It is not hard to arrange a safari in Sudan - if you can get a group of divers together. You'll need 6-12 divers depending on what ship you want to charter. I can reccomend the italian ship Don Questo - just got home from a 14-day safari yesterday. They provided a service which I have not seen in Sudan since the swedish SY Amorina sailed sudanese waters.
http://www.italiamo.it/sudandiving
You can also arrange a trip via Klaus Melzer on Spirosub in München, Gernmany:
www.spirosub.com
Or britishbased divingworld:
www.divingworld.co.uk
Pictures from this years safari is coming up in a couple of weeks.
And - you guys who want a trip report from southern Egypt with
some piucures, mail me. Here's the text only version:
Egyptian Offshore Dive Safari
July 2000
By Christian Karlsson
Brother Islands, Deadalus Reef, Zabargad and Rocky Island in the Egyptian Red Sea, the so called offshore islands, have never been heavily dived since they are quite remote locations. On top of that, they have also been totally out of bounds for more than two years, and it wasn't until last winter they started to open up for diving again. This time as Marine Parks with fixed moorings and a set of criterions for diving them (boats must be of a certain caliber and get a license, divers must have a certain degree of experience, there's a marine park fee to be paid and rules of how to behave inside the parks are strict).
During the closed years, the offshore islands reached a mythical status among divers. Especially when it comes to big fish like sharks. So it was a very excited group of divers boarding the M/Y Royal Emperor on a hot night in early July. We were looking forward to a 14-day diving extravaganza, visiting these exciting, not so much dived, shark-infested reefs.
Brother Islands (Il Akhawein)
After a checkdive in the Hurghada area and a full night sailing southeast, out to sea, we arrived at the Brother Islands. Big Brother is a rocky 400 meter long, and maybe 150 meters wide, island with a manned 19:th century lighthouse on it, built by the British. About a kilometer south of Big Brother lays Little Brother, which optimistically could be called an island it is not more than a rock. Both of them have walls going straight down to big depths. The surrounding waters are more than 1000 meters deep. There is almost always one, two meter waves, the currents are often stiff and sometimes roaring. If the wind picks up only a little bit, this place is a skippers nightmare. Conditions that can be demanding for the diver, but really idealistic for coral growth, fish and especially big pelagic animals.
We wanted sharks, and we did see sharks. Lots of them. Personally I saw six different species of shark: white tip reef shark, grey reef shark, thresher shark, scalloped hammerhead, silky sharks and an oceanic white tip shark. Some other divers also saw a great hammerhead on Big Brother.
My favorite dive spot on Brother Islands is the north point of Little Brother. Here I had (I think) the best dive of the trip one early morning.
The current was medium strong, coming from northeast going southwest. A fairly fit swimmer could go against it for a short period of time. The visibility was great at 25-30 meters. We fought the current to get to the northeast corner and when we got there, we just hung on to a rock. About 8-10 grey reef sharks patrolled the waters from 35 meters all the way up to a shallow 15. Some of them were the fattest, biggest greys I've ever seen. They had no problem at all coming close to us. Three or four white tip reef sharks cruised next to the reef, in between the coral blocks. Thousands of fusiliers swarmed of the wall with giant jacks and lonely barracudas doing sudden strikes into the clouds of fish. Two scalloped hammerhead sharks cruised forth and back at the edge of visibility suddenly they came closer. One of them was a sturdy 3 meter animal, the other one a bit smaller, but still an impressive 2-2.5 meters. They came within 4-5 meters several times, behaving bold, clearly interested in the bubble-blowing things stuck to the reef wall. There was so much going on it was almost unbelievable. When the time came to ascend, we simply let go and traveled with the current around the northern face to the western, sheltered side of Little Brother. The boat was moored to the south and we gently swam back in the shallows, enjoying schools of snapper, a turtle, moray eels, breathtaking coral and other smaller reef fish. Suddenly a 3 meter manta ray appeared. We swam out to him/her and he/she turned around and stayed for a minute or two before disappearing out to sea again.
Other exciting dives were the afternoon "silky dives". Usually two or three silky sharks showed up around the boat in the afternoon. That's when we jumped into the water and took a steady grip on the anchor line on ten meters and just hung there, swaying in the strong current with a group of sleek open ocean predators swimming around us in circles. We all had aching necks after those dives. An oceanic white tip shark also entered the scene on one dive.
Other rare treats were the Mola Mola, also called sunfish, which some of the divers had the pleasure to swim with for a brief moment. And on Little Brothers south side is a fantastic fan coral garden, the corals are huge. But there is often tricky down currents.
