Red Sea Aggressor Itineraries - Help!?

[scubadada]

Oh wow. Ok then, I can probably scratch this trip off my list, at least for this timeframe. I’m really looking for somewhere where I will not be cold.

Thanks everyone for clarifying this so I don’t make the wrong decision!

A shame to write off the trip. Looks like you could expect water temps low to mid 70s, a 7mm full suit +/- a hooded vest would likely keep you cozy. You could probably expect air temps mid 70s-80.

Perhaps you're looking to take advantage of the Aggressor special for Nov-Dec, $1165, you probably also saw the good price they're offering now until the end of Oct, $1399, both significant savings over the list $2299. It's a great trip. Maybe if you postpone, you could figure a way to dive for a couple weeks and/or see some of Egypt at a later date.

Best of luck, good diving, Craig

 

[Dogbowl]

A shame to write off the trip. Looks like you could expect water temps low to mid 70s, a 7mm full suit +/- a hooded vest would likely keep you cozy. You could probably expect air temps mid 70s-80.

Perhaps you're looking to take advantage of the Aggressor special for Nov-Dec, $1165, you probably also saw the good price they're offering now until the end of Oct, $1399, both significant savings over the list $2299. It's a great trip. Maybe if you postpone, you could figure a way to dive for a couple weeks and/or see some of Egypt at a later date.

Best of luck, good diving, Craig

We were looking for an inexpensive trip for November/December timeframe as that’s when my husband can get away. We were pricing out the usual suspects, Coz, Bon, Roatan, Cayman, and based on price alone, Coz always wins. But we wanted to try something different, so Bon seemed to be a good option. Then we saw the Aggressor deal, and after pricing that out, it looked to be around the same price as going to Roatan, without all the side trips in Egypt of course. But being on a liveaboard with water temps in the low to mid 70s is too cold for us to be comfortable. I haven’t written Egypt off. We’ll just go in the summer instead, when water temps are higher, closer to 78-80+F.

Red Sea water temps kinda remind me of Bahamas water temps. A bit on the cold side during winter months.

More reason I should learn how to use a drysuit!

Edit: I am soooo sad now.

 

[Schwob]

I did the same thing as @scubadada, except in the summer of 2016 on the RS1.
Since I was already in Europe for work and since my son needed to visit grandma, we flew in (to Hurghada) with CONDOR from Munich. I booked the Marriot there (before and after, I think 1 night each) not through Agressor since I found their price to be north of twice of at the going rate then. But I did, despite reading of much lower cost options book the transfer through Agressor, since I wanted to make sure the boat waits for us ... in case...

We loved both weeks (northern first, southern second in our case). We also just had 40 or so dives under our belt then, Bonaire having been the only place we've been diving prior other than the initial OW class. But we had our Nitrox and AOW certs. I do agree, the northern dives are on average a bit deeper and with more current. Dinghy drops were at times in fairly wavey areas and, due to the current, some entries were negative. All new to us, but we all liked it just fine. Of course it was quite warm then... My (skinny) son was fine in his 3mm suit, no hood and I was fine in my 3mm shorty no hood.
I found St. John on the Southern route to be a little special place... Almost like English walled gardens, except all walls are coral. On our trip, we happened to not find the dolphins to snorkel with, but it was an amazing trip nevertheless.
@scubadada 's trip report is excellent.
Those deeper dives BTW are mostly on walls, as the "airhog" I usually staied a little higher than most for part of the dive.
We at times encountered some faster currents, but no "funky" currents (down or up or out...). For both itineraries I do recommend that each diver bring an SMB and can deploy it. Just seems to make sense, ... Agressor does not insist on it so (or did not then). I also always had a light, a mirror and a Nautilus on me.... just did not want to miss the boat...

