A trip report, not all of it good news.
My husband and I went on a dive safari with 13 other people in the Red Sea for a week, and spent a week in Hurghada after that. Here we go, blow by blow excerpts from my log book:
22 Dec 01
Train to Frankfurt, plane was 3 hours late. We arrived in El Queisir and boarded at 5:00 a.m. on 23 Dec, 22 hours after leaving the house.
23 Dec 01
Mangrove Bay. First dive just to get used to being in the water again. 12m, just about the sweetest little reef I ever saw, absolutely intact: batfish, a huge moray, lionfish......
24 Dec 01
Elphinstone Reef. Everyone ist excite about the mythical Elphinstone. First time here, I have the heebie jeebies but hope to FINALLY see some sharks.
30m Lousy dive. Robert had no business in the water here, Elphinstone is not an easy dive, but he insisted (must be a macho thing) so in we went. Trouble equalizing. Robert abandoned me in 10m, blue water, and drifted down to 45m. Panic, narcosis....I was 35m over him but could not help cuz my ears were not giving....Olaf took care of him down there, and got him up to 30m, and my ears cleared and I went down. We spent 10 minutes in blue water before we found the reef, and after 29 minutes we were all out again...no sharks, but did see some baracudas.....
Elphinstone, second dive: I told Robert to stay out and he did. I went down with Olaf, Ralf, Johanna and Crissy. We wanted to do a drift from north to south on the east side of the reef. The zodiac dumped us too far from the reef. After 12 mins in blue water, we surfaced to find out where we were, and the current had taken us east, we were on our way to Saudi...After drifting for 30 mins, the boat spotted our buoy and came out and got us.
Elphinstone was not a good thing for me.
25 Dec 01
Shaab Sharm. 34m Baracudas, doctorfish, and all the usuals....a nice relaxing dive after elphinstone.
Shaab Sharm, 2. dive. 23m Second dive in late afternoon was an absolute hit. Turtles, lionfish, doctorfish, morays, bluepoint ray, and a HUGE Napoleon....truly a king...
26 Dec 01
Shaab Sharm 20m Nice morning dive, the Napoleon was back
After the morning dive, we headed north back to Elphinstone, having voted on it the night before. When we arrived there, there was a boat full of Frenchmen anchored there.
Our first group hit the water. I decided to sit this one out. The zodiac was on its way back to the boat when chaos erupted. The other boat came to us for assistance. A buddy team (two young women, around 20-25) from their boat had been found drifting in 70m. The diver who saw them descended to 70m and brought them up. He and one girl suffered a torn lung, the other young woman was dead. The boat hat no oxygen on board, so we tossed our O2 tank into the zodiac. One of our divers was an emergency room nurse and handled the situation well.
I can't figure out what a boat full of divers was doing out there without O2. This makes no sense to me.
Divers from the other boat were surfacing all over the place, in groups of 1 to 3, apparently some having lost their buddies, and distances between the groups of up to 500m. I was watching through binoculars and only ONE GROUP had a signal buoy. Zodiacs buzzing back and forth trying to get everyone out of the water, our zodiac was helping...
I stayed out the water the rest of day, I could NOT deal with this. Olaf and a few others went in, but that was just their way of dealing with it.
27 Dec 01 Sheikh Malekh 20m Sheikh Malekh washed the bad taste of Elphinstone out of our mouths with a nice easy relaxing dive. Second dive the same, except the second dive was just "us girls".
Third dive was at El Sharm el Tahtani. 26m best dive so far, with Stevie as buddy (Robert sat out, was feeling chilled).
28 Dec 01 Mangrove Bay 9m Nice and easy, that moray almost recognized me *g*
After that, Robert and I went north to spend a fortunately uneventful week diving with Pro Sea Team, my favorite base in Hurghada (NO I do NOT have a share in it, unfortunately) and relax after the somewhat traumatic safari.
My husband and I went on a dive safari with 13 other people in the Red Sea for a week, and spent a week in Hurghada after that. Here we go, blow by blow excerpts from my log book:
22 Dec 01
Train to Frankfurt, plane was 3 hours late. We arrived in El Queisir and boarded at 5:00 a.m. on 23 Dec, 22 hours after leaving the house.
23 Dec 01
Mangrove Bay. First dive just to get used to being in the water again. 12m, just about the sweetest little reef I ever saw, absolutely intact: batfish, a huge moray, lionfish......
24 Dec 01
Elphinstone Reef. Everyone ist excite about the mythical Elphinstone. First time here, I have the heebie jeebies but hope to FINALLY see some sharks.
30m Lousy dive. Robert had no business in the water here, Elphinstone is not an easy dive, but he insisted (must be a macho thing) so in we went. Trouble equalizing. Robert abandoned me in 10m, blue water, and drifted down to 45m. Panic, narcosis....I was 35m over him but could not help cuz my ears were not giving....Olaf took care of him down there, and got him up to 30m, and my ears cleared and I went down. We spent 10 minutes in blue water before we found the reef, and after 29 minutes we were all out again...no sharks, but did see some baracudas.....
Elphinstone, second dive: I told Robert to stay out and he did. I went down with Olaf, Ralf, Johanna and Crissy. We wanted to do a drift from north to south on the east side of the reef. The zodiac dumped us too far from the reef. After 12 mins in blue water, we surfaced to find out where we were, and the current had taken us east, we were on our way to Saudi...After drifting for 30 mins, the boat spotted our buoy and came out and got us.
Elphinstone was not a good thing for me.
25 Dec 01
Shaab Sharm. 34m Baracudas, doctorfish, and all the usuals....a nice relaxing dive after elphinstone.
Shaab Sharm, 2. dive. 23m Second dive in late afternoon was an absolute hit. Turtles, lionfish, doctorfish, morays, bluepoint ray, and a HUGE Napoleon....truly a king...
26 Dec 01
Shaab Sharm 20m Nice morning dive, the Napoleon was back
After the morning dive, we headed north back to Elphinstone, having voted on it the night before. When we arrived there, there was a boat full of Frenchmen anchored there.
Our first group hit the water. I decided to sit this one out. The zodiac was on its way back to the boat when chaos erupted. The other boat came to us for assistance. A buddy team (two young women, around 20-25) from their boat had been found drifting in 70m. The diver who saw them descended to 70m and brought them up. He and one girl suffered a torn lung, the other young woman was dead. The boat hat no oxygen on board, so we tossed our O2 tank into the zodiac. One of our divers was an emergency room nurse and handled the situation well.
I can't figure out what a boat full of divers was doing out there without O2. This makes no sense to me.
Divers from the other boat were surfacing all over the place, in groups of 1 to 3, apparently some having lost their buddies, and distances between the groups of up to 500m. I was watching through binoculars and only ONE GROUP had a signal buoy. Zodiacs buzzing back and forth trying to get everyone out of the water, our zodiac was helping...
I stayed out the water the rest of day, I could NOT deal with this. Olaf and a few others went in, but that was just their way of dealing with it.
27 Dec 01 Sheikh Malekh 20m Sheikh Malekh washed the bad taste of Elphinstone out of our mouths with a nice easy relaxing dive. Second dive the same, except the second dive was just "us girls".
Third dive was at El Sharm el Tahtani. 26m best dive so far, with Stevie as buddy (Robert sat out, was feeling chilled).
28 Dec 01 Mangrove Bay 9m Nice and easy, that moray almost recognized me *g*
After that, Robert and I went north to spend a fortunately uneventful week diving with Pro Sea Team, my favorite base in Hurghada (NO I do NOT have a share in it, unfortunately) and relax after the somewhat traumatic safari.
