Liveaboard Odyssey
By Jaimy de Vries
How cool is it to stay on a luxurious boat and sail across the North Red Sea, take a plunge in the water everywhere where the boat sets its anchor, to dive between lots of colorful fishes, rays, dolphins and a shark, and afterwards relax in a hot tub? Well I did that in 2021 with good company of my ABC dive friends!
Not too shabby
After a fun and educational week in Sharm El Naga, our group of ABC dive friends, took the bus to the Marina in Hurgada. When we arrived I was pumped. ‘Are we going on that huge boat!?’ was I saying. ‘Yes that’s our boat!’ They answered. And it was huge!! When I grabbed my suitcase out of the bus, I immediately got help from one of the boat crewmember to get my heavy suitcase on the boat. I was quite happy with their help, because you need to carry your suitcase over a long and small wooden plank. I would’ve lost my balance on that thing.
The boat was not ready yet when we arrived. The boat crew still need to do some work at the boat. So after we left our suitcases at the boat we walked across the marina boulevard, had a cocktail and a nice lunch. Later in the
afternoon we went back to unpack our diving gear and set it up on the main deck. After that we had dinner at the boat and got some ice cream at the marina.
Dolphin house
The next morning we waved the marina goodbye and set off to our first dive spot: Shaab El Erg, also called the Dolphin house. While the boat was sailing we had a nice breakfast in the meantime. Afterwards we had a briefing where our dive guide told us more about the check-dive we needed to do, the dive site and how to navigate underwater. The name of the dive spot (dolphin house) got me really excited, but the guide told us that there is chance we don’t see dolphins. But! During the briefing we heard from one of the boat crewmembers that there are dolphins swimming around the boat. We quickly put our gear on, did the necessary stuff for our check dive and then we set off. After 5 minutes underwater we were surrounded by dolphins. ‘Wow!’ They came so incredibly close! Beforehand we heard to stay calm if we see dolphins, then the dolphins will come to us. Because if you follow them, you scare them off. And it worked! They came so close – less than 1 meter! It was such a unique and beautiful experience, swimming together with wildlife. One dolphin came so close towards me, it felt like we looked to each other’s soul. Sounds a bit waky but I really felt that I connected with that dolphin. After our dive we were so hyped and excited. ‘This was a good start, but doesn’t it make our expectations to high for the rest of the trip…?’ We were wondering. Well I can tell you this: it didn’t!
The first day we only had 3 dives, because we skipped the early morning dive. The second dive at Seyul Sorayer Island I dived again with my buddy Rob. We took our time and made some nice photo’s of the dive site and we saw a sea cucumber for the first time. A funny creature.
That day (like every other night) there was the possibility to go on a night dive. I wanted to grab every opportunity to dive, so I went on a night-dive with Quinten. This was my third night dive in total. I still felt a bit nervous about night dives, because it’s just so dark and the night life underwater is so different than at day time. It went well and it was a nice dive, we saw some awesome coral roofs and jellyfish.
A wrecky day
The next morning we stood up very early 5:30 A.M. for our early morning dive. Very early, but we were rewarded with an amazing sunset! I grabbed some coffee, checked my diving equipment and enjoyed the view on the lowerdeck. On 6:30 A.M. there was a briefing. We are going to make 3 wreck dives in Abu Nuhas this day. Our first dive was at a wreck called Kimon M. This ship sank in 1978 and was shipping Lentils. I went with two buddy’s this time: Rob and Mengalvio. First we went to the bow side and penetrated the wreck towards the stern side. It was a nice dive, a good warming up for the rest of the day.
The second and third dive I went with our magic five group. First we dived at the Carnatic wreck. This was a
British steam ship. It sank in 1869 and was carrying wine, people, copper and gold. Our second dive was at Chrisoula K that sank in 1978. It was carrying granite floor tiles from Italy to Saudi Arabia.
We penetrated the shit out of these wrecks. It was a really fun day and I got to see a lot of these wrecks. Afterwards we went in the hot tub till my fingers looked like old-lady hands. We were there for so long we got to see the sun going down and then we were stargazing. We were so relaxed and chill that we didn’t want to take a night dive, so we stayed in the hot tub till it was diner time.
An underwater museum
On the liveaboard we took a visit to the Thistlegorm wreck. Not ones but three times on our third day at sea. The Thristlegorm was a British armed Merchant Navy ship. It sunk by German bombers on the 6th of October 1941 near Ras Muhammad in the Red Sea. It’s now a well-known diving site, it’s on the top 10 list of world’s best diving sites. We took 3 dives around and in the wreck. The wreck is quite big, so on our first dive we just simply dived around the wreck to analyze it (for our next dives). First we went to the stern site where we made a photo with the big anti-aircraft gun. I got distracted by a big lionfish that was hunting for silver and orange fish. I took a nice photo of his fierce look. After that we went to the bow site of the boat and then turned back to the boat.
On our second and third dive we penetrated – again – the shit out of this wreck. This wreck has even two floors to penetrate. It was impressive. The wreck had a lot of cargo, among which: trucks, armored vehicles, motorcycles, guns, cases of ammunition, boots, radio equipment and railway wagons. I also got amazed by the rooftop of the wreck. Because of many divers visit this wreck, air gets stuck inside what creates a mirror on the roof. This looks beautiful but it’s not good for the condition of the wreck. Due to the air inside the wreck, the wreck gets more rusty with the coming danger of collapsing. So they make little holes in the roofs so that the air can get out. If you dive above the wreck you can see lots of bubbles coming out these holes. And something special happened that same day…! I found my first underwater slug inside the wreck– a nudi-bird and it was soo damn cute!
