Hello,
I am my wife (AOWD, 50 and 40 dives mostly in south-east Asia) would like to do a liveaboard in Egypt next year. We would like to prioritize wildlife, especially cartilaginous fish, which I guess would send us south, but we dove only one or two wrecks so far, so it would not be bad to spice things up with some wrecks as well - but not as a priority. I also like small stuff and honestly, my no.1 priority would be cephalopods, I am not too keen on (true) fish. I also do not feel like looking only at sharks for a week (but I guess that is not the case?).
I am thinking about a week aboard. We do not want a luxury cruise, we are quite content with basics, private room, working water, gluten free food option and, most importantly, good safety standard for both boat and equipment. I also read about crew stealing from cabins, so I would obviously like to avoid that, even though I still cannot imagine this being a regular thing in such a closed environment. Given our central European origin and current geopolitical situation we want to avoid Russian-filled boats at all costs. We would prefer laid-back English spoken boat, the mood we had on our LoB at Komodo was very nice. I guess we could also take a LoB with a local club from our country, but we'd prefer to do it on our own with foreign people and keep flexible schedule. We want to do decent amount of night dives (if possible, every day). Of course, in general, the more dives the better, after all that is what you pay for, but I also got the impression that dives in Egypt are quite short, maybe 35ish minutes: Is it because they are deep? Not that I'd be the best on air consumption, but if my wife gets any better, she will come up with more air than down
.
We do not have our own gear, only computers and masks, so we would need a LoB which rents the gear for their guests. Investment in our own gear is unjustifiable given how and how often we dive.
I read that the best time to visit the BDE (not that I am saying we need to do BDE) is June - September. However, my wife would also like to visit some of the historical sights (I already saw all the mains), I am thinking 2 days Luxor and 2 days Cairo, possibly a day elsewhere if convenient, for which these months are definitely not the best given the heat. But great diving is the priority, so given that, does it make sense to think about other months? We are flexible, but doing this 2nd half of May onwards mid September would be more convenient (not really dealing with the heat, though). Also, if we were to visit the sites, Sharm-al-sheikh would not be the best finishing/starting point (but I think we'd be better off south anyway).
Would you please have any tips for us - regarding gear rental, time frame, itineraries and specific boat/companies recommendations?
Thank you!
I am my wife (AOWD, 50 and 40 dives mostly in south-east Asia) would like to do a liveaboard in Egypt next year. We would like to prioritize wildlife, especially cartilaginous fish, which I guess would send us south, but we dove only one or two wrecks so far, so it would not be bad to spice things up with some wrecks as well - but not as a priority. I also like small stuff and honestly, my no.1 priority would be cephalopods, I am not too keen on (true) fish. I also do not feel like looking only at sharks for a week (but I guess that is not the case?).
I am thinking about a week aboard. We do not want a luxury cruise, we are quite content with basics, private room, working water, gluten free food option and, most importantly, good safety standard for both boat and equipment. I also read about crew stealing from cabins, so I would obviously like to avoid that, even though I still cannot imagine this being a regular thing in such a closed environment. Given our central European origin and current geopolitical situation we want to avoid Russian-filled boats at all costs. We would prefer laid-back English spoken boat, the mood we had on our LoB at Komodo was very nice. I guess we could also take a LoB with a local club from our country, but we'd prefer to do it on our own with foreign people and keep flexible schedule. We want to do decent amount of night dives (if possible, every day). Of course, in general, the more dives the better, after all that is what you pay for, but I also got the impression that dives in Egypt are quite short, maybe 35ish minutes: Is it because they are deep? Not that I'd be the best on air consumption, but if my wife gets any better, she will come up with more air than down
.We do not have our own gear, only computers and masks, so we would need a LoB which rents the gear for their guests. Investment in our own gear is unjustifiable given how and how often we dive.
I read that the best time to visit the BDE (not that I am saying we need to do BDE) is June - September. However, my wife would also like to visit some of the historical sights (I already saw all the mains), I am thinking 2 days Luxor and 2 days Cairo, possibly a day elsewhere if convenient, for which these months are definitely not the best given the heat. But great diving is the priority, so given that, does it make sense to think about other months? We are flexible, but doing this 2nd half of May onwards mid September would be more convenient (not really dealing with the heat, though). Also, if we were to visit the sites, Sharm-al-sheikh would not be the best finishing/starting point (but I think we'd be better off south anyway).
Would you please have any tips for us - regarding gear rental, time frame, itineraries and specific boat/companies recommendations?
Thank you!
