Very disappointed with the Red Sea, good for honey moon divers !!!

[Nuno A]

i went to the Red Sea for the frist time and stayed in Sharm. Well Sharm is Sharm you like it or not.


I made eleven dives and have been in the Strait of Tiran, Ras Mohamed Blue Hole and SS Thistlegorm.

I must confess that beside the [FONT=arial, helvetica, sans-serif]Thistlegorm it was very disappointing for me, very few marine life !!![/FONT]
[FONT=arial, helvetica, sans-serif]I was not expecting to meet the big animals but resident animals i was expecting some more!!![/FONT]


I usually go to Azores islands to dive about Octobre each year, but this one i went to the Red Sea and i can say that Azores islands are really a paradise when compared with the places i've been in Red Sea. Well to be honest there´s more live in the Atlantic coasts of Portugal and Spain then in the places i visited in the Red Sea !!!


During my stay i follow the pictures that my friends took in Azores islands during the same days and if i want to see some animals i open facebook at night at the hotel!!!


The other divers i met in the boats, beside they had a lot of dives, still the dive the "Padi" way. People need to stay really close other wise they feel scared !!!! I need space and time to take my pictures i dont loose the group out of sight but its not needed to dive like an old married couple !!! One of the buddys refuse to dive with me again because he said i was to concentrated on my photos and he was scared. Well he never dived in the Atlantic with 2 to 5 meters visibility thats for sure !!!


Well i guess im not going to return at least to those places !!!


Red Sea is a good place for honey moons with some dives !!!


Im wrong ??

 

[mala]

day boats from sharm is not the best.

liveaboards are the best way if you just want to dive.

 

[drbill]

Although I've been hearing that the Red Sea is declining in quality, my friends who have dived there have been pretty positive about their experience. I'm not a big fan of guided dives since many of them rarely give enough time for photographers and videographers to do their thing.

 

[TSandM]

The two liveaboards I've done in the Red Sea were wonderful. No, we didn't see a lot of sharks, but we saw dolphins on many dives. We saw some of the biggest morays I've seen anywhere. We saw big schools of colorful anthias, and lots of scorpionfish and other cryptic reef dwellers. And the corals were stunning.

The wreck diving is superb, all "real" wrecks with a history. There is a lot of marine life on the wrecks, too.

I would not in any way say that the Red Sea was for honeymooners with a couple of dives.

 

[diverLux]

I am not buying it , Nuno sounds portuguese to me and a little advertising for your homeland doesn't do any harm. I had rather do one last dive in the Red Sea than being confined diving the Med or the Atlantic ! Other than that Portugal ( and the Azores ) are a superb destination and its people amazing.


All the best !

 

[gobey]

Go dive south on safari boat. St. Johns reef, Brothers, etc. Lot of life and reasoneble price.

 

[Tjack]

I was likewise underwhelmed by Red Sea diving. If I were to return I would go liveaboard.

I agree with TSandM the Red Sea has some mammoth Morays, one of those b@sterds tried to attack me at Elfenstone!

Tarifa Spain had some spectacular cold water diving when I was there, I might have to check out the Azores?

 

[supergaijin]

I count myself as lucky at having worked a season in Sharm before the Egyptian meltdown- the Red Sea and certain sites around Sharm are absolutely fantastic. There are definite periods during the year where the amount of fishes increase/decreases but that for me only added to the experience. Right now the waters are cooling and the fish numbers are decreasing.

On it's given day Sharm's Shark/Yolanda is my best single dive site I have ever dived from NZ, SE Asia, Djibouti and the Maldives.

 

[chillyinCanada]

And so? When is that "best given day (s)"? You've told us that now isn't the best time to go, so when is the best time to go?

 

[supergaijin]

IMO (for sheer numbers of fish) it was the middle of Egyptian summer- late July until mid August.