Hey guys,
Signed up to the community as I was investigating my first liveaboard and trying to plan as much as I could to best prepare for the experience. Wanted to give back by doing a trip report.
Preparation:
Prior to trip
Trip itself
Signed up to the community as I was investigating my first liveaboard and trying to plan as much as I could to best prepare for the experience. Wanted to give back by doing a trip report.
Preparation:
- Information is power and safety
- Signed up to SB
- Lots of content on YouTube / Instagram (especially if you can find the boat that you'll be boarding)
- Certifications
- Already had my AOW
- Becomae clear I would need the Nitrox certification to fully enjoy the trip so got that squared off before but most Liveaboards seem to offer the course
- Buying vs. renting
- From looking through the forum and given I was pretty sure this would be my first of many Liveaboards, I opted to buy most of my equipment except for my BCD as I had a hard time gauging the consequences of choosing one style vs. another
- In the end, happy to have waited, I'll be opting for a wing BCD as that will allow me to evolve to Tech diving in the future, works for side mounts and has a back plate which allows to reduce the weights on the belt for me (quite big dude, with a 15L steel tank, still needed 6-7kg on the belt)
- Regulator: per my discussion (check profile) on SB, wanted something that could handle Egypt, less clean environments but also cold water as I wanted to keep an open mind for the future. My set up is: 2x G260 and MK17
- Wetsuit: was initially sold a 3mm (would have been way too cold in march for a 3mm in Egypt) had to buy a second wetsuit and found Beuchat to be the best fit for me - 184cm, 105kg though quite muscular so finding the right brand wasn't as obvious. They have these M - Wide, Large - Wide sizes that allows both height and weight to work. Didn't seem to fit correctly in most of the traditional brands.
- Fins: probably the only one I got 'wrong', I opted for closed fins, and quickly realised I was the only one of the 31 divers, with a closed fins format. All had open styled fins which could be worn with 3mm / 5mm boots. I never had any issues and my extremities don't get cold easily so faced no challenges.
- Masks: brought 2 pairs with me, I did the chemical burning with toothpaste prior to the trip but waited to be on the boat with someone more experienced to do the lighter burning.
- Accessories:
- Opted to get a dive knife
- Had plenty of spare hooks just in case (ended up being pretty useful for torch, camera, knife, DSMB)
- DSMB (didn't want to have to rent one for half the cost of the DSMB on amazon)
- Lamp: Was pretty skeptical but I bought a Chinese made lamp for $40 (vs. $40 for weekly renting) - gave it a try and worked out, so any dives going forward with this lamp is now a positive $ impact
- Camera: Bought a new DJI Action 5 for the trip as my GoPro 9 kept corrupting my SD cards and deleting my footage whenever I accidentally pressed the quick capture button
- Camera is great though files are always quite blue heavy (I probably just need to figure out on my own how to edit this but wanted to avoid doing any post production video editing)
- From looking through the forum and given I was pretty sure this would be my first of many Liveaboards, I opted to buy most of my equipment except for my BCD as I had a hard time gauging the consequences of choosing one style vs. another
- Choosing the destination:
- I only had 10 dives in my log book when I planned my trip and had my AOW certification
- I wanted a mix of reef / wrecks / big fish / luxury-ish trip all the whilst being affordable ( >$60-65 per dive)
- Was hesitating between Egypt and Maldives
- Egypt has a variety of dives for beginners including fun wrecks and reefs to more advanced routes (BDE) and felt I would regret not being able to do the more fun routes in the Maldives ( required 35+ dives)
- I decided to do the Northern Route ( >10 dives required - allowed to avoid complete newbies but allowed me to also squeeze in) - plenty of wrecks and reefs, no night cruising so calmer experience on the boat
- I was over cautious and booked flights one day prior to boarding and one day post trip
- Hurghada is not a fun town to be in with nothing to do - should have picked tickets arriving on the day and departing on the day of the end
- I booked through Liveaboard.com
- Found them so-so, both on customer support answers and on speed / accuracy of setting things up
- I booked Sea Breeze - Ocean Lovers
- Sundeck Suite - Solo Occupancy (yes I paid the extra $ to be alone in my room as I am a heavy snorer and didn't want to feel uneasy about going into my own room and ruining someone else's trip)
Prior to trip
- Information is power, well there is lots of information one SB, including all the info about accidents in the Red Sea
- Slightly freaked out as read all this 2-3 weeks prior to travelling and became apprehensive
- Decided to message a few SB folks who had been on the same boat and was quite comforted by their experience
- Additionally messaged the operator to get extra comfort and the answers were well thought through - we discussed 3 topics:
- Recent accidents: most boats the drowned were caused by initial 3 decker boats being added a 4th deck which shifts there center of gravity and in windy situations flip over
- Fire protocols (there was a boat accident the week before I departed, with a ship sinking in Port Ghalib): well equipped boat (many sensors) with only one charging station (no outlets in the rooms to minimise risks)
- Additional protocols / tools: they had ENOS onboard, which is carried by each buddy team to be able to track you if you need assistance. Life jackets in the room.
