M/Y Blue Melody, Simply the Best, 9-16 September

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DanMont

Contributor
Messages
115
Reaction score
45
Location
United Kingdom
# of dives
500 - 999
Spent a fantastic week diving with Blue O'Two on the M/Y Blue Melody Simply the Best Itinerary. This was my first trip to the red sea and I am sure I will be back! The following is a brief trip report.

Travel
Flights and visas were arranged by blue o two and were from London Gatwick to Hurghada on Thomas Cook. Unfortunately the times of the flights aren't the most friendly (return flight arrived at gatwick at 2am) which means the start and end to the week were pretty tough. On the plus side visa arrangements were very smooth and i had received my visa and got through immigration within 15 minutes of getting off the flight. It is also worth noting that the Simply the Best itinerary runs from Hurghada to Port Ghaleb one week and then the reverse the following week. Unfortunately for me this meant a 4 hour drive from Hurghada to the boat in Port Ghaleb meaning we didnt arrive at the boat until after midnight local time.

The Boat
I will start by saying I have only done one short (2 night, 3 day) liveaboard before so I was very impressed by the boat. A large dive deck at the back which was only slightly cramped with 12 divers gearing up at a time and plenty of storage space for dive gear. Inside lounges, cabins and galley were all spacious and comfortable with great air conditioning! The best feature was the upstairs back deck which was completely covered with shade netting and contained a bar for tea/coffee making as well as bean bags and sofas. The crew were exceptionally helpful and polite all week and the food was both plentiful and delicious! I especially liked the popcorn provided as an afternoon snack!

The Diving
So down to the main event. The diving was fantastic all week with the whole boat being blessed by plentiful shark action.

The first day involved a checkout dive at Abu Shabaab reef which was a nice reef at which to get the gear all dialed in and weighting sorted. Lovely corals and lots of reef fish made it an enjoyable and relaxing start to the week. Immediately after this we headed to Elphinstone where we had a nice drift dive from the northern corner along the wall to our boat, some other groups had a quick visit by 4 dolphins on the safety stop. Third dive was a night dive at Abu Shabaab with several big giant morays and cuttlefish sighted. Another group also spotted a frogfish!

Following an overnight sail we awoke at Daedalus Reef. We spent a day here with 3 dives on the northern side of the reef. We were fortunate to have relatively mild currents which made the dives a gentle drift although you had to be careful no to lose sight of the reef. This was made more difficult by the fact that we were joined by schools of hammerheads on all 3 dives with 17 or 18 individuals in the school. Close encounters were had on all dives but the second dive was really sublime with the school being sited within 5 minutes and staying with us until we ran out of bottom time around 10-15 minutes later. The reef at daedalus is also very nice which made the time between leaving the hammerheads and starting the safety stop very pleasant, schools of barracuda and jacks were seen as well as all the usual red sea life. Additionally a manta was sighted by the second group on the last dive of the day. We were given the option to spend a second day at daedalus but the group decided that two days at brother (the original itinerary) would be preferred.

Following another overnight sail we awoke back at elphinstone. The wind had picked up overnight and the swell was starting to pick up. The first dive was conducted on the northern plateau where we sited a lone hammerhead (v. deep 40m+) as well as lots of tuna and jacks. Following this we drifted back along the reef hoping to get to the boat to see if any oceanic white tips were around. Unfortunately the current was very light which meant we only made it about half way down the reef before needing a pick up. The second dive was conducted under the boat as oceanic white tips had been sighted by the crew during our first dive. We had 3 under the boat to start and all had the chance for some good encounters. The current was also very light which meant we had the chance to dive the southern plateau which was covered with anthias and had a turtle pass by. As the swell had at this point increased considerably with the wind we moved to Marsa Shouna for the last dive of the day. The visibility was relatively low (~5m) and we explored the sea grass bed and spent most of the dive in the company of 2 huge green turtles.

Another overnight sail followed as we moved to brothers island. The swell had dropped considerably when we left but must have picked up as we headed out from land as it was extremely rough from around midnight onwards. Luckily I slept through most of it but others (especially in the upstairs or forward cabins) had a very unrestful night. The weather was still very windy with large swell at the brothers so all dives on the first day were conducted from the back of the boat rather than from the zodiacs. This meant 2 dives at Big Brother on the south plateau. The current again was mild and grey reef sharks were sighted on the plateau and 2 oceanic white tips were sighted under the boat on each dive. The reef at Big brother wasn't as impressive as at Daedalus or Elphinstone being mostly made of soft corals. As the weather precluded a different dive being tried it was decided to move to little brother for the third dive which proved an inspired decision! The dive at little brother was again conducted on the southern corner where grey reef sharks were patrolling the reef wall, a thresher sharks was sighted by the first group on the south corner and the whole boat had an incredible 15-20 minutes of encounters with 2-3 oceanic white tips in golden evening light under the boat. A hammerhead also made an unexpected visit at a depth of 6m!

The following day also had the same rough weather so the first two dives at little brother were conducted in a similar fashion to the day before. A thresher shark was also sighted on the days first dive and oceanic white tips and grey reef sharks were seen on both. As the weather had calmed considerably a zodiac dive to the northern side of the island was offered to check the cleaning station there. Unfortunately this didnt yield any sightings although the subsequent drift back to the boat offered some stunning corals and lots of tuna sightings. Fortunately the weather had calmed considerably so the long trip to Hurghada overnight wasn't especially rough!

The last days diving were conducted at Big Giftun island which had a beautiful shallow reef with large schools of butterfly and bannerfish. There were also a lot of giant morays (6-7 sighted on each dive) and a big resident napoleon wrasse. In addition nesting giant triggerfish and a torpedo ray were sighted. Following the last dive we sailed into hurghada for the last night on the boat and to enjoy the memories of an outstanding week!

The diving was definitely aided by the great guides on the boat. Elke (who runs project shark weeks and the red sea shark research project) and Ahmed were both fantastically knowledgeable, gave some very detailed dive briefs and made sure guests were happy with diving plans for every dive. Guided dives were offered for every dive but most dives were conducted as buddy pairs with guides acting as a visual reference point but not leading dives as such.

Overall the week was smoothly run, with fantastic facilities and crew and some incredible diving.

I can't wait to go back!
 
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