Going South - Part 7 The Spectre of Elphinstone - 13/05/2018

We did to dives on Elphinstone Reef. They were to be the end of cruise filler dives. Granted on a fantastic reef. 

Dive one saw us hanging out deep on the northern plateau looking for pelagic life. We never saw any big stuff. It was nice, but if it feels like I'm skipping over stuff, I am. 

The second dive saw us dive as a group. I lead us out to 40m on the southern plateau up the eastern side back round to the western side - by which point it was just the Big Easy and I left. We kept our eyes peeled, but we never saw any of the pelagic life we were looking for.

We headed back toward the boat enjoying a very gentle drift. As we approached the boat we spotted a tight group of divers looking like they were all doing a safety stop. They weren't though. I asked what they were looking at. One chap, a keen photographer signalled shark. 

We swam to join them and out of the blue they came. Two of them - oceanic white tips, the worlds most prolific man eater. They circled a couple of times and after a couple of minutes The Big Easy and I headed out the water delighted to have encountered them.

Turtle

Nudi

Oceanic White Tip

Going South - Part 6 Daedalus & the Spectre Beneath - 12/05/2018

Daedalus was never part of the plan, but from my perspective it was a welcome addition. 

I had been told to expect sheer drop offs, mediocre reefs (compared to what we'd seen the previous day in Fury Shoals) and hammerheads.

Hammerheads capture the imagination of most divers. I'm not sure why, but I think its that they can occasionally be seen schooling and that when viewed from below they present one of the most distinguished silhouettes in the ocean.

When we woke up to the view of the Daedalus reef there were several liveaboards there sending out boat loads of divers to eastern side of the reef. Our briefing differed, we were going to be doing a drift dive down the opposite side. 

As it transpired once again our guides had misread the current and we all spent an hour finning furiously headlong into a current. It wasn't the hammerhead experience I'd hoped for.

Our second dive was doing the dive all the other boats had done in the first instance. This time, on the leeward side of the island, we bobbed along keeping our eyes peeled. We were half way through the dive when it happened. It was just a shadow at first, when the distinctive head was visible. Once again photography wise I failed to keep my cool. I didn't care I was swimming with one of the most famous residents of the ocean. It was the stuff misplaced nightmares a it glided past 4 times.

We swam back to the boat - the last few moments against the current, only to be told that something else was lurking nearby, unseen by most of us - carcharhinus longimanus, the oceanic white tip.

We never saw longimanus on the third dive despite the presence of a silky shark and a couple of it's grey reef cousins. Despite that Daedalus had delivered.

Hammerhead shark

Barracuda

Humphead wrasse

Daudalus

Going South - Part 5 Fast and the Furious - 11/05/2018

We had been given options by the cruise director.

1. An extra day in fury shoals spotting dolphins (we had seen them briefly on the surface the day before)
2. An extra day in Daedalus spotting sharks

The group chose the first option. I'm not sure it was the right choice, they never saw dolphins, but that's democracy for you. What we did get was some of the most magnificent coral reefs I've ever seen.

The Playground and Claudio were beautiful dives providing some stunning coral vistas. However, it was Claudio that had us having fun fighting against a current after navigating the reef. The Battle for Sataya East had obviously weakened a number of our group. As we settled in the shelter. I saw the Kingmaker push on by. I joined him and together we made it.

The Kingmaker was particularly pleased for us to be one of the few buddy pairs that made it back to the boat.

The evening brought us to Abu Galawa Soraya. It was a nice dive also with a spectacular coral amphitheatre and small wreck. It was one of the few dives that I've done that I wish I had a twinset on to make it last longer. It was genuinely spectacular.

Masked puffer

Nudibranch

American wreck

Corals and fish

Blue Spotted Ray

Red Sea Anemone fish

Going South - Part 4 500 - 10/05/2018

My 200th dive was memorable. It was in the Red Sea at a site called The Alternatives. My buddy was the Zookeeper and we had a prolonged encounter with my first scribbled filefish. It stayed with us most of the dive and I've never seen one since.

My 300th dive was also in Egypt and was at Ghobal Island with the Kingmaker. We saw my first and only ever stargazer fish.

By way of contrast, dive 400 was a very dull affair with someone who could barely dive at Twin Piers, Loch Long.

