Red Sea Trip– 20-27 October 2006

Friday morning arrived and the intrepid group (Jonathan, Joan, Maurice, Craig, Bev, Charlie, Steve and Paul) were waiting at JT2’s house for the 5.00am mini bus pick up when someone shouted, “where’s Tim”? With magnificent time keeping Tim arrived bang on 5.00am.

It was an omen of things to come that the group were split between 3 flights. Jon, Joan, Craig, Maurice, Bev and Chas were on the 9.00am one, Steve, Paul and Tim were on the 9.30am one and poor Malcolm was not leaving until much later in the afternoon. Joan was well “done off”! Worse was to come. Steve, Paul and Tim were in the wrong terminal! They had to lug all their gear from terminal 1 to terminal 2 and didn’t even have time to get a livener before they got on the plane. The 9.00am lot had no such problem and this resulted in Craig and Maurice using their empty cups to simulate horses in various gaits. This continued until we got to the arrivals hall in Egypt where the long suffering Jonathan stamped on them (the cups that is!). Joan continued to be “done off” when she counted at least 10 empty seats on our plane.

We all met up in the arrivals hall at Hurghada and proceeded to collect our luggage – all except Tim that is! He walked out of the airport without his case and then spent a fraught 15 mins arguing with airport security why they wouldn’t let him back in to collect it. The transfer by mini bus got off to a BANG when a very heavy case that Steve was hoisting on to the roof fell and dramatically cut the side of his head, just missing his eye. With blood streaming down the side of his face he coolly lit a cigarette and said, “ooh that hurt”!! Jonathan’s finely honed first aid skills came to the fore with a tissue and the application of firm pressure. The cut, however, needed stitching and Steve was advised not to dive the following day. He missed one dive and that was all he could bear. The dressing was ripped off, a smear of iodine applied and down he went!

Back to the first night….. Bev was particularly flattered when Kevin, the dive guide, asked who she was sharing a cabin with. At least 3 hands went up with the chorus of “me, me, me” – Charlie was not one of them! Jon and Joan had the luxury suite and reminded us daily how difficult it was to find things in their spacious surroundings. Tim had no such impediment but he still managed to be last out of his cabin every morning and usually forgot something, for example his dive computer. This ensured every dive briefing was started with the legendary saying, “where’s Tim”?! He was very early on re-christened “Tim Lost”.

Malcolm was the cause of many a hangover on Saturday. As he was the solo passenger arriving much later than any of us it seemed only right that we waited up for him. Every time a vehicle came down towards our boat there was a hubbub of excitement, “Malcolm’s here!” Maurice “commented”, “this is just like waiting for Father Christmas”. Eventually, however, gone midnight Malcolm did arrive in his own exclusive mini bus. He was met by the older “saga holiday” slurred of speech contingent as the younger ones couldn’t hack the pace and went to bed. This seemed to be a thing of the holiday – the saga lot going to bed and 3.30am worse the wear from vodka while the youngsters/sensible members retreated to bed. The main pace maker and ring leader, Jonathan, wore a T-shirt presented to him by Craig and Maurice which bore the picture of Tom Selleck (Magnum) headed with the caption, “only real men wear moustaches”. Maurice, perhaps worried about his manhood (or was it in imitation of his hero?) decided to grow a moustache and very dapper he looked too! Steve had a bit of a personality crisis that first morning too. He’d left his barely touched bottle of vodka open to the abuse of the saga drinkers. The next morning when he was re-united with its meagre contents (three quarters supped) he quipped, “I thought I was JT”! JT, however, had had dark thoughts and was going to top it up with water – this would have been a foolish action as it was JT who in fact ended up finishing it the next night! Maurice had overdone the “Johnny Walkers” so much that his gait earned him the name “Johnny Stagger”.

