And if you look for colorful, generally, Sinai and the Strait of Tiran (+Brothers Visa bild - "Numidia" - Fotosidan ) offers more color than any other area in Egypt. As a bonus Sinai (in dive area terms Sharm El Sheikh) has been very slow since 2015. There has bern no charters from Europe or Russia due to flight bans. Brits are opening up next year, so hurry up before the rest of Europe+ Russia return and it goes bananas again.
North or South, newish diver advice
- Thread starter bvbellomo
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JustSurfaceInterval
Contributor
Sorry, but one question: 4 or 5 dives in 1 day on live aboard???? where is that usual?
To go there may become one of the points on my bucket list.
OP
bvbellomo
Contributor
We did 1 dive the first day, 5 dives the 2nd day, 4 dives on days 3,4,5 and 2 dives on the last day - this was in the Bahamas. Most of the Red Sea liveaboards seem to be advertising 4 dives per day.
OP
bvbellomo
Contributor
How does everyone book these so far ahead? Many of the liveaboards I would consider are already booked! Airlines in some cases (such as EasyJet) haven't published routes, and the major airlines charge more to book this far ahead. Do I have to just book a trip now and take it on faith I will find a flight? If I wait until I can book my flight, everything will be sold out.
Get a flight to London. Book a package trip with e.g Blue O Two. If you communicate in any other European language, German, French, Italian ... there are dive charters flying out of Paris, Rome, Munich too, but I’m not really on top of companies that are good there. Flight, transfer, dive package tutti... Don’t have to worry. They take care of you.
Yes, that's how you do it.
OP
bvbellomo
Contributor
I sent Blue O Two an e-mail. I don't really speak anything fluently except English - I have a little Slovenian, Italian, Spanish, but prefer to work with companies that speak English - which seems to be most of Europe now.
Not sure, why EasyJet does not show flights for May/June 2020 as other carriers will show flights 1 year ahead (our flights to Bali in July 2020 are booked), you can book your LOB first, then monitor flights/prices and book, when price is good.
You could also try “diving specials”, they’re based in Germany, but no problem booking in English.
We have used them for Red Sea, Indonesia and our upcoming trip to Maldives and been very happy.
You can find them on Facebook as well with great deals right now.
You could also try “diving specials”, they’re based in Germany, but no problem booking in English.
We have used them for Red Sea, Indonesia and our upcoming trip to Maldives and been very happy.
You can find them on Facebook as well with great deals right now.
scubajasonr
Contributor
I have done six Red Sea liveaboards in the past - taking in most of the routes available.
For someones first liveaboard in the Red Sea I would recommend the Northern 'Wrecks & Reef' routes. This route shows the variety the Red Sea has to offer, and there are a fantastic mix of dive sites available. You see a mixture of wall dives, reef dives and wrecks. The wrecks aren't just lumps of metal in the sea, they are all covered in coral and marine life. The wrecks vary in style from the remains of old wooden ships to modern cargo ships. Most of the wrecks have very easy swim throughs available, but if you don't want to do this, it is easy to miss this out and just stay on the out side. The coral in the area is amazing.
I got back a couple of weeks ago from a Wrecks & Reef trip, we were on a boat with a total mix of experience. I think previous number of dives ranged from 25 to 3000+, everyone enjoyed the diving. There was a lot of freedom on the boat, the less experienced divers would generally choose to dive a guide, while the more experienced divers went unguided. You are unlikely to see sharks in the north, but we were lucky to see a couple of black tip reef sharks and a bowmouth guitar fish (never seen one of those before) near Sharm. The Thistlegorm dive were fantastic (I first dived this wreck in 2004) as is normal now a days the boat had lots of large batfish hanging around. For all our dives on the Thistlegorm there there was a large shoal of sardine type fish hanging just above the boat, they had attracted quite a few blue fin trevally who spent their time cruising around hunting the sardines - best safety stop I have ever had was watching all this happening while holding onto the shot line. Areas of the wreck were covered in anthea fish.
