Trip Report M/Y Tillis 12/7-12/14 2024 - North and Ras Mohamed

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Scuba-74

Contributor
Messages
791
Reaction score
615
Location
Longmeadow, Massachusetts
# of dives
200 - 499
For the discussion leading up to this trip please see this thread.

Boat, safety, food

Transfer from the airport was smooth, aside from waiting for a car for about 10 min. Me and my buddy had our safety briefing with one of the dive guides shortly upon arrival. We had an upper-deck cabin, so the notorious escape hatch below decks wasn't our main concern, but I did take time to examine it. It works, but I will say it will be tight down there in case of an emergency. You'd have to move from your cabin into a narrow corridor, then into the dive guides' cabin, from there to the crew quarters at the bow, and from there outside through the hatch. So do yourself a favor and book an upper deck cabin if you can for about $130 extra. Upper deck cabins had life vests placed at the window, not sure about the below decks cabins. Batteries had to be charged in the salon if unattended.

What struck me as the least safe place on the boat was the upper sun deck towards the bow. The sidewalls there go as low as right above knee level, and there are very few railings to hold on to. I wouldn't come near those walls unless the boat was dead still.

Food was plentiful and decent. I haven't been on many liveaboards to make a fair comparison, but the cooks worked their butts off every day and by and large everything tasted great.

Being a smoker (sue me), it is important for me if the boat is smoke friendly. Tillis is, you could smoke on 2 out of 3 decks, which most of the crew and some of the guests did. If you can't stand smokers, this is not your boat.

Guests and crew

The group of divers was diverse and fun, just what I was hoping for. We had 20 divers in total, and the allocation of countries goes like this: Germany (5), France (3), US, UK, Spain, Denmark (all 2), Italy, Switzerland, Argentina, Macao (all 1). The crew was 12: captain, 3 dive guides, 4 sailors/mates, 2 cooks, 1 mechanic, 1 salon/cabin person. Everyone was nice and friendly. About 3 pairs ended up being insta-buddies, the rest came with a buddy. One guy on sidemount, others conventional setup. Experience ranged from 60-ish dives to 1700, with an average of maybe 300. We were split in 3 groups, two guides had 6 people, and our guide, Mandu, had 8, and pretty much stayed like that for the whole trip. Nitrox is through a membrane to 30%.

Itinerary (total of 19 dives)

The schedule was pretty taxing; we woke up at 5:30 and were in the water usually by 6:30. Then it was eat-sleep-dive for the rest of the day with the dinner at 20:00. About half of the dives were zodiac-to-boat; others boat-to-boat.

Day 1​
  • Arrival, transfer to boat, check-in, security briefing, dinner
Day 2​
  • Check-out dive, did not capture the location
  • Dive at Abu Nuhas
Day 3​
  • Dive at the wreck of the Marcus (Abu Nuhas)
  • Dive at the wreck of the Ghiannis ‘D’ (Abu Nuhas)
  • Dive at the wreck of the Dunraven (Beacon Rock)
  • Night dive at Beacon Rock
Day 4​
  • Dive at the Shark & Yolanda Reefs (Ras Mohamed)
  • Dive at the Jackfish Alley (Ras Mohamed)
  • Dive at the Thistlegorm (outside plus 2 quick penetrations)
Day 5​
  • Dive at the Thistlegorm (cargo holds)
  • Dive at the Thistlegorm (outside plus 1 penetration)
  • Dive at the Small Gubal Island
  • Night dive at the Small Gubal Island
Day 6​
  • Dive at the Siyol Island
  • Dive at Umm Gammor
  • Dive at the Small Giftun
  • Night dive at the Small Giftun
Day 7​
  • Yet another dive at the Small Giftun 😊
  • Dive at Gota Abu Ramada
Day 8​
  • Breakfast, transfer to the airport
The big disappointment for me was 0 sharks. One of the divers claimed that he saw a longimanus, the other that she saw a tiger. Neither report is confirmed by anyone else. Other than that, large variety of marine life and pretty healthy looking reefs for the most part. The highlights of the trip were - SS Thistlegorm, obviously, and a 4 minute observation of a moray eel and two large jackfish hunting as a team at one of the night dives. The gorgonia(?) corals are pretty damn spectacular.