God – more than a full page of incidents already and none of them dive related! The first day’s dive on the Saturday was on Shaab Abu Hashish reef about an hour out of Hurghada. By this time Paul was white as this was the culmination of 10 months of worry. His fear was palpable. The Conistone Confidence Booster a few weeks earlier hadn’t done its trick for some strange reason! An hour later Paul emerged smiling from ear to ear, his face illuminated with a new realisation. “F--- Conistone!” were his first words, closely followed by, “I’m selling my dry suit”. However, in the light of what happened I think this was too hasty a “comment”. You might need your dry suit Paul – SEEING AS THOUGH YOU LEFT YOUR BRAND NEW WETSUIT ON THE BOAT AND DIDN’T REALISE THIS UNTIL YOU GOT BACK HOME!!

The next dive could be called “The Days of Chunder” because the “chuckie brothers” (aka Jonathan and Maurice – the “real men” with moustaches) were both sick under water and had to remove their regulators so they could spew forth. Maurice’s clogged and Craig had to come to his rescue. (Craig in fact saved Maurice’s life twice because later his O-ring “blew a seal” and Maurice had to go on Craig’s octopus. This was a far more serious situation than the crabs he caught in Ullapool). Jonathan’s entry in his log for this particular dive made interesting reading – “mask fogged, cramp in leg, spewed up, USUAL STUFF”!!

On Sunday night Jonathan, Joan, Craig and Maurice were feeling homesick so they renamed parts of the boat after pubs in Silsden. Going to the “Robin” was the dark front end of the boat and this was very popular with stargazers. Joan had the monopoly with shooting stars and was seeing them every 5 minutes – but then she is an expert astronomer and knows what to look for! Steve then piped up, “I’ve just seen one”! Until it was pointed out to him that it was just the up and down violent pitching of the boat! We did do a lot of travelling through the night and we were all thrown mercilessly around on our beds. For some of us the “earth” literally did “move”!

We did do a couple of night dives – well that was if you got in before Malcolm and his Kowolski! For some reason he was heard saying, “I have a back-up light” – some men are never satisfied! This wasn’t the only under water light to make its appearance this holiday. Craig, Maurice and Steve decided to do the last dive “bareback” so they could get the feeling of freedom (ie no wetsuit on!). Maurice went one step further and was seen “mooning” at certain passing divers.

On the Sunday we did 2 dives at Elphinstone. There were loads of oceanic white tip sharks and some came really close. Steve and Paul headed down for the depths and Paul did 42m – his deepest dive yet. Their expert diving techniques and confident manner fooled Charlie into thinking they were the dive guide and his buddy and he was off like a rocket following them, leaving Bev struggling in first gear. There were a lot of exaggerated facial expressions and gesticulations between those two! In fact couples should never dive together. Bev and Chas had another “domestic” when he refused to follow her into a cave system in the reef (Um Karareem, St John’s Caves). A whole variation of hand signals were used and Craig and Maurice spotted Bev trying fruitlessly to hit Chas under water! Jonathan and Joan fared no better. This, however, was sparked by their ménage a trois with Bev. (Chas had had enough of Bev’s cave diving and opted to do this particular dive with Paul). Jon, Joan and Bev set off into a series of open caves, beautifully lit by shafts of sunlight. The reef (Claudia, part of the aptly named “Fury” Shoal) was a maze of these tunnels and the atmosphere was very dramatic looking back out from these and into the open sea. The tranquillity of the scene was shattered when Jonathan suddenly disappeared into a particularly small cave. There didn’t seem to be “light at the end of the tunnel” so Bev and Joan looked at each other and decided to leave him there! With the man out of the way they could now have a nice girlie dive! Jonathan was “not amused”!!! The “F” word was used repeatedly and it was a brave person who got in Jonathan’s way that afternoon. What really happened is that Joan had “blown a seal” before the dive and had lost a lot of air. She “spoke” to Bev at the cave entrance and said that she didn’t have enough air to go through. She then sent Malc, Tim and Steve in after Jonathan and left them to it. Joan and Bev then continued the dive without them. Jonathan came back to the cave entrance to find no one there. He was fuming and surfaced. Not only had he aborted the dive but he had a really long and rough surface swim back to the boat. Just for the record Joan’s black eye was caused by her falling onto Jonathan’s knee as she leapt into the zodiac on a previous dive!