I think you will like either itinerary if you need to pick one that fits in a time plan. If you can choose, then maybe southern.... if you really can choose, then definitely both

One word of warning: I speak with much less experience to back it up than most here. This was so far our only LOB trip ((a time and budget thing, if I could I would do it all again tomorrow otherwise... well, going elsewhere to see what is going on there makes sense too of course and this winter we will get to experience a small corner of the Phillipines, ... details still TBD)

Edit: Unless I count "retirement" (at some point) as a trip, it is extremely likely that this will have been the only dive trip ever during which we manage to double our dive counts...

 

[Dogbowl]

Found a nice table with air and water temps at Blue O Two’s website. Thought it might be useful for future reference.

Red Sea liveaboards | M/Y blue Fin | M/Y blue Horizon | M/Y blue Melody | blue o two

 

[Christian]

Egypt is best dived in summer/fall. Some spots are very seasonal inme, like Ras Mohamed that blossoms in July-September. More hammerheads in summer (Brothers/Deadalus/Elphinstone) but more OWT:s in fall.

 

[Dogbowl]

Egypt is best dived in summer/fall. Some spots are very seasonal inme, like Ras Mohamed that blossoms in July-September. More hammerheads in summer (Brothers/Deadalus/Elphinstone) but more OWT:s in fall.

OWTs? What does that stand for?

 

[Christian]

Oceanic White Tip.

 

[Christian]

Went on a taylor made Hurghada-Sha ab Ali-Thistlegorm-RasMo-Strait of Tiran-Brothers trip in Oct/Nov on Blue Melody and we constantly had 5-7 sharks around the boat during our two days on Brother Islands.

 

[Diving Dubai]

Hi @Dogbowl

Before you write of the Red sea completely - My perspective (from someone who's dived there a few times and who lives in the "local area"

1. Water Temps. The water reaches it's max temp in mid August, and then is slow to cool. Generally in this area I'm still in a 3mm, maybe 5mm till late Nov - bear in mind when it's 24C I'm in a drysuit. Take a 3mm and a hooded vest you should be fine.

2. If you go to Marsa Alam it's unlikely you'll get direct. It's a small airport. Hurghada is the Nearest large airport and then you have a 3hr coach ride, which is not so bad (I've done it) You can either fly direct to Hurghada or go via Cairo. If you fly via Cairo you obviously get eh change to sight see if you want, but the added advantage is you'll enter hurghada via the domestic terminal not the International one.

This is important for a couple of reasons. 1. The International is full of tiresome English tourists on cheap package holidays with screaming children. Secondly the International terminal is well known for collecting a "tourist tax" sudden excess baggage charges that will probably go into someone's pocket. The Domestic terminal is a breeze without that nonsense


3.Don't tie yourself to the Aggressor fleet. I appreciate it's a firm fav of people in the US, but still... Blue O Two are a big brand, they are UK based and cater for UK/ European divers. They are good and I've dived with them and would do so again without hesitation. They're also not nanny boats. We could have lean nitrox mixes if we wanted to pop down to 40m on the first dives, we could follow the guides or dive without (if we chose the latter the guides would come along and fun dive with us)

Regarding your options of routes.. The Southern routes are in my opinion the best.

• Brothers/Daedalus/Elphinstone is the prime route, the sites are great if they perform, but meh if they don't (my opinion)
• Southern St. John/Daedalus I think is a good route. I love St John.

You will get current on all the big sites - no current = no pelagics I'm afraid, but other site like St Johns are easy but beautiful dives

The only thing that stops me going more often its it's a hard trip from here, I can get to Indonesia with less effort and for a similar cost

Hope that helps

 

[Dogbowl]

@Diving Dubai , thanks for offering your views. Always a pleasure to get a different point of view from across the pond.

I’m not writing off the Red Sea. I’m just going to do it in the summer, when it’s the warmest, which will probably mean summer 2019. I was considering the Aggressor first because of our familiarity with it but also because they’re offering truly incredible deals at the moment. But for next summer, I could also consider Blue O Two and Emperor, which I understand are also very popular there. Unfortunately, flight schedules aren’t out yet for next year, so I’m waiting.

I think I’m going to choose the south/St. John route as a first choice, based on what everyone has advised.