The BDE route is great too, I have done this a couple of times. I would say that more experience is needed on this route due to strong currents and deep water. We have had some fairly challenging conditions there in the past, although I have have also been there with no current or waves. On this route the dives are all fairly similar in being deep wall dives, although you chance of seeing big things is much higher. Also some amazing coral formations.
The Northern route also has the advantage of no overnight crossings. I have had a few rough crossings to the off shore islands.
They only disappointing dives on the Northern route can be some of the night dives, often these are just in the sheltered area where the boats has moored for the night. Saying that we did great night dives on The Barge and Thistlegorm. On the last trip I did 20 of the advertised 20 dives, just missing one of the night dives.
For someones first liveaboard in the Red Sea I would recommend the Northern 'Wrecks & Reef' routes. This route shows the variety the Red Sea has to offer, and there are a fantastic mix of dive sites available. You see a mixture of wall dives, reef dives and wrecks. The wrecks aren't just lumps of metal in the sea, they are all covered in coral and marine life. The wrecks vary in style from the remains of old wooden ships to modern cargo ships. Most of the wrecks have very easy swim throughs available, but if you don't want to do this, it is easy to miss this out and just stay on the out side. The coral in the area is amazing.
I got back a couple of weeks ago from a Wrecks & Reef trip, we were on a boat with a total mix of experience. I think previous number of dives ranged from 25 to 3000+, everyone enjoyed the diving. There was a lot of freedom on the boat, the less experienced divers would generally choose to dive a guide, while the more experienced divers went unguided. You are unlikely to see sharks in the north, but we were lucky to see a couple of black tip reef sharks and a bowmouth guitar fish (never seen one of those before) near Sharm. The Thistlegorm dive were fantastic (I first dived this wreck in 2004) as is normal now a days the boat had lots of large batfish hanging around. For all our dives on the Thistlegorm there there was a large shoal of sardine type fish hanging just above the boat, they had attracted quite a few blue fin trevally who spent their time cruising around hunting the sardines - best safety stop I have ever had was watching all this happening while holding onto the shot line. Areas of the wreck were covered in anthea fish.
The BDE route is great too, I have done this a couple of times. I would say that more experience is needed on this route due to strong currents and deep water. We have had some fairly challenging conditions there in the past, although I have have also been there with no current or waves. On this route the dives are all fairly similar in being deep wall dives, although you chance of seeing big things is much higher. Also some amazing coral formations.
The Northern route also has the advantage of no overnight crossings. I have had a few rough crossings to the off shore islands.
They only disappointing dives on the Northern route can be some of the night dives, often these are just in the sheltered area where the boats has moored for the night. Saying that we did great night dives on The Barge and Thistlegorm. On the last trip I did 20 of the advertised 20 dives, just missing one of the night dives.
scubajasonr
Contributor
Other bits I have thought about:
If you aren't already qualified in nitrox I would suggest gaining that qualification before you go. The diving on any of these routes is fairly intense, and generally at a depth that suits nitrox. With air is is fairly easy to run out of no deco time. Nitrox is often free, or at a fairly reasonable cost. You said you already have deep. Apart from those two I would suggest just getting diving experience before worrying about more courses.
If you speak English you won't find any language problems on most of the liveaboards. For the Egyptian dive guides English tends to be their second language. I have dived at a few German owned dive shops around Marsa Alam, and they will hold the briefings in English rather than German.
If you aren't already qualified in nitrox I would suggest gaining that qualification before you go. The diving on any of these routes is fairly intense, and generally at a depth that suits nitrox. With air is is fairly easy to run out of no deco time. Nitrox is often free, or at a fairly reasonable cost. You said you already have deep. Apart from those two I would suggest just getting diving experience before worrying about more courses.
If you speak English you won't find any language problems on most of the liveaboards. For the Egyptian dive guides English tends to be their second language. I have dived at a few German owned dive shops around Marsa Alam, and they will hold the briefings in English rather than German.
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