Tim was fascinated how Bev and Joan could “talk” under water. “Eerie” was how he put it. It fascinated Malcolm how Tim always seemed to start with one buddy and end up with another. Sometimes this happened under water when they’d descend together. Malc would turn to Tim to give the ok signal and Tim would turn to another set of divers, give them the ok signal and follow them, leaving Malc to his own devices. Sometimes this would happen before the dive. Four people down for the zodiac, three of them ready, no Tim. “WHERE’S TIM”!! Tim gets next zodiac with new buddy. Tim gets in zodiac, jumps in, realises he’s no computer, jumps out, leaves buddy and gets new buddy once he is re-united with computer.

Whilst on the subject of computers – Steve proved himself to be a real hero. Whilst looking out into the blue he saw a shoal of agitated fish pulling something along. As he got closer the fish parted and the thing they had been playing with was a sunto mosquito computer. Steve retrieved this and it happened to belong to a guy called Ray who was on our boat. He’d left his computer on his pillar valve and as he’d jumped in it had obviously floated away. He’d downloaded the profile of this computer and it turned out that the fish had been playing with it for 25 minutes before Steve picked it up. It had descended to 30m then did a yo-yo profile carried along by the fish. While Steve basked in his glory his alter ego, “Stavros” was getting down to the basics with Bev’s leopard skin bikini. If it hadn’t been so big his eyes would have peeled it off. Her red little number proved too much and he stole it from ship’s rail and wore it! Once complete with apples he very much looked the part! Joan’s rubber top came a poor second and Stavros continued to drool over Bev’s ever spreading wardrobe of bikinis which littered the handrails.

On Monday we were woken at 5.30am, having travelled through the night, and we were moored on Rocky Island which is a raised ancient coral reef, complete with alluring sandy beach. We did 2 dives here and this was a beautiful reef with hard and soft corals of all varieties. The reef was made up of deep gullies, caves and overhangs. A couple of baby reef sharks were spotted hiding under a crevice. We then moved on to Zarbagad Island. The journey was a real roller coaster of a ride with the boat pitching up and down spectacularly. This was only half an hour away and the island looked volcanic with a high peak surrounded by the most beautiful turquoise waters. We had a long choppy zodiac ride to the far end of the island but the underwater scenery was spectacular. It was like a journey through a dramatic mountainous landscape, with huge pillars of coral rising up like canyons. The sea bed and sides of the reef were adorned with table corals at every corner. We then had a couple of hours to wait for the night dive. We saw the “USUAL STUFF” as Jonathan would say – no “Dancing Spaniards” on this dive. (This species was also a mystery to Bev – don’t ask!!)

On Tuesday we arrived at the cluster of coral reefs that make up St John’s. This was the furthest south we travelled and it took a couple of hours from Zarbagad. Another 5.30am wake up call saw us at Habili Ali reef. This was an auspicious dive as it was Jonathan’s 700th and Bev’s 300th (you’d have thought she’d be getting the hang of it by now!!) It was hard work as we were doing a drift dive AGAINST the current all the way. However, at the end of the dive on a deep plateau we saw a group of grey reef (tip?!) sharks. We all dropped down from 10 to 20m at the end of the dive to get a better look. It made an excellent end to a very tiring dive. Bev mistakenly thought the sharks were the fabled “air breathing hammerheads” and had her octopus ready to lure them! (Chris, the dive guide, had said that hammerhead sharks are not seen at this time of year as they go deep to depths of 200m. Bev then stupidly said “when do they come up for air”, thinking them to be like seals and dolphins! Jonathan as ever milked this for all he could and when Joan asked what he’d written in his log his reply was, “reef sharks, usual fishy stuff and did safety stop surrounded by hammerheads coming up for air”.

