North or South, newish diver advice

[bvbellomo]

New diver, 30 dives, 25 in the last month in the Bahamas. If you see me posting about Komodo in other threads, it is because I'd rather go there, but everyone is telling me to see the Red Sea (or Caribbean again) first. There is a good chance I do a Red Sea trip in 2020 and Komodo in 2021, as I have family near Venice I want to visit, and my parents will be there in late May, and I can only take vacation in May or June due to work and school. I don't think my family would be too happy if I went to Indonesia exactly the same time they want me to visit and then complain I don't have the time or money to see them - but could spend a few days with them and fly to the Red Sea. They really are great people and live in a beautiful place, but I have limited ability to travel and really want another scuba trip.

I want to see lots of colorful fish and corals, I don't care too much for wrecks, luxury accommodations, and prefer to avoid crowds. I can only take 2 weeks off work, including time to see my family, and possibly a day or two in Cairo - if I go through the airport, I may as well see the pyramids.

I am confused whether I should go North or South. I read plenty of threads on people talking about better coral, less crowds and more to see - except some people say that about the North and others about the South. Some threads say St. John's is pristine and uncrowded compared to the North - vs St. Johns is boring and with just as many people crammed into a smaller area.

I am also confused whether I really need 50 dives and/or "advanced". I am PADI certified open water, but SSI certified for deep, night and perfect buoyancy - and my local dive center is SSI. I don't know if SSI has an equivalent of PADI's "advanced open water", but another specialty, 15 dives and some first aid gets me to "SSI Master Diver" which should be more than enough. It is my understanding the 50 dives is a government requirement, but some liveaboards advertise it and other's do not. Is this a big deal? I'd rather not do cheap/boring dives just to up my numbers, but that is better than getting there and having a problem when someone asks to see a log book.

 

[stepfen]

Hello,
I just came back from my first ever LoB. It was a week long trip with a chartered boat doing to the south route (Rocky, St'John's, Zabargad and Fury Shoal). Keep in mind though that since the boat was chartered, the route we did was not the one usually done by the south going LoBs.

Nevertheless, since you haven't got any replies yet, I'll try to answer some of your questions although given my limited experience (as I said that was my first and only LoB) I might be very wrong.

I want to see lots of colorful fish and corals, I don't care too much for wrecks, luxury accommodations, and prefer to avoid crowds.

I am confused whether I should go North or South.

For colorful reefs and corals the south route is the place to go. Dive after dive we had beautiful landscapes, caverns and swimthroughs. The more south we went the less crowded it was. In Rocky and Zabargad we were the only ship around for 2-3 days.
Fish life was a bit disappointing though as there is not much to see in most dives. Exception was two dives around Rockies where we saw several longimanus and witnessed a fight between dolphins and some longimanus trying to steal fish from them. That was AMAZING. Eagle rays were also spotted at least 2 other times by other members of the team (but unfortunately not me). These and few giant moray eels were all the big things we saw. Most other bigger fish unfortunately have been overfished.

Dives in general were very easy (exception is the overheads - caverns etc which can never be considered easy). We had strongish north winds (3-5bf) throughout the week, but diving was not affected because the boat would moor in protected spots. We practically didn't meet anything more than mild current in any of our dives.

From the discussions I had with fellow divers, the northern route is mostly about wrecks. Nice too, but diving there can be more challenging. Usually there are stronger currents, the wrecks are in the open sea, hence the boats can't be protected from the waves/winds etc and sites are usually much more crowded.

I can only take 2 weeks off work, including time to see my family, and possibly a day or two in Cairo - if I go through the airport, I may as well see the pyramids.

Usually these trips are 1 week long (I was told usually Thursday to Thursday) so it seems they fit in your schedule nicely.

I am also confused whether I really need 50 dives and/or "advanced". I am PADI certified open water, but SSI certified for deep, night and perfect buoyancy - and my local dive center is SSI. I don't know if SSI has an equivalent of PADI's "advanced open water", but another specialty, 15 dives and some first aid gets me to "SSI Master Diver" which should be more than enough. It is my understanding the 50 dives is a government requirement, but some liveaboards advertise it and other's do not. Is this a big deal? I'd rather not do cheap/boring dives just to up my numbers, but that is better than getting there and having a problem when someone asks to see a log book.

