Brothers..

It would be great to hear any comments.

Thanks in advance.

E

 

[Tippytoes12]

My husband and I have dived the Brothers on numerous occasions with Blue O 2. We have dived the Maldives with Emperor, who are also excellent.At the risk of stating the obvious, up to 100 divers dive the Brothers every day and 2019 was a very long time ago. Blue o 2 did comprehensive briefings on what to do and what not to do if there are big sharks around. This usually pertained to oceanic white tips, who are curious about divers. Issues with divers are extremely rare and if the advice in the briefing is followed precisely you should have no problems. Nothing in life is without risk. And personally I would go back tomorrow without hesitation. We have seen mantas, oceanics, thresher sharks and hammerheads there, they are fantastic site !

 

[scubajasonr]

I have dived at the Brothers on several occasions. Personally I think the risk of being washed away from the islands is a bigger risk than that of sharks - I say that having been in the water when someone at the surface was having an issue with a shark getting too friendly. This was back in 2019 when the incidents were happening, the diver in question surfaced away from the boat and surface swam back to the ladder, the circling oceanic became very inquisitive and started swimming into them - fortunately they got out of the water without issue - I was at a safety stop watching the drama unfold above me. I did get out of the water quite quickly after that dive!

I have been there with three different operators in the past few years - and also with two other operators about 20 years ago. All the recent ones have given good safety briefings covering currents and sharks. I think boats are still banned from over night mooring at the Brothers, and this seems to have really reduced the number of oceanic sightings. I am going back in October and hopefully will see sharks at some point on the trip.

I always carry a large SMB, storm whistle and mirror. I have also recently invested in a PLB. With the exception of the SMB I hope I never need to use any of them, but better safe than sorry.

 

[emelimelo]

Thanks so much for the comments. Appreciated.

In BDE, how challenging are zodiac entries and exits?

Here, I am just trying to gauge whether it would be too stressful to battle currents/waves with every dive. Especially when there are some curious friends down there.
In terms of my experience, I dived in Maldives and Indonesia, so had experienced some currents.

I am in between BDE and a northern itinerary now.
I did the northern itinerary in 2014; and the DE&StJohns itinerary in 2019 (This trip was fairly chilled though.)

Best,

E

 

[scubajasonr]

It can vary. I have dived there in everything from flat calm, to pretty big wave. I can only recall one zodiac pickup that was challenging to get out of the water due to waves, the rest have been okay. It was challenging due to a lot of swell mixed in with waves, even at the 5m safety stop we were moving up and down quite a bit. Zodiac entries tend to be a negative entry. you don't want to go in the zodiac there is normally the option to jump straight from the back of the boat. The boats moor in the shelter of the island, so they tend to be in fairly calm water, with not much current underneath.

Underwater the currents aren't too stressful, as long as you are dropped in the right place it is just a case of going with the current. Depending on the dive plan you do sometimes end up back at the main boat, and avoid the zodic pick up. The currents tend to go in a straight line, and you don't get the swirling currents I have experienced in places like the Maledives.

If you have dived Elphinstone and Daedalus then the Brothers are very similar.