Off-season Red Sea Liveaboard

[frnak]

Hi all.

I'm arranging a Red Sea liveaboard for a group of divers. It will be the first liveaboard for all of us (except if our instructor tags along), and we're all relatively inexperienced. We are planning to do plenty of dives this summer and early next winter in preparation for it though, and getting our AOW before we go.

Can anyone comment on the conditions in the northern Red Sea in January? I've gathered that's an off-season month, but I'd love to hear first hand what the disadvantages are.

I'd also love to get some recommendations for boats down there. We've mainly been looking at Sharm el Sheikh on divetheworldliveaboards DOT com (not allowed to post links yet)

Any comments are greatly appreciated

 

[Dom@DiveAdvice]

January can be relatively cool, windy and possible inclement weather, but if you are lucky it can be perfect conditions with blue skies, warm, little wind and calm seas. Water is stiull cool with low to mid 70's (22-23C) so 5mm with hood and bootees is a must. You just have to take your chances with the weather but for your first liveaboard the Red Sea couldn't be a better choice - it has incredible ship wrecks, some of the most beautiful soft and hard corals found anywhere and a healthy marine life. Not a lot of big stuff in the north but you won't be worried about that, you'll just be be blown away by the viz, the colors, the wrecks and the image of the desert and mountains that suround you. I am sure that divetheworldliveaboards do a great job as they do represent some great boats around the world but I don't know their personal knowledge of the Red Sea. If you want to be in touch with some who specialise just on the Red Sea, you may also like to contact some of the following - Sinai Divers who have been there the longest - nearly 30 years since I first dived with them (and they had been there a few years before that) -they own all the boast they sell. MY Rosetta is a nice family run operation from the UK does a fine job with their own boat, and Tony Backhurst in the UK has great boats and the flights to go with them. There are several others and happy to put you in touch but probably better offline. You can find me at dom@diveadvice.com

 

[TSandM]

I don't know about conditions in January, but October was just about perfect

I would give an enormous recommendation to the boat we used -- Red Sea Explorers. It is not, perhaps, the most luxurious boat out there, but it was quite comfortable. The food was plentiful and good. But most of all, the diving was fantastic. Faisal has a well-trained deck crew who work hard to make things easy for the guests (and we felt like guests in someone's home, not paying passengers). The dive guides are SUPERB divers and extremely nice and enthusiastic people. And you have an opportunity to try things like scooters! I also thought the price was very reasonable -- we paid about $1400 for a week's diving on air, but of course, we paid for Nitrox (and doubles and helium and scooters, but that's another story). I don't think you can have more fun on a dive boat than we had, and the attention to safety was excellent, as well.