I can't answer these 100% accurately. In our case my buddy didn't officially have 50 dives before the trip. The organizer knew it but nobody asked to see any proof. When asked about it, the dive guides said that they can see all these during the checkout dive. Our group was ok-ish - but in other groups I saw several beginners (people walking on corals etc ) hence I guess you will be ok - just discuss any of your concerns with the organizers prior to booking.
BTW SSI has an AOW (almost) equivalent program - it's called "advanced adventurer". They are "almost" equivalent because deep and search/navigation specialties although required for AOW they are not required for SSI advanced adventurer. Hence an advanced adventurer doesn't necessarily have the deep specialty. But most operators accept them as equivalent. You can find numerous discussions on these here in SB.

I hope I've answered most of your questions.

All the best

 

[bvbellomo]

Hello,
I just came back from my first ever LoB. It was a week long trip with a chartered boat doing to the south route (Rocky, St'John's, Zabargad and Fury Shoal). Keep in mind though that since the boat was chartered, the route we did was not the one usually done by the south going LoBs.

How was it different? Different sites? Lot's of non-chartered Southern routes visit Rocky, St'John's, Zabargad and Fury Shoal.

Nevertheless, since you haven't got any replies yet, I'll try to answer some of your questions although given my limited experience (as I said that was my first and only LoB) I might be very wrong.

I really appreciate your help. I'd love to hear from someone who did Northern routes, especially non-wreck dives too.

For colorful reefs and corals the south route is the place to go. Dive after dive we had beautiful landscapes, caverns and swimthroughs. The more south we went the less crowded it was. In Rocky and Zabargad we were the only ship around for 2-3 days.
Fish life was a bit disappointing though as there is not much to see in most dives. Exception was two dives around Rockies where we saw several longimanus and witnessed a fight between dolphins and some longimanus trying to steal fish from them. That was AMAZING. Eagle rays were also spotted at least 2 other times by other members of the team (but unfortunately not me). These and few giant moray eels were all the big things we saw. Most other bigger fish unfortunately have been overfished.

How was the fish life disappointing? Just small fish? Only a few types of fishes? No fish at all?

Dives in general were very easy (exception is the overheads - caverns etc which can never be considered easy).

I am up for more challenging dives, but still concerned about enclosed spaces, mostly from others warning me how dangerous they can be. I've been in some large caves and penetrated some wrecks, including spaces narrow enough I couldn't pass without touching - all at the insistence of dive guides I was supposed to follow. I am not fat, but I am tall with broad shoulders and not built for exploring tight spaces.

We had strongish north winds (3-5bf) throughout the week, but diving was not affected because the boat would moor in protected spots. We practically didn't meet anything more than mild current in any of our dives.

From the discussions I had with fellow divers, the northern route is mostly about wrecks. Nice too, but diving there can be more challenging. Usually there are stronger currents, the wrecks are in the open sea, hence the boats can't be protected from the waves/winds etc and sites are usually much more crowded.

This is exactly what I want to avoid, although I am impressed by some of the youtube videos of Brothers.

Usually these trips are 1 week long (I was told usually Thursday to Thursday) so it seems they fit in your schedule nicely.


I can't answer these 100% accurately. In our case my buddy didn't officially have 50 dives before the trip. The organizer knew it but nobody asked to see any proof. When asked about it, the dive guides said that they can see all these during the checkout dive. Our group was ok-ish - but in other groups I saw several beginners (people walking on corals etc ) hence I guess you will be ok - just discuss any of your concerns with the organizers prior to booking.

Yikes! I never heard of anyone trying to walk on live corals. Not sure if a 50 dive requirement fixes this.

BTW SSI has an AOW (almost) equivalent program - it's called "advanced adventurer". They are "almost" equivalent because deep and search/navigation specialties although required for AOW they are not required for SSI advanced adventurer. Hence an advanced adventurer doesn't necessarily have the deep specialty. But most operators accept them as equivalent. You can find numerous discussions on these here in SB.

I hope I've answered most of your questions.

All the best

SSI advanced adventurer is a tasting menu for SSI master diver - 1 dive in different specialties. I thought that the PADI advanced diver was completely different and had more difficult open water certification type tests - but now that I look, it is much the same as SSI. At this point, I'd probably just do master diver, as the cost and time would be almost the same.