It's safe to say that I wanted to make 500 special. My buddy would be the Gandalf of the Internet and to make it special we would dive it with our cheap Chinese UV torches. It wouldn't be spectacular but it would be fun and it would, perhaps, throw up something interesting.

We swam away from the ever dwindling number of people diving on night dives and fired up the torches. At first I wasn't taking pictures thinking my camera would struggle with the strange white balance and, so, to my disappointment I never photographed the small bubble anemone that lit up furiously under the UV light. But I did snap some glowing corals.

We meandered around for 45 minutes. With that I was half way to 1,000 dives.

Glowing corals

Glowing corals

Going South - Part 3 The Battle for Sataya East - 10/05/2018

The day started on a small reef named Habili Gafar, a small pinnacle that took around 10 minutes to circumnavigate. For the briefest of moments it was desperately pretty then around 40 divers descended on it which for me took away its shine, but it did give us a few more grey reef sharks. From there we moved on to the winding labyrinth of St Gohn's Cave. It was a pretty spectacular set of winding corridors through a delicate reef. 

However, as with yesterday it was the third dive of the day, this time my 499th dive that was to live long in the memory - Sataya East, Fury Shoals

The Kingmaker, overcome with an anal fury of his own had decided to sit this one out. As such there were five of us. We were dropped by rhib on the far side of the reef and were aiming to 'drift with the current' along to a sandy lagoon where we'd find a small exit back towards the main liveaboard. It seemed easy.

We made our way over the barrier reef to the outer wall, rolled and began the dive. It seemed to be going well then as we approached where the lagoon should of been we turned headlong into a powerful current. As the diver at the back of our group of five I watched as Gandalf was swept straight back from his advanced position, We all felt it.

We signalled to the guide coming behind,  his advice was to stay low, and press on. None of us were convinced. Heavy finning, afterall increases the risk of DCI.

Gandalf took the decision to go 'over the top of the reef' , weaving between any large coral formation that could put us in the leeward side of the current.

Eventually we dropped into a small sandy lagoon, where I momentarily admired my first blue spotted ray of the trip.

As a group we had now been joined by two other divers who had slipped into our slipstream. It was hard work, but I found myself having magnificent fun. I signalled 'charge' to the troops. They all got the message Once again we were going over the top.

We never made it back to the boat, but we got closer than any other group. That to me seemed like a moral victory. Once everyone got over their annoyance at the dive guides getting the currents all wrong, we laughed about the dive now named the Battle for Sataya East.

St Gohn's Cave

Moray

The Blue Spotted Ray in the sandy lagoon

St Gohn's Cave

Going South - Part 2 Dangerous Territory - 09/05/2018

The 3rd dive of the day would be the Kingmaker's 500th dive. The numerically notable dive was set to be at Sha'ab Dangerous in St John's. So named because of the markings on nautical maps informing sea captains of dangerous reefs, not really because it's danger. It was a dive that was to be somewhat anticlimactic as the Kingmaker's 499th turned out to be very special indeed. 

The day started nicely at a small reef named Habili Ali before moving on to Small Gotta. Small Gotta was meant to be pretty and unspectacular. That's what Kingmaker's dive log would say. I mean who remembers their 499th dive? It's not meant to be memorable. And it wasn't, right up until an oceanic manta soared up from the deep blue performed a loop and then swam out the way it came with the Kingmaker "soaring" along beside it. He was delighted.

That would make for a pretty memorable 499th, but when the two grey reef sharks came by I could tell the Kingmaker was enjoying himself. Back on the boat we agreed that it was amongst the best dives we'd all done. It will live long in the memory. 

Sadly for Dangerous, as pretty as it was as a reef it wasn't spectacular in the way the previous dive had been.

Soaring manta

Crack in the coral - Dangerous

500th dive

Antheas - the current signallers

Res sea anemone fish

Going South - Part 1

With both the Kingmaker and I turning 40 in the last six months we had decided that we would do a red sea liveaboard to celebrate. We had settled on heading south to Rocky, Zabargad & St Johns on board MY Blue Horizon. A few folk got wind of our  trip and decided to join us including:

• The Gandalf of the Internet
• Pushme Poolme
• The Big Easy

We were set.

When we arrived we were told that the itinery would have to change as the Egyptian military has revoked the boats permission to go to Rocky and Zabargad. As such the new plan was:

Port Ghalib - St Johns - Fury Shoals - Daedalus - Elphinstone - Port Ghalib

I wasn't that fussed - the addition of Daedalus meant I'd have an improved chance of seeing my first hamnmerhead shark and that was one of the primary reasons my trip.