The Elephant in the Room

The sinking of the Sea Story was discussed by divers in passing. A member of the crew, in a personal conversation, has mentioned that he is a survivor but can't talk about it, so I'll leave it at that.

Scubaboard

No one that I asked except for my dive buddy was a member. Go figure.

Conclusion

All in all it was a very good trip. As usual, the company makes or breaks a trip, and ours was fun people. Personally, if I have to make a trip down there from the US again, I'll make sure it is the BDE route. SS Thistlegorm was awesome, but I like sharks and missed them this trip. Other than that, kudos to the Tillis crew and the Dive Pro operation for making it a great and memorable experience.
 

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Ah, one more little detail, and I hope it doesn't come across as inappropriate. On one dive towards the end of the trip I have noticed an unusual number (about a dozen) of young good looking women in the water from a boat called "Emperor Superior". Then on the flight from Hurghada to Zurich I saw a group of girls wearing scuba themed clothing. I asked them and lo and behold it was them. We had a fun conversation and it sure was special to run into someone first in the water and then in the skies :cheers:
 
A couple of details that I would add are that the lifejackets provided in the cabins are the recreational type that you would use out on a lake, they were pretty small. They had lights attached, who knows how long the batteries would last. I wouldn’t want to be floating in 4-5 foot swells with one of them. Also there were no lifejackets available in any other areas, dive deck, salon, sun deck so if something happened when you weren’t in your room you would be out of luck.

All said, if I return to the Red Sea I will have a better idea what to look for and ask before booking, although I doubt I will return. In contrast to @Scuba-74 I thought all the coral on the reefs was dead or in bad shape, one German diver commented that some looked like the moon, accurate. There were abundant tiny fish but not many small to medium, maybe a seasonal thing?
 
Most of the people that I was diving with over the weekend are regulars with Emperor Dive boats in the Red Sea and Raja Ampat.

That had nothing but good to say about this company.
 
Regarding sharks, in the itinerary you described one seldom sees any. For Longimanus definitely Elphinstone is the place to go, Brothers and Daedalus also can meet other species too. Even then, I had a couple of times we did not see even a single shark at Elphinstone, other times it was a huge WOW!!

Sure, thirty years ago (or more...) Shark Observatory in Ras Mohamad was really that- a place one could see sharks from the cliff above (you can still see the remnants of a fence and coin-operated binoculars). We used to meet black tip sharks patrolling the area between Shark Reef and Anemone city- every other dive. Last time we've seen a shark there was some twenty years ago, now it is just the name of the dive sites, but no sharks...
 
For Longimanus definitely Elphinstone is the place to go, Brothers and Daedalus also can meet other species too. Even then, I had a couple of times we did not see even a single shark at Elphinstone, other times it was a huge WOW!!

That's why we booked the BDE route initially. It was switched to the North by Dive Pro citing bad weather as the official reason.

BTW, the weather was rough at times. Last 2-3 days of the trip it was blowing pretty hard, on 2 or 3 crossings the boat rocked pretty violently. I would say that I don't want to be on that boat in stormy conditions, it didn't strike me as particularly stable.
 
That's why we booked the BDE route initially. It was switched to the North by Dive Pro citing bad weather as the official reason.

BTW, the weather was rough at times. Last 2-3 days of the trip it was blowing pretty hard, on 2 or 3 crossings the boat rocked pretty violently. I would say that I don't want to be on that boat in stormy conditions, it didn't strike me as particularly stable.
You mean crossing the strait of Gubal? It is almost always rough, lots of people get seasick while crossing...
 
You mean crossing the strait of Gubal? It is almost always rough, lots of people get seasick while crossing...

I believe so, yes. That was one of the crossings we did mid-day and it was rough. A couple of crossings we did starting around 4am weren't that bad, and last couple of days closer to Hurghada were fine too.
 
A member of the crew, in a personal conversation, has mentioned that he is a survivor but can't talk about it, so I'll leave it at that.

Yeah, leave it at that – Dive Pro, letting a victim of a highly traumatic disaster get back to work on ships just two weeks later, while apparently forbidding them from openly talking about it. What an unbelievable organization.
 

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