Off the reef, large tuna gathered, sometimes with grey reef sharks sneaking behind the schools. On Big Brother there are also two wrecks, the Aida and the Numibia. Both offer very fine diving with easy penetration, lots of marine life and wonderful soft corals. Especially the Numibia wreck, which is a shallower dive than Aida, has unbelievable soft coral. Some of the cooler things on the Aida, is the big cloud of glass fish that totally engulfs you when entering the wreck.
It was dives like that who made us return to Brother Islands at the end of the trip, ending up spending a total of six days on these wonderful reefs. But there are also some not so brilliant things about the Brothers. During our visit, there were almost always one-four boats moored at the same island. It was no problem to be four boats on Big Brother, but Little Brother is too small. Three boats are really the maximum for safe mooring. With fewer boats it is also easy to avoid bumping into other divers under water. Hopefully the Egyptian government will enforce stricter rules on the number of boats visiting Brothers at the same time.
Deadalus Reef (Abu El Kizan)
After an evening and a night motoring south, and also a little bit further East, we arrived at Deadalus Reef, which is probably the most isolated reef in the entire Red Sea. It is a circular reef, about 500 meters in diameter and has walls going straight down on all sides to great depths, with the exception for a plateau to the south and some smaller shelves here and there. From now on, our boat was totally alone, we didn't see any other dive boats until we arrived at Elphinstone Reef, several days later. On top of Deadalus Reef sits a manned lighthouse, also built in the 19:th century by the British like the one on Big Brother. We were blessed with very gentle conditions. There was no wind, the current was light and we had very good visibility - more than 30 meters. But it is easy to see that this reef can be a real deal in rougher conditions.
All around the reef we encountered a lot of grey reef sharks. To the north, me and my buddy had our highlight on this reef as we ran in to six hammerheads. It is always fascinating to see those strangely shaped predators and I get equally happy each time. There were lots of pelagic action all around with hunting jacks and tuna, trying to catch smaller schooling reef fish. I especially recall swimming next to an extremely large, tight ball of fusiliers, trying to escape two very aggressive giant jacks.
Substantial parts of the reef are covered in mustard soft coral, big napoleons swam lazily up and down the walls and massive schools of surgeon fish and flute fish are also a part of this beautiful and almost undived place. The flute fish lined up in a funny, uniformly way in front of the jetty, leading to the lighthouse. Some of the other divers encountered a big thresher shark on the south plateau and also on the western side. On the northwestern side of the reef is a big, very impressive garden of anemones. Some divers also had a distant encounter with a large manta ray on the eastern side of the reef. Another highlight was a quick snorkel-adventure with a small school of bottlenose dolphins that initially showed some interest in us. This is truly a spectacular reef offering some exciting, untouched and uncrowded diving.
Rocky Island & Zabargad
After another nights motoring, we finally reached the southern outpost in Egyptian diving - Rocky Island. This is not really an island, only a small rock with nothing on it. It's situated in very deep water and has steep walls on all sides (sound familiar?) close to the Sudanese border.
We had very calm conditions when we visited Rocky. The surface was more or less like a mirror. Rocky Island is famous for its sharks - there is a small shelf on the southeast corner at 25 meter which prior has been used for shark feedings, which is now prohibited. I have never tried that activity, but one of my friends did in 1994, on Rocky, and I have seen the video. It
shows quite a large number of sharks - very aggressive - coming within half a meter.
Anyway, we didn't have any baksheesh (Arabian for gift) to the sharks, which of course would lower their interest in us, but we still had good hopes to see some of the gentle predators. We didn't have to wait long. Only a couple of minutes into the first dive, on our way to the "shark-balcony", a 3 meter hammerhead came close to inspect.
The current wasn't that bad, so we managed to hover over the shelf, behind a small rock. A couple of grey reef sharks slowly cruised the deeper waters, one of them came closer to see if we had something to offer. A big napoleon also glided up and down the wall. On other dives we encountered a giant manta ray and more hammerheads. On the western side there are small caves.
One time I entered a cave that I clearly saw was leading up to another small opening, placed next to my buddy. My thought was to swim through the cave, stick my head out and do a little joke on my buddy. So I did, and my buddy pointed at me with big eyes, seeming to enjoy my little gag. Then I discovered that my buddy wasn't pointing at me, she was pointing at a huge moray eel, having its sharp teeth only a couple of decimeters behind my neck. To get out fast, I considered trying to exit through the small opening, which of course was a bad alternative. Instead I slowly and carefully went back the way I came fins first. What can I say? I succeeded in entertaining my buddy.
