Diving that kicks serious ass. A squared away team of 3 (plus Faisal and I). Doubles. Helium. A unified approach. And a week to visit the best of the North and the Brothers Islands.
Did we have fun? Goddamn right we did, mofo.

Just another week in the office though, I guess. Here’s how it went…

The week started badly, if I’m honest. I got back from being at home knackered, having been awake all Wednesday night at the Red Hot Chili Peppers and then waiting in the airport until I could get my flight at 06:00. I then slept sporadically on the two shortish flights, first to Milan, then onto Cairo. Once in Cairo I got outside, SWEATED MY ASS OFF, got a cab and went straight to the get a ticket for the first bus to Hurghada. It was due to depart at 19:30. I nip to Faisal’s place, grab a quick shower which even I know I needed desperately then back out again to go back to the bus station and jump on the bus for the 6 hour trek to Hurghada. I semi-passed out on the bus but kept waking up every now and then when the movement would change and I’d semi-freak out at why the lights came on. Whilst I was conscious I listened to some good old LUGRadio or some other things I’d downloaded (not illegally) whilst I was in Manchester. I arrived in Hurghada at around 01:30 and by 2 I was checked in, watching BBC World and finding out about the start of the Israeli bombardment of Lebanon. I reflect on how good things are since the War Against Terrorism began and fall asleep. I don’t wake up till 11:30, just in time to grab a shower and check out before being charged an extra night, much to my relief. I head to the boat, catch up with Faisal and then head over to the Marlin Inn where I find out we’re out on a faily boat basically doing a couple of Intro dives for some friends. No worries, but a bit hectic. Two of our guests arrived the day before and join us for a check out dive. Afterwards we head to Felfela for a bite to eat. Besides Lebanon, life is sweet.

At 20:00 I go to the airport to collect 2 German guests at 20:10 and 1 Finnish guy from Switzerland at 20:45, or so I thought. The Finnish guy arrives late, but no problem, yet no sign of the Germans. Turns out their plane arrive at 08:10 (that’s the morning…) and we’d missed them so they’d sorted themselves out with some accomodation and after much fretting and trying to find them by Faisal, he eventually discovers their location at around 00:30. The safari is due to leave in around 9 hours.
At 6:00 I go to their hotel to wait for them and see if they would still like to join our safari, acting most humbly as I did so. I waited for them in the lobby for 5 hours, until 11:00, only to have them tell me they don’t want to come on safari now and will stay there. They were friendly enough guys, which is the only thing that took the edge of the fact that I was fucking starving, extremely tired, and smegging bored having waited around for them to tell me something they could have told me 3 hours earlier. Still, these things happen. I get back to the boat at 12:00 and we head straight out to Abu Nahas with just 3 diving guests, plus two Lebanese. We’re able to laugh and joke about the Krauts and life goes on. Looks like it could be a fun week.

Quick check dive at Abu Nuhas (for the Finn) on the Chrisoula K and instantly I get the feeling that I’ll be able to put my tiredness behind me. The team were up for some good diving and after checking through the basics we were up, down, and turning the wreck inside out seeing every inch we could possibly fit in, doing a good 55 minutes on the wreck. All is good.
After a quick check as to what people would like to do we move straight over to another wreck, the famous wreck of the SS Thistlegorm. For those unaware of this ship, Wikipedia it.
Its a fantastic wreck, and we arrive and tie up there, alone, in time for a night dive. Straight down into the cargo holds and having a really good look around, taking in the Bedford Trucks, the BSA Bikes and everything else this wreck has to offer, before coming out at the point where the ship blew in two. We head along the hull and meet a turtle catching a quick snack, who soon disappears. We play around some more, and the feeling that I had on the Chrisoula K firms up as I _know_ this is going to be a fun week. It makes such a change to be doing this sort of diving in a smaller team of people who are all, more or less, on the same page. We get out of the water and already I’m buzzing with excitement. We have a late dinner reflecting on how fucking cool the wreck really is when you have it to yourself. I mix the gas as the others go to sleep and plan for the early start the next morning.