I am somewhat unhappy with the certification requirements. Not that it is just an excuse to sell something - most of the courses are reasonably priced given the instructor time required. But I could get there with irrelevant specialties like "Altitude", "Dry Suit" and "Ice Diving". I've probably done everything required for "Wreck", "Drift", and "Boat" but didn't do them as part of a course. And I can pad my dive log with a few easy local dives to get to 50. Absolutely none of this will help me. If a dive operator (or the Egyptian government) wants experience with strong currents, caverns, etc - they should ask for that. I understand most of what people need is comfort and buoyancy control, and that is hard to ask for, but wanting a certain number of dives and irrelevant specialties isn't the answer.

 

[diveUAE]

We did the “Classic north and wrecks” in August last year.

My sister in law had less than 30 dives, when we started, but was AOWD. Her buoyancy was far from perfect (for me it was like walking with a balloon), but got better during the week.

As far as I know it’s only Thislegorm in the north, where you need to be AOWD and have minimum 30 dives (government requirements). She did make it to 30, before we got to Thislegorm and successfully did 2 dives out of 3 (she did not want to do the night dive and did not penetrate the ship, so her and I had 2 “outside” dives)

It would be a shame to miss out on Thislegorm, if you choose the North! (I’m not a big fan of wrecks, but this one is truly special).

We went with King Snefro fleet, boat and food was great, so was one of the dive guides (the other one less so).

We had amazing viz, saw lots of healthy, colourful corals and millions of fish. However we did not see one single shark or big ray. I really like the chance to dive both reefs and wrecks, most wrecks have become covered with corals, so it’s not like you only see the wreck

We went during Eid and saw many, many other LOB’s, but did not feel it was a problem or that dive sites were crowded. There seemed to be a system of staggering dives, so everyone had a good time. Even Thislegorm was not a big problem. (If I recall correctly there were 14 boats in that area, and 4 others were doing night dives, but 10-15 min apart, so it was not a problem at all.

I think we had 1 or 2 dives with a small current, but nothing bad.

We’ve never done the south route, but have been to Sudan, where the corals and fish life is much the same - but with hammerheads, other sharks and rays, we also saw the biggest school of (giant) barracudas I’ve ever seen- think millions, reaching from 35 m deep to the surface.

However the diving was much, much more challenging (we’re DM’s and had 300-400 dives at the time), often diving to 40 m and got into deco, so I would not recommend you go there.

From what I hear the Egypt south route is also more challenging, than the north and I’m not sure about the shark sightings in May, you would have to check.

I would say for “corals and lots of fish” you’ll like the Red Sea diving and stunning viz and I would recommend the north. In fact we did our first 3n/4d LOB there many years ago - this could maybe be a good idea for you to check out? Then you would have time for Cairo and the Pyramids (they are fantastic) and visit family.

LOB’s in the Red Sea are good value for money, you often get 4 dives a day, compared to many other destinations, where 2-3 are the norm.

If you want bigger pelagic Maldives is also reachable from Europe (check out Turkish Airlines - also for Red Sea), but when we went I found the corals mostly boring.

 

[bvbellomo]

Thanks!

I am not against pelagics, but saw lots of barracudas, reef and nurse sharks, turtles, and rays in the Bahamas. If I am traveling half way around the world, I want to see something different, and there are better sites (like Maldives, Galapagos, etc) for large pelagics.

When I picture the Red Sea, I see huge schools of anthias swimming over forests of red and yellow soft corals. Maybe that is unrealistic - when I pictured the Carribean, what came to mind was huge elkhorn Acroporas and I didn't see a single elkhorn when I was there, and was told they are rare.

I am at 35 dives, and if I get SSI Advanced or Master, I will need some dives to do that.

 

[diveUAE]

Thanks!

When I picture the Red Sea, I see huge schools of anthias swimming over forests of red and yellow soft corals. Maybe that is unrealistic
.

No, not unrealistic at all The corals were some of the best I’ve ever seen - actually only seen it better in Sipadan and Raja Ampat.

 

[CamC]

If you're not dead set on a longer liveaboard then a land-based option around Marsa Alam / Port Ghalib might be an option. EasyJet (definitely not "luxury") have a 4-hour direct flight to Marsa Alam from Venice. There are lots of good local day boat options around that area with a variety of not-too-challenging sites, and longer days trips to the likes of Elphinstone are possible. There are 3-day mini safaris (as they call LOBs in that part of the world) to the Southern sites.