Besides the southeast corner, which has got dense fish life and good coral growth, the walls are not as spectacular as the ones on Brother Islands or Deadalus Reef. And it doesn't seem to be quite the shark festival it used to be (probably due to a disturbed ecosystem caused by the shark feedings or maybe fishing). But if a days diving give you a giant manta ray, a couple of hammerheads and some grey reef sharks, it would be wrong to not say that Rocky still offers world class diving.
About one kilometer northwest of Rocky Island is Zabargad. It's a much larger island with a fringing reef surrounding it. A long time ago, Zabargad was used for mining, but today, the only action on the island is delivered by turtles, birds and occasional visits from the military.
First, we dived on the southern part, where a sandy shelf stretches out from the fringing reef for 40-50 meters, starting at 10-15 meters, dropping off at around 30 meters and then plunges straight down to big depths. We were told that two short fin makos had been seen here some weeks before and everybody was excited. Unfortunately the makos were gone, but a quite big hammerhead shark came straight at us and didn't turn away until there was only a few meters in between us.
On the shelf, there is a city of coral pillars and stingrays lay everywhere. A wide variety of smaller reef fish live hear. We also did some exploratory diving on the western side of the island, which also have first class coral and a huge number of parrot fishes and surgeons, swimming on top of the fringing reef.
We also had an unforgettable, short moment snorkeling with pilot whales. Suddenly they arrived in big numbers around the boat. We got in. They didn't seem very interested and soon swam away, but at least we got a glimpse of these big animals under water. We left Zabargad Island early in the evening to head north again. Our next goal was Elphinstone reef. It is a long leg, which normally isn't possible, but we did have ideal conditions.
Elphinstone Reef (Sha ab Abu Hamra)
This is the third time I visit the fantastic Elphinstone Reef, and for every time it gets a little bit better. I do not think that the reef itself has changed, at least not to the better, but I learn more about how the reef function every time, which helps me getting the most out of my diving. This also strengthens me in the opinion that it's better to focus on a few spots than trying to cover as many as possible in one trip.
Elphinstone is not really an offshore reef like Brothers, Deadalus or Rocky/Zabargad, but it has got some similarities. The surrounding waters are very deep, it has vertical walls and there are almost constantly strong currents. But it is close to shore. You can see land and actually a dive camp outside the little village of Marsa Alam when you're moored to the reef.
For the first time in a few days, we also start seeing other dive boats. And the number of boats have increased on this particular reef over the last two years, partly because there are more liveaboards serving this area now, but also because today it's possible to reach Elphinstone by day boat from the dive camp in Marsa Alam. But we are lucky. The weather changes and gets pretty rough, something that discourages the dayboats to go out to this exposed reef. And there's only one more safariboat.
On Elphinstone North plateau we had some spectacular diving. In one dive a school of 20+ hammerheads swam straight at us, and behind our backs several grey reef sharks patrolled the plateau. On another dive, I went down with a small group of divers to take some pictures of the hammerheads. It is tricky diving. We had to leave the relative safety of the plateau and venture out into the blue, fairly deep, with a current running. But it paid. Two scalloped hammerheads came very close even though we where on OC, much closer than I earlier have experienced with this particular species, and a good friend of mine got some spectacular close up action. When we looked at the slides later that night I could hear some jealous murmurs among the fellow divers. In the evening we left for another overnight cruise - we all wanted to go back to the fabulous Brother Islands.
Summing up
I was very happy with the itinerary. All places offer world class diving; especially Brother Islands were good on this trip. I guess it depends a lot on where you have the most luck, because all places have the same type of settings and conditions, still each reef has its own special charm. We were lucky with calm conditions, which made it possible/comfortable traveling long legs, going against the wind and waves at night. Thanks to that we really got the best out of the best, skipping some of the more mediocre inshore reefs which are usually part of the itinerary when traveling north. The exception would be Elphinstone truly a world class reef ready to challenge any offshore reef seven days a week.
M/Y Royal Emperor is a very potent, steel hulled, ship with a helpful and flexible crew. She can cater to 14 divers and shes got several different relaxing areas, so it never feels crowded. The cabins where nice with good air condition and the food (Euro/Egyptian mix) was always good and sometimes excellent. The ship has got Nitrox facilities and also a Draeger rebreather unit for hire (will get you that extra meter closer to the hammers). Compressors where powerful enough to refill all tanks in 2-2.5 hours which made it possible for us to squeeze in 4 dives some days when we didn't have to move. Usually we did 3 dives each day and on one or two occasions, only 2 because of movement of the boat. But in 13 diving days we had a total of 41 possible dives (I made 38) which is quite good.
The onboard dive guide, Grant, is also a very nice person, clearly with a lot of activity behind his forehead. He instantly understood what type of support our group wanted. Many younger, macho dive guides could learn a lot from him.
Christian
