We left Houston late on Thursday 6 June 2019 on Emirates Air to Cairo. Emirates travels thru Dubai to Cairo. We stayed at the Meridian in Cairo to do the pyramids and the National museum.
On 9 June we travelled to Sharm on Nile Air. We were met at the airport and travelled by bus to Dahab which is 60 miles north along the coast. Due to security concerns, we had to wait until 20 vehicles collected for a police escort. The trip to Dahab was quite spectacular driving thru the Sinai mountain passes.
There are literally a hundred different places to stay in Dahab. We stayed at the Red Sea Relax hotel for a week of shore diving. The 10 recreational divers also dove with Red Sea Relax while the 3 technical divers dove with Team Blue Immersion.
The recreational divers dove the hotel area at Bannerfish Bay, Lighthouse Reef, the Islands, the Canyon, El Bells, and the Blue Hole. In Egypt, you must do recreational dives with a guide. If you do dives away from the diveshop area, the guide and a driver take you in a truck to your site. They lay out all the tanks and assist you getting in and out of the water. We actually had three or four guides at a time, taking our divers to different locations depending on their interests and skill levels. Sometimes divers had a private guide. Since all of the sites are close by, the maximum drive time was 20 minutes. The Red Sea Relax resort diveshop was well organized and well managed by the shop manager Jordan.
The technical divers only dove off of the hotel Bannerfish Bay Area and the Blue Hole. The technical divers thru the legendary Blue Hole arch a total of four times. Two divers finished their trimix courses at the Blue Hole. There is a separate report focusing on that aspect of the trip in the technical diving forum.
After the week of shore diving, we returned to Sharm El-Sheik where we boarded the King Snefro Pearl. On the Pearl, divers did between 18 and 22 dives. This included 4 dives on the Thistlegorm and other wreck dives on the Emperor Fraser, Dunraven, and Kingston. In the Ras Mohammed park, we dove Shark and Yolanda Reef and Small and Large Crack. We were treated to a brief show with wild dolphins. The last few days were spent at the Tiran Islands with Woodhouse and Gordon Reef. It seemed like we were either getting a dive briefing, diving, eating, or sleeping. The schedule was arranged so that we did a dive before breakfast, ate breakfast, did a dive before lunch, ate lunch, did a dive after lunch, had a snack, did a dive before dinner, ate dinner, and then went to sleep.
The Pearl guides Alaa and Essam were very knowledgeable and professional. The free 32% nitrox was almost always within 1 percent. Whenever we’re entered or exited the water, the entire crew appear to assist us with our wetsuits and gear. We used the same tank all week and the tank was filled during our surface interval from our seat position with a whip. Gear was kept in a plastic crate below your position.
The food was quite edible and plentiful. We had three meals a day and a snack event. Coffee, tea, and crackers and cookies were available 24/7. We had a turkey for our last dinner. Anytime you needed something all you had todo was ask. The only problem we encounter all week was a little bit of weak air conditioning on some days in the main salon where we received the dive briefings.
We did have to adjust to the no shoe and no wet clothes policy on board the boat. Most people had multiple swim suits to change in an out of. Multiple neoprene socks are also a good idea. You need an adapter to go from the two round prongs on the boat to a three prong US plug.
On thing to be wary of is mummy tummy. If you are afflicted by this, the most effective treatment is called Endocid. This will clear up the problem in just a few hours.
The sea life in the Red Sea is amazing. The Napoleon Wrasses were huge. Another species which we had never seen before is the Masked Puffer. We also saw crocodile fish and unicorn fish for the first time. Since we were so far north and went early in the summer, we only saw a few sharks.
We flew back to Cairo on Egypt Air and back to Houston on Emirates Air on Sunday afternoon 23 June.
A general comment about Egypt is that while it is generally inexpensive, it is a cash driven environment, but some places like the national museum even only take Egyptian pounds. Fortunately, there are many international capable atms in Dahab. We did not have any problems using these.
We had done a lot of research before this trip as it was logistically complex with the Cairo tours, the shore diving, and the liveaboard. We had also never been to Egypt before. Fortunately the research paid off and we had a great time. It was possibly the best group dive trip that we have conducted.
