North or South, newish diver advice

[bvbellomo]

Current can be very challenging in all kinds of surprising ways. You may, for instance, lose a fin while kicking against current, and because your fin is positively buoyant (who knew?), you have to scramble to retrieve it, only to find that the current is even stronger closer to the surface, and it has pulled you away from the group. You finally retrieve your fin, you manage to put it on, but in all the chaos you’ve lost control of your buoyancy, and you’re now rising to the surface fast. You fumble for your inflator hose but can’t find it, and now you’re at the surface, in a ripping current, alone. Happened to a fellow diver in a recent Red Sea liveaboard trip (northern route, at Brothers). The diver was picked up by a zodiac, but couldn’t rejoin her group for the dive.

Btw, on the very next dive, off the same boat, I lost a fin myself in strong current. I grabbed the fin quickly and vented air from my BCD, and dragged myself across the rocky bottom, hand over hand over, until I rejoined the group. Glad I was able to do that, because I had a pretty close encounter with a thresher shark as soon as I rejoined the group.

My point being, managing strong current is about more than just being fit and kicking hard. Buoyancy control, familiarity with gear, situational awareness, and experience with task overload is just as important.

A lost fin is not something I thought about, and a scary thing in fast current. With fins, I am strong and fast, but without them, I am helpless. I never tried swimming with 1 fin, seems a good skill to learn. My fins are neutrally buoyant.

I am not saying buoyancy control, familiarity with gear, situational awareness, and experience with task overload are less important. Just that I know what to expect. Current is posted a lot on this and similar threads, and I've never been in a situation that felt 'challenging'.

 

[bvbellomo]

By the way, I wrote a detailed review of my trip to the Northern Route and Brothers, which you might find helpful, as it was my first trip to the Red Sea, and I wrote it from that perspective:

Review of First (for me) Liveaboard in Egypt: Brothers/North Route

Thanks. Yes, I have read most of the trip reports on this forum. All of the recent ones, and am digging through really old threads.

 

[bvbellomo]

In 2017 I did do south/st. Johns. My gf and i did dive for 6 months when we did the LOB like 50 dives in total when it started.
The dives where easy, shallow (apart from some wonderful drop offs) and no current. A lot of beautiful reefs and coral gardens.

In 2018 we did do the north reef and wrecks route. For me it was great because of all the wrecks. A lot of time the reefs aren’t that great when there is a wreck. On some of them there is no reef at all. If you go for fish and corals I wouldn’t advice this route.

In 2019 we did do BDE, lots of sharks, even some weird attacking behaviour why we left after 2 dives on Daedelus instead of 5/6. We did see a lot of longimanus, a few grey ones and even 2 mantas. On this route there was a lot more current many of the dives are waiting in the blue for sharks. Some nice reefs but you spend less time searching macro stuff in favour of the big stuff

For 2020 we go back to the south.

Thanks. Knowing you are going back South after a trip North says a lot. I know 'beautiful' is subjective, but am still amazed how many threads say one reef is the most beautiful in the Red Sea and other people say it isn't nearly as nice as a different reef, especially people who visited both.

I am curious what you consider attacking behavior. In a serious fight with 100kg of muscle and sharp teeth evolved to fight underwater, I'd imagine I'd live about 2 seconds. During the shark feed, I did get hit several times by sharks, in some cases violently enough it felt like being punched. But this is not attacking behavior, the sharks are hungry and curious, and know at least some humans bring food.

When I think of macro-stuff, I think really small animals that are few and far between on sandy or grassy areas that really only appeal to serious photographers. This is not what I am looking for.

 

[Tribal]

Thanks. Knowing you are going back South after a trip North says a lot. I know 'beautiful' is subjective, but am still amazed how many threads say one reef is the most beautiful in the Red Sea and other people say it isn't nearly as nice as a different reef, especially people who visited both.

I am curious what you consider attacking behavior. In a serious fight with 100kg of muscle and sharp teeth evolved to fight underwater, I'd imagine I'd live about 2 seconds. During the shark feed, I did get hit several times by sharks, in some cases violently enough it felt like being punched. But this is not attacking behavior, the sharks are hungry and curious, and know at least some humans bring food.

When I think of macro-stuff, I think really small animals that are few and far between on sandy or grassy areas that really only appeal to serious photographers. This is not what I am looking for.

We did see a shark bite towards a diver entering a Zodiac, luckily no one got injured. First thoughts was that the diver did misbehave.
Then when we where back on the boat for a while a zodiac with the DM of a another boat from the same fleet came over. One of the DMs couldn’t get out of the water for more then 30 minutes, a longimanus kept circling him. It got so bad that the DM did put his bcd in front of him as protection.
Those people make like 1000 dives a year in those waters, if they want to leave the spot because there is a crazy longimanus around then I believe them
Apart from that it was a wonderful trip with some friendly close shark encounters.