By 06:30 we’re in the water as another boat starts to tie up on the wreck.
Bollocks.
That wasn’t in the game plan. No worries though, their guests look nowhere near ready. We jump in and head for the break, play around the huge shells and various other bits of ammo lying on the floor and head around the back of the hull to the props where we find another turtle laying down inside. We head around and survey both guns on the back before heading back past the break, out to one of the locomotives, and then head back in to have another look around the cargo holds. Still no other divers in sight.
The real beauty of this dive lies in the fact that it is still fairly shallow, with 30m maximum depth, so you can (with doubles) play around inside the holds for absolutely ages and really check the whole wreck out on one dive. And we did.
Coming out, we played around the superstructure for a while before starting doing a little bit of deco and heading back up the shot to the boat, with a total runtime of 64 minutes.
After a spot to eat we’re ready to jump back in the water. Although more boats have showed up, they are all now getting out the water and having breakfast – we’ve got it to ourselves again. Damn right. This was more of the same really, looking in a few more nooks and crannies, trying to find the small arms that she was also carrying. We didn’t find any. The end of the dive saw myself and Juha (Finnish) untying the lines and drift deco-ing for a total run time of 96 minutes. Not a bad amount of diving to have done before 11:00…
Next we head over to the Rosalie Moeller, a wreck none of us have dived before and one that, as I write, I still now fairly little about, except how it looks like and what the access is like. with the bottom in the 45-50m range we all dove 21/25 with a deco stage of EANx50. She sits bolt upright on the bottom and looks very nice as we swam down to the prop area and along the hull. We then popped back up to the main deck area and drop down in the second cargo hold from the stern. As we drop in we see the reason she sank, a huge hole covering nearly the entire height of the hull in her side. That ought to do it. We spend some time there and head out and along towards the bow. She seems to go on forever to all of us, having not dived her. After doing a bit more deco than we necessarily needed to we surfaced with a total 74 minute runtime, average depth 36m, bottom time 40 minutes. Day 2 ends. Not too bad, huh?

Day 3 sees us back on the Rosalie early in the morning, this time just running EANx30 and sticking to the shallower profile of playing around the cargo holds and the deck area. We all take a deco bottle with us as well and do another good 40 minutes on the wreck, swimming nearly her entire length through the cargo holds. The dive was capped off by a briefly passing Manta Ray. Life is _definitely_ sweet.
After this we head back towards Hurghada, ready for the crossing to Brothers. We stop by Bluff Point and have a very pleasant little dive there before another superb drift down near Giftun. The wind starts to howl that night, ruling out an earlier crossing to Brothers.

Day 4 starts off with a quick dive at Abu Ramada and sees us ambushed by a pair of defensive Triggerfish. Gave us all something to talk about. Straight after breakfast we head for Safaga and Panorama reef which, as ever, is simply stunning, particularly as we’re the only ones in the water at that time. We have a spot of lunch and then make the most of the good weather and head to the Brothers. We arrive around 19:00 so really its a bit late to make a dive, particularly as it took us over an hour to tie the ropes due to an absolutely ripping current. We all like current.
We spend the evening talking about the Brothers and general banter and then sleep, ready for a nice and early start the next day.