We had such a good time doing this shorediving / liveaboard sequence trip, we will be doing it again next year. However, we will be leaving in August to better see the migrating sharks.
On 9 June we travelled to Sharm on Nile Air. We were met at the airport and travelled by bus to Dahab which is 60 miles north along the coast. Due to security concerns, we had to wait until 20 vehicles collected for a police escort. The trip to Dahab was quite spectacular driving thru the Sinai mountain passes.
There are literally a hundred different places to stay in Dahab. We stayed at the Red Sea Relax hotel for a week of shore diving. The 10 recreational divers also dove with Red Sea Relax while the 3 technical divers dove with Team Blue Immersion.
The recreational divers dove the hotel area at Bannerfish Bay, Lighthouse Reef, the Islands, the Canyon, El Bells, and the Blue Hole. In Egypt, you must do recreational dives with a guide. If you do dives away from the diveshop area, the guide and a driver take you in a truck to your site. They lay out all the tanks and assist you getting in and out of the water. We actually had three or four guides at a time, taking our divers to different locations depending on their interests and skill levels. Sometimes divers had a private guide. Since all of the sites are close by, the maximum drive time was 20 minutes. The Red Sea Relax resort diveshop was well organized and well managed by the shop manager Jordan.
The technical divers only dove off of the hotel Bannerfish Bay Area and the Blue Hole. The technical divers thru the legendary Blue Hole arch a total of four times. Two divers finished their trimix courses at the Blue Hole. There is a separate report focusing on that aspect of the trip in the technical diving forum.
After the week of shore diving, we returned to Sharm El-Sheik where we boarded the King Snefro Pearl. On the Pearl, divers did between 18 and 22 dives. This included 4 dives on the Thistlegorm and other wreck dives on the Emperor Fraser, Dunraven, and Kingston. In the Ras Mohammed park, we dove Shark and Yolanda Reef and Small and Large Crack. We were treated to a brief show with wild dolphins. The last few days were spent at the Tiran Islands with Woodhouse and Gordon Reef. It seemed like we were either getting a dive briefing, diving, eating, or sleeping. The schedule was arranged so that we did a dive before breakfast, ate breakfast, did a dive before lunch, ate lunch, did a dive after lunch, had a snack, did a dive before dinner, ate dinner, and then went to sleep.
The Pearl guides Alaa and Essam were very knowledgeable and professional. The free 32% nitrox was almost always within 1 percent. Whenever we’re entered or exited the water, the entire crew appear to assist us with our wetsuits and gear. We used the same tank all week and the tank was filled during our surface interval from our seat position with a whip. Gear was kept in a plastic crate below your position.
The food was quite edible and plentiful. We had three meals a day and a snack event. Coffee, tea, and crackers and cookies were available 24/7. We had a turkey for our last dinner. Anytime you needed something all you had todo was ask. The only problem we encounter all week was a little bit of weak air conditioning on some days in the main salon where we received the dive briefings.
We did have to adjust to the no shoe and no wet clothes policy on board the boat. Most people had multiple swim suits to change in an out of. Multiple neoprene socks are also a good idea. You need an adapter to go from the two round prongs on the boat to a three prong US plug.
On thing to be wary of is mummy tummy. If you are afflicted by this, the most effective treatment is called Endocid. This will clear up the problem in just a few hours.
The sea life in the Red Sea is amazing. The Napoleon Wrasses were huge. Another species which we had never seen before is the Masked Puffer. We also saw crocodile fish and unicorn fish for the first time. Since we were so far north and went early in the summer, we only saw a few sharks.
We flew back to Cairo on Egypt Air and back to Houston on Emirates Air on Sunday afternoon 23 June.
A general comment about Egypt is that while it is generally inexpensive, it is a cash driven environment, but some places like the national museum even only take Egyptian pounds. Fortunately, there are many international capable atms in Dahab. We did not have any problems using these.
We had done a lot of research before this trip as it was logistically complex with the Cairo tours, the shore diving, and the liveaboard. We had also never been to Egypt before. Fortunately the research paid off and we had a great time. It was possibly the best group dive trip that we have conducted.
We had such a good time doing this shorediving / liveaboard sequence trip, we will be doing it again next year. However, we will be leaving in August to better see the migrating sharks.