For corals I did find the south route the best by far. It’s a different kind of macro, I mean smaller fish some nudibranch lots of corals and some rare acrapora versions. I did go to Bali in 2019 as well, that was pillars with some really small stuff and nothing in between apart from sand. Lovely for me with a camera, GF did dislike it. In the one week Bali and one week Lembongan there was only one dive spot (the mangrove) that did have corals as nice as we have seen on the south route.

All this is a very personal opinion ofcourse. I’m pretty sure you will have a wonderful time wherever you decide to go.

 

[bvbellomo]

I am strongly considering:

MY BLUE MELODY - PROJECT SHARK: ROCKY- ZABARGAD & ST. JOHNS (PORT GHALIB- PORT GHALIB)

TILLIS - DEEP SOUTH SAFARI - RELAX

PRINCESS DIANA - DAEDALUS, ROCKY AND ZABARGAD (PORT GHALIB - PORT GHALIB)

I am also surprised that it doesn't appear the Tillis is even starting to be booked, or even has a confirmed schedule, while the Blue Melody is down to only a few spots, and many other liveaboards that I'd consider are already sold out.

I think I am going to limit this to liveaboards departing June 4,5,6 from Marsa Alam or June 6 from Hurghada. I still don't have the official EasyJet schedule, but I am assuming it won't change, and if it does, I will pay a little more, and possibly lose a day in Slovenia.

 

[Christian]

Blue Melody is a good choice with a great crew. Personally, not crazy about St Johns which is less colorful (soft coral in the south tends to be the same yellow/brown and more hard coral, not the vivid purple, red, pink) compared to BDE (Brothers/Dedslus/Elphinstone) or Sinai (Ras Mohamed, Ras Nasrani, Strait of Tiran+Thistlegorm). Rocky and Zabargad was a while ago for me, but former is a derp water pinnacle/reef like what you get on BDE, but less interesting inmo.

 

[scubajasonr]

I haven’t been on Blue Melody, but have done a couple of trips on Blue Horizon and both trips were very good. I think all the Blueotwo Project Shark trips have Elke as one of the guides. Elke is a proper shark expert and great to dive with if you like shark encounters. I haven’t been on the other two, but I did see Princess Diana at Port Ghalib in the summer and my 10 year old daughter picked it out of about 15 boats in harbour as the one she would like to go on - not sure if that really helps your decision!

 

[bvbellomo]

Blue Melody is much more expensive (both compared to other liveaboard and other Blue Melody trips), and the only one mostly booked (8 spots left) so my choice will probably be made by me waiting until the price goes down or if it fills up. I am also hoping EasyJet publishes their schedule. Flights are the same every week from now through March, but knowing for certain this will continue into June would be reassuring.

Elke would be a mixed blessing. I'd really appreciate the chance to dive with a marine biologist as a guide, but also our itinerary and dive plans will revolve around her priorities (sharks other pelagics) which might not be the same as mine (corals, colorful fish, interesting critters), and more interesting discussions out of the water might leave less time for being in the water. I am not against shark encounters, especially with new types of sharks, but I just got back from 30 dives that had a shark on almost every dive, including close encounters with large numbers of large sharks. I am looking for something different - otherwise I will have 55 logged dives after this trip, with 45 having sharks as the highlight.

All 3 have many positive reviews and people saying they'd go back again, but for different reasons.

Is your 10 year old daughter a tech diver? Princess Diana is the same company running the Nouran and Tala, which have many good posts on this forum, with scooters, and monkey diving and tech diving experts. There expertise is again a mixed blessing, as a newer recreational diver in a BCD might not get the same attention. They also want 40+ dives to "join the trip with no limitations", I am at 35, but really have no other reason to do 5 cold and boring dives in Ohio when I am really too busy to be diving.

I like how the Tillis is locally owned by an involved owner, and advertises 20-24 dives vs 19-21 on the other 2. But the itinerary doesn't specifically include Elphinstone, Daedalus, Rocky, or Zabargad and seems a lot less varied. However if I do hope I get to do another Red Sea trip another year to see Brothers, which will probably include these sites.

 

[scubajasonr]

Is your 10 year old daughter a tech diver? .

LOL. Not yet, just JOWD with about 20 dives. First liveaboard planned for her in summer 2021.

Which ever route/boat you pick I am sure you will have a great trip.

 

[bvbellomo]

Just wanted to post an update as plans have changed. EasyJet published their schedule and isn't flying Venice to Marsa Alam in April, August or anytime in between. I understand summer slows down, but would think April was one of the busier months - oh well.

That leaves me with the best option of flying out of Ljubljana to Cairo late at night on June 2nd (June 6th is also an option, and maybe earlier in May). That gives me a few extra days in either Cairo, Marsa Alam, Hurgahada, Sharm El Sheikh. If I spend those days diving, I could get my 50 dives and do BDE.

So I lost half my Slovenia trip, spend $300 more, but have a lot more flexibility. Of course this flexibility makes it even harder to decide.