I wake up the morning of Day 5 at 05:45, ready to give everyone their wake up call. One look outside shows the current still ripping like I’ve never seen it before. By 06:00 guests on the other boats are up and looking like they want to dive, but nobody’s briefing or getting into suits. Strange, maybe the divemaster didn’t want to take them in yet. As ever though, RSE leads the way, kitting up and in the RIB by 06:30 and heading out the remote North Side and the wreck of the Numidia. We make a negative entry and find, not unsurprisngly, that indeed the current is howling. We basically have to climb our way down to the wreck in 10m using various pieces of wreckage as hand holds as we power down and shelter inside the hull. We have a quick look around inside and pop out of a hatch at around 30m. Current still ripping we pull ourselves over to the railing edge, using a Davit to support ourselves against the current and watching the huge Tuna and other fish coast on by. No sharks yet though. We let go and fly over the other side of the wreck and whip around the corner to be met by a variety of changing currents. Up. Down. This Way. That Way. FUN. It surprises no one when we reach the South-Western tip and find a dead spot to relax in before deco-ing and surfacing. Smiles all around. This is the way diving was meant to be. Big current. Big Fish. Wrecks. Reef. And people who can pull it all off in relative safety. We get back on the boat as the others just start to gear up. Fucking pussies.
Just as breakfast is sevred Faisal and I formulate a plan. The conversation goes something like this:
FAISAL: With current like this you could reach Little Brother.
DAVE: You’re right.
FAISAL: It’s ripping out there.
DAVE: So do you want to give it a shot?
F: Do you think they’ll be up for it?
D: It’s your plan, it’s gotta be worth a shot.
[SLAP HANDS]
F: Guys! Listen up, we’ve got a plan for the next dive…
To cut a boring breakfast story short, they agreed and the plan was set. We check the current from the surface. Work out roughly the direction we need to go in. Have the RIB chase us for support and extra directional assistance and we make the swim from the wreck Aida II on Big Brother all the way 1 mile south to the island of Little Brother. Roles are assigned. Tactics discussed. Faisal is to run the video. I’m to shoot the bag. Juha is to navigate (he later gets overruled by Faisal who goes slightly off then uses the zodiac ). Once we leave the Aida II we set off and a compass heading passed the boats and the bag already up. We suit up. We jump in the water. The current drags us passed the Aida before we have chance to get down to it in 30m (I told you, the current was RIPPING). I head back up to 21m and shoot the bag.
The stage is set. Let’s go.
We say goodbye to the friendly face of Big Brother and level ourselves out at 15m as we head out into the true meaning of blue (500m+ worth of blue), me on the bag, Faisal in front occassionally filming, and the others with us. The zodiac is overhead. All is good. Things get bluer. And bluer. Occassionally my mind believes its seen some reef and my heart flutters. Then I realize I’m being daft and that there’s actually just more dark blue there.
20 minutes passes from when we saw the last sign of Big Brother – our anchor chain – and we’re still hanging. A mile’s a long way without any visual reference though…
At the half an hour mark I start to get really excited… I CAN SEE FISH! Sardines, Surgeon Fish! I tell you, I have never been so excited to see a Fusilier as I was at that moment. the reefs close. We’ve got bags of gas left and we’ve basically made it. Within minutes the North plateau comes into view. I look across to Faisal about 25m away, laughing my ass off and repeating the phrase ‘Fucking hell’ around 4 times. All of us have hands in the “air” (or water if you wish to be pedantic) thumping the water and celebrating what is a mighty fine achievement. Seconds later we’re being whisked over the plateau and breifly down with the current to 25m on the East side of the reef. As we get flown along the outside of the reef we spot our first shark of the trip – a grey reef and everyone’s happy. We sail around to the south side where its calm and surface next to the only boat on the site, who don’t believe what we’ve just down. Kinda sucks when people don’t believe it, but it doesn’t matter because it happened. We pack our stuff back into the Zodiac and head back the mile we’ve just done, this time on the surface. The grins from the morning dive just got a whole lot bigger. The whole dive took 64 minutes, start to finish.
After lunch we move the boat down to the Little Brother for one last dive before we have to leave. As we drop onto the North side, the current still ripping we land next to 3 grey reef sharks who circle the tip of the plateau briefly before heading away. We head back down the east side (or rather, we are forced there by the current) and go past a bunch of tuna and barracuda as well as seeing another grey reef shark briefly. Dive over we get back onto the boat to relax for the journey back to Safaga.

Day 6. The final diving day kicks off in dramatic fashion with a dive at Abu Kafan on the South side. After a long swim out without much current we arrive at the tip of the plateau and right in front of myself and Juha swims a decent sized scalloped hammerhead. At first I only saw the shark and pointed that out, so when I figured it was a hammerhead I got pretty damn excited. I point it out and it swims away so we turn and head back for the long stretch up the plateau. The current starts to pick up around half way to the point it would be foolish trying to swim against it any further. Figuring we’ve spent 40 minutes at average 30m, I reckon to about 25 minutes worth of total deco (on the conservative side) and decide to thumb it where we were and drift the deco. I cut the deep stops a bit shorter than I would normally do them as I knew that 2 of the guests were running their computers and would have to wait for them to clear at 6. We still did adequate stops though, considering we were decoing on back gas. At 65 minutes I was ready to thumb but hung around with them until the deco was done. I was glad I did as, at 70 minutes, a group of dolphins came to play with us for a couple of minutes. Some of them were huge, others just babys but they were all extremely playful and came bloody close. For those who haven’t experienced it, I can recommend it as a fucking beautiful way to finish any deco you have to do. Total run time was 77 minutes… and we’d drifted a long way again .
Final spot on the journey was the Salem Express. I’ve written about her before so won’t go into details here again but once more she proved to be a very interesting dive to do, particularly with the team we had.

And now we’ve just arrived back in Hurghada, the ‘Dreamland’ as the signs tell us. Anyone been there? I’ll let you decide then…

And that about concludes our voyage for this week. You may be able to tell that I found it damn enjoyable, and need to thank all 3 of the diving guests (and the two non-diving) for making it so. Weeks like this really don’t feel like work at all.
Tomorrow sees the arrival of nearly 20 Egyptians. God help me…

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‘He ain’t heavy, he’s my brother’
The Hollies

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