Between our dives and afterwards we chilled on the beanbags with a drink and enjoyed the sun. In November you can still get a nice tan. Just like in Sharm El Naga we had lots of fun conversations. Sometimes they got irritated by al my strange questions, but secretly they liked it (they asked for more).
Ras Mohamed
On our fourth day we were diving in Ras Mohamed. Also one of the top dive sites in the world. First we went to Shark Reef towards Yolanda Reef. ‘Oeh Shark reef, are we going to see a shark!?” was I thinking. First I was afraid to see a shark, but now I’m quite excited to see one. Now I know sharks are not that dangerous and they are certainly not very interested in taking a bite of a noisy diver with a big tank on its back. We got dropped of and went quite deep at shark reef with the hope to see a shark. But unfortunately we didn’t see one. But we saw a stupid guy grabbing and holing a puffer fish. Luckily he got corrected by his group with a clap on his head. ‘What an idiot!’! In less than half an hour we arrived at Yolanda Reef. We saw lots of toilets. ‘Toilets…huh?’ was my first thought. I didn’t expect to see that. And I saw some remains of a wreck. That was a ship that carried sanitary items, that explained al those toilet pots. During our dive we had company of a napoleon fish and his grouper friend. We called the fish ‘ lippy’ because it had big lips.
On our second dive we went to Anemone City. And surely did we saw lots of anemone. It was beautiful! We tried to move our fingers like a wave towards the clown fishes, that attracts them because if we move our fingers like that it looks like anemone to the clown fishes.
Loco Loco
At our last dive we went to a dive site called Beacon Rock. There was not much spectacular to see on this dive site. Only an Eel garden. When I finally saw some Eels and made a picture, my buddy Roan grabbed my fin and was pointing towards something on a far distance. I turned around and took a good look. ‘OMG! A shark!! ‘ I was screaming with the regulator still in my mouth. We were both very hyped but tried to remain calm and slowly moved towards the shark. Otherwise we would scare him. Our other buddies came from the other side and were also moving slowly towards the shark. We watched the shark from up close (not to close to scare him). Romik our buddy didn’t knew it was s shark and came a little bit too close to film him and then he swam away. It swam so graciously! Afterwards we were so hyped. We heard each other screaming underwater. We got “loco loco” and climbed on each other. Later that dive we had a drift in a riff – And boy it was a strong drift! I accidentally (not completely accidentally) turned upside down. Then everybody did that…and that’s how we drifted away…upside down. When we turned back to the boat we remained calm, because we wanted to show some footage of the shark to the rest of our group as an surprise. They were quite jealous. We didn’t know which shark we’ve seen, after some research it turned out to be a leopard shark.
Dolphins again!
The next day our Magic Five group strikes again! After we penetrated wreck Dunraven at Shag Rock we saw two big groups of Dolphins. I had some trouble that week with electronics. My dive computer died on day 1 and at the moment we saw two big groups of Dolphins coming towards us, my Go pro decided to don’t turn on under water. ‘Shit! Now? Really!?’ But I knew the others were carrying camera’s with them. So I decided to just enjoy the moment. When the dolphins were next to me, I swam along with them with a dolphin fin stroke. I felt so calm. It was amazing. And…the boys made great video footage. So it wasn’t that bad that my camera wasn’t working. On the second dive our crew Magic five strikes again! At dive site Gubal Soraya we saw a two big eagle rays up far. It was difficult to come close because they’re so damn fast and shy. But we saw it!
Last day
On our last day we were actually quite tired and weren’t so enthusiastic anymore to go diving. But with the fear of missing out we continued and had two dives at Syul Island. On our first dive we saw an amazing coral garden, but further on we didn’t saw anything spectacular. After our two morning dives we cleaned our diving gear and made sure it can dry. It needs to be dry before the next day when we fly back home. My suitcase was already 31 kg (max was 32kg), so I can’t bring any extra weight with me and water is quite heavy.
We just hang out that day, enjoyed the sun and took a little day-nap. In the meantime the boat sailed back to Hurgada Marina. We arrived late in the afternoon. We had dinner and again walked on the marina boulevard. And finally I can grab some ice cream. And too add it up: we went out for some cocktails too. I found out that I had a little bit too much alcohol when I walked back to the boat over the wooden plank. But I made it! And I had a good night sleep. I was glad to go home the next day. I was just so tired.
What a great experience to go on a liveaboard in Egypt! First it was a bit unusual for me, everything is arranged and the crew helps you with anything… Literally anything! I couldn’t even put my own wetsuit on without help. If you know me a little bit, you’ll know that I want to fix everything by myself with no help (#independentwoman). But I learned that some help time to time is not so bad. With ABC Dive – Hét 5 star PADI IDC Divecenter van Almere and my group the Magic Five, we’ve seen amazing things: coral gardens, murena’s, lionfish, stone- and scorpion fish, eagle rays, dolphins and a shark!! Wow!! Now it’s almost a week ago. It takes a bit of time to get adjusted to the bad weather back home and the new corona measurements. But looking back at my holiday, it makes me a very happy and lucky person!