After breakfast we did Gota Soraya reef and this was characterised by the huge shoals of fish of all varieties. Out in the blue was a huge shoal of balling barracuda which was quite spectacular. Next was Um Karareem/St John’s Caves. This was a very unusual dive in that the coral reef was honeycombed with caves that you could swim right through to the other side. Dappled sunlight shafted through the roof and it was a very dramatic dive. St John’s reefs were very interesting and varied.

On Wednesday we arrived at Fury Shoal, another selection reefs further north. The first dive was on Malahi (Heaven). Apparently this was a very beautiful dive through a maze a giant pinnacles, once again lit by dappled sunlight. Bev and Chas were the only ones on the boat who failed to find these! They met Paul and Steve going in the opposite direction and Bev gave the “where are we”? signal. This was met with the fingers sign followed by mock pedalling action. Very unhelpful!! The only wreck dive we did was at Abu Galawa, Fury Shoal. This was at the end of another beautiful dive with massive structures of mountain coral. The wreck was a 1950s tug which was only in shallow water. It was slightly tilted on its side and from the back it looked like an oblong of knobbly coral of different shades of brown. It was only on the other side that you knew it was a wreck. The wooden deck had gone so you could swim easily inside. It was full of glass fish and some baby barracuda.

We travelled through the night expecting to moor at Elphinstone on Thursday morning. However, Jonathan’s comment, “god, they’ve built a mosque on Elphinstone since we were last here!” sent a wave of despondency amongst the team. Joan was “done off” again and was trying hard to whip up a mutiny! We had in fact moored near the shore at a place called Marsa Abu Dabab. It was a deep bay with a holiday complex built on the headland. Gullible as ever we were sucked into the ruse that here there be “dugongs”! Never have 24 people been so eager to jump in to scour a bay of shallow sea grass. Joan thought she’d hit the jackpot when she looked up and saw the hull of a fishing boat and poked Jonathan excitedly before collapsing into fits of giggles. Bev saw a fellow diver and her heart skipped a beat. Still it was a good dive because there were huge green turtles with remora attached to them, thornback trunk fish, porcupine fish, guitar sharks, a tiny brown octopus and a shoal of squid skirting the surface, not to mention the shoals of fish devouring food on the seabed in frantic feeding frenzies. We travelled to Marsa Shuni for the final dive of the holiday. This was a marathon 75 minute dive back and forth along a very scenic reef wall. Large shoals of batfish and grey snapper were abundant and every possible type of the “usual fishy stuff” came out to bid us farewell. When we surfaced the sun was a bright orange ball sinking behind the mountains. What a finale to a fantastic holiday. Air temperature in the 30s, water temperature between 27 and 29 degrees, 19 dives in total and plenty of “comments” (jokes are not funny!) to keep us in side splitting agony all week.

And Finally…..

1. We weren’t allowed to disembark directly on to the left hand side of the jetty where the boat was moored. This would have involved a small step on to “hallowed” soil. (Trouble was we’d already done this manoeuvre!! We then had to get back on the boat, get in the zodiac and sail a couple of feet to the jetty at right angles to us. Bizarre!!) As the zodiac moved Chas missed his footing and went knees first onto solid ground – another casualty of the trip!

2. Malcolm never finished his book!

3. Malcolm’s coach had a tyre blow out on the way back to the airport. The unfazed driver took one look at the shredded mess and carried on!

4. Thanks to the following divers for making the trip so memorable and fun:

Jonathan and Joan Taylor, Craig Morgan, Maurice V De Merwe, Steve Adamson, Paul Cunningham, Tim Los, Malcolm Hollingdrake, Bev Denton, Charlie Hill and Sally and Dennis Towlson (Southern Branch)

A VERY BIG THANK YOU GOES TO JONATHAN FOR ORGANISING SUCH A BRILLIANT HOLIDAY