Once on the boat our little group was given an additional diver to even up the numbers. She was experienced, but hadn't dived in a while. I'd like to think we made her welcome. We started with a couple of 60 minute check dives that threw up a couple of nudibranchs in between the boat steaming down to St John's to start our adventures.

The Big Easy

Kingmaker

Unidentified nudibranch

Gandalf of the Internet

Chromodoris Strigata

The only crown of thorns

The first moray

The first turtle

Day 6 – No Dolphins, But BOGOF on Wrecks

The final day began with a dive at Dolphin House - a site where at certain times of the day dolphins swim by. Sadly, today was not one of those days. As it was it was a pretty dull reef dive only enlivened by some of the Kingmaker's underwater antics. 

He signalled me over and pointed to a whole. We watched for a minute and my suspicions grew. Some more divers came over to see what we were looking at. We watched for a few minutes more. I began to realise that there was in fact nothing to see and that he was just 'yanking my chain'. Still we watched and still more divers gathered. We laughed and swam off.

Our last dive of the trip was the wreck of the El Minya, a minesweeper sunk by Israeli jets during the 7 Day War.  The briefing had also indicated the presence of a second wreck off the stern of a fishing trawler. The trawler was actually the better of the two wrecks despite being a fraction of the size and boasted considerably more life. It was a good way to end the trip.

Nudi

Red Anemone

Red Anemone

Crocodilefish

Lionfish

The Trawler

Day 5 - ...Rosalie Moller, then there was 300 -14/01/2016

Day 5 was always going to be a little bit special. Today my dive log is turning 300, but I’m getting a little ahead of myself. First was the Rosalie Muller, a WWII wreck in deep water (35m+).

Our plan had been to crank up the PPO2 to 1.6 to enable us to dive around the deck without our computer playing the greatest hits of Electronic Disco. This worried me a bit, as did the entry which involved keel hauling ourselves from stern to bow of our own boat before descending to the wreck.

I’ll be honest, I don’t really like this kind of dive and I used a lot of air going down the line. Once on it, despite being at 35m, I calmed and slowed my breathing, but took a conscious decision to not take photographs as this would only deplete my air even quicker. We got back to the boat with 40 bar to spare and without hitting deco. That seemed like a win. What impressed me the most about the wreck was its eerie completeness. It’s dark and a little unnerving.  The Gandalf of the Internet described her before the dive as, “the lady of the Red Sea – revealing her magnificence one fin stroke at a time”.

Then there were 300. At first I thought it would be a poor dive, having dived it the night before, but it proved itself very worthy with an impressive drift, turtle, nudibranch and stargazer fish. The Kingmaker, Hell's Kells and Legend Roy made fine companions. We drifted for over an hour - a clear sign it was decent dive.

Dive 3 of the day was looking to be a bit of a washout with little to see until it sprang to life with the presence of an Eagle Ray. They’re such graceful animals, but sadly I have no footage to share. What was particularly amusing was Hell's Kells dance of victory aimed at Midge and I who never saw it on its first pass. Midge was diving with us because his usual buddy Russ was feigning back pain. The ray, subsequently dubbed 'the Ray of Victory' was only over-shadowed by accusations that our reluctance to swim back against the current meant that we SMB'd the 'Zodiac of Shame' - so named by the chaps of Scuba Leeds who were daft enough to swim against the current and also missed out on the ray. *chuckles*

Pufferfish

Quadricolour Chromodoris

Arabian Picassofish

Turtle

Nudi

Embriated Moray

Blue spotted flatworm

Return to the Red - 09/01/2016

I'm doing a liveaboard with Blue O Two Blue Melody on the Red Sea. Based out of Hurgahda, Egypt, she is considered one of the better boats in the BO2 fleet.

I am diving with some blog regulars the Kingmaker and Bridget (who I've taken to calling Hell's Kells) and a chap we met on the boat who we'll call Royston. He's a BSAC diver from Bristol who, it appears, doesn't actually breath.

On the boat are a collection of great characters from all over the UK. Midge & Russ -  the Dangerous Brothers, the lads from Leeds Scuba and whole who host of others who I'll mention as we go on.

Back: Me, Midge, Kingmaker,Royston
Front: Hell's Kells & Ahmed