You can also do an overland day trip - albeit a very long day - from Marsa Alam to Luxor, the Nile, and the Valley of the Kings, which I actually rate as a better experience than the pyramids. You could always pick up the pyramids via Cairo on the way back Stateside, just to complete the set.

 

[bvbellomo]

If you're not dead set on a longer liveaboard then a land-based option around Marsa Alam / Port Ghalib might be an option. EasyJet (definitely not "luxury") have a 4-hour direct flight to Marsa Alam from Venice. There are lots of good local day boat options around that area with a variety of not-too-challenging sites, and longer days trips to the likes of Elphinstone are possible. There are 3-day mini safaris (as they call LOBs in that part of the world) to the Southern sites.

You can also do an overland day trip - albeit a very long day - from Marsa Alam to Luxor, the Nile, and the Valley of the Kings, which I actually rate as a better experience than the pyramids. You could always pick up the pyramids via Cairo on the way back Stateside, just to complete the set.

Wow thanks! I am not sure I will go this option, but knowing I can get from Venice to Marsa Alam for 40 euros in 4 hours is huge and Hurghada is even cheaper. I don't care about Luxury, but their website could be better.

I am not opposed to land-based scuba, it just seems the liveaboards let me get more dives in fewer days for less money. I would definitely go shore based if that is not the case.

I really don't absolutely need to see the pyramids or Valley of the Kings on this trip. But if I have an extra day or so of vacation and happen to be in Cairo anyway, I will.

 

[JustSurfaceInterval]

When diving in Egypt, at least with a decent dive center, it is good practice that you have to show your Certification Card, a Medical Statement and your log book.
If you did not dive in the Red Sea in the last 6 months chances are high a check dive with a dive master will be compulsory, regardless of the number of dives.
He will ask you to show some basic skills like floating you mask, buoyancy control, using octopus, ... and then he will give you clearance or not, or with restrictions (e.g. alsway in a guided group of several people).
If you got clearance for the House Reef, you should ask if there are people looking for a buddy and join them.
There are usually the lists with boat trips somewhere on the wall where you can add your name even if alone. The guide on the boot will have the overview who needs a buddy.
Dive Center may also have requirements for specific dive spots. If unsure whether you can go, just ask.
I think i remember that max. depth is now 30 meters and deco dives are no longer allowed.

I can recommend:
Soma Bay - 48 km south of Hurghada: ORCA Dive Club Soma Bay and The Breakers Diving & Surfing Lodge with great house reef and some very nice spots 1 hour away (including the Salem Express)
Marsa Alam Area: Extra Divers Equinox and the Three Corners Equinox Hotel: 10 minutes from 6 Abu Dabab spots and 1 hour from Elphinstone (or 15 min with the early morning speedboat)

The risk with the LOB is that they all have the same routes and the same spots. We saw 10 of them at the same time in Elphinstone. That's about 200 divers in the water at the same time...
But yes, you will get more dives on your log. But is this about numbers? ;-)

 

[Christian]

The most colorful parts (soft coral) is in the North (Sinai/Strait of Tiran) and Brother islands. South is less interesting when it comes to coral, more stony coral and soft coral not as varied colorwise as Sinai. Personally I never really saw the draw with St Johns, besides that it was a "new" area 20 years ago. More wrecks in the North (Thistlegorm obviously and the wrecks of Abu Nuhas). Lots of small fish in Egypt on many reefs, but schooling fish of medium and larger size is rare (barracuda and jacks in big schools). As you move into Sudanese waters that is commonplace. Sharks are normally seen of the off shore reefs, Brother Islands, Dedalus, Elphinstone and Rocky Island. In a few other places too, but they generally give the best chances.
Summer best time for Egypt for a number of reasons where the most obvious calmer weather and tropical water temps. And contrary to common belief, it is the best time for hammerhead sightings in the Egyptian Red Sea. Don't write off wrecks completely if your main interst is color and fish--e.g. the wrecks/places I mentioned are full of color and life. Agree that the Thistlegorm is a must for any diver. With some luck (conditions) it is a phenomenal dive.
According to you being a relatively inexperienced diver, I would advice you to go in June (that was in your time frame) and do a liveaboard that do a classic Sinai/Strait of Tiran-route that includes Thistlegorm. As an alternative with diving that can be a little more demanding, Brother Islands offer inmo the best "over all" in Egypt. Has been partially closed since a year back though (no overnight staying) due tue a few shark incidents, so not a good time. Perhaps rules will change next year, no one knows right now.