Trip itself
- Boat
- Was a recent build (2023), locally built in Egypt
- Boat was modern and comfortable, there were 4 decks
- We mostly hung out on the sundeck, as it was spacious and the most sheltered from the wind (was quite windy through out the trip)
- There's a Jaccuzi on the deck but honestly no one used it, it needs to be filled up once the boat is stationary and the water isn't heated I believe
- The Main deck is were the useful stuff happened
- Diving stations
- You get allocated your slot upon arrival
- Saloon where all the briefings were
- Breakfast / Lunch / Dinners
- Honestly I expected mediocre food and was very positively surprised by the food served onboard ! I expected to lose weight on the trip but that didn't happen sadly
- Diving stations
- Room are comfortable (my experience might be slightly biased as I was alone)
- AC worked without any issues
- Rooms were cleaned every day with a change of towel every two days I believe
- The whole trip was a well oiled machine, everything ran on time and was very pleasant
- Not what I had expected knowing a few things about the Egyptian culture
- Crew
- Everyone was super nice and always helpful, looking to maximise your experience
- The crew were always helping with your equipment between helping you suit up, to assisting you with fins, bringing refreshments post dives
- Honestly these guys work hard and it was particularly tough for them as we were in the middle of Ramadan and they couldn't eat nor drink
- Diving
- The northern route was a great route to help pile out some dives, see a bunch of wrecks and reefs
- We were divided up into 4 groups for the 31 guests
- More advanced divers went with the two more experienced guides
- One group for those doing padi courses
- One AOW group (mine) with a great guide (Ahmed though I don't think he's a regular on the boat)
- Overall the wrecks were great with a special wow for the SS Thistlegorm which is an underwater museum
- The briefings were detailed, well explained and focused on safety
- The reefs were cool but slightly disappointed by the state of the corals and the depth of fish variety
- Ras Mohammed had wonderful reefs ! Glad this place is as protected as it is
- Overall was awesome but felt a bit hungry for more; we may have been unlucky but we only saw one turtle on the whole trip, no sharks, no dolphins, small rays, a few napoleons, a few squids, 2 torpedo fish, 1 crocodile fish, a bunch of nudibranch
- Daily schedule looked like this:
- 5:30 Wake up
- 6:00 Briefing 1
- 6:30 Dive 1
- 8:00 Breakfast
- 9:30 Briefing 2
- 10:00 Dive 2
- 12:00 Lunch
- 13:00/13:30 Briefing 3
- 14:00 Dive 3
- 17:00 Snack
- 18:00 Briefing 4
- 18:30 Dive 4 (night)
- 20:00 Diner
- Divers (Guests)
- Guest were relatively young, between 25-50 for the wide majority with nationalities being mainly Austrians, Swiss, Germans, French and a few others (mostly europeans)
- Fun group to dive with, not sure the partying was wild given the 4 dives a day and the 5:30am wake up, most of us went to bed around 10:30-11pm
