Red Sea

Peace

I'm off... to the red sea for a week. First trip abroad with my rebreather so things a little up in the air regarding luggage allowance etc. Might get raped and might not.

Will be on the Whirlwind liveaboard - http://www.redseadivers.co.uk/boatwhirlwind.htm

I'll stick a report up when i get back.

scuby

thanks for making us all sick with envy.........

Benny-c

"things a little up in the air"

No pun intended I hope........:D

P.S. I am only a little green with envy. Have a good one.

Scuba.ie

I'm hoping to do my course in March, getting the unit end of Feb. Would love to get to the Red Sea by the end of the year to clock some hours up!
Enjoy!!

bigfeller

Which trip are you doing?

I loved the Red Sea but I think I preferred Scapa. Don't know why. The boats were old, it's a hell of a long drive....but WW1 wrecks are cooool!! Mind you, I didn't see dolphins or spanish dancers in Scapa. And spending 30 mins at 3 meters using up the last of your air while playing with the fishies was pretty cool.

I need to book a(nother) holiday!

d2ww

Hi all,
Speaking of the Red Sea, has anyone considered the option of getting a package deal with Budget, and diving in the Hurghada area.
I'm thinking of there because I like the idea of being able to get in Luxor as well, as it's only 2-3 hours away.

Peace

Now that was a trip....

The travelling over to egypt was a nightmare. Flight from Dublin to manchester, raped on baggage due to the rebreather. I'm down 120euro already before I even live the aiport. Then the flight from Manchester to Sharm, again raped over baggage.

Anyway, when we arrived the boat was looking very very sweet. Very spacious and very modern. Huge dive deck at the back and the upper dive deck.kitting up area had plenty of room for 20divers. The rest of the boat was equally sweet, cabin was spacious with a roomy ensuite to go with. The eating area had penty of room and then a seperate lounge area upstair had integrated ssurround system for the dvd playter which display on a gigantic plasma screen. Well stocked bar with free buscuits etc meant it was a great chill out area.

The diving was as expected - 40 to 50m vis on most dives. The warm water was not quite as warm as expected which left me flippin cold towards the end of the dives. All dives were minimum of 90 minutes and some were 120minutes (except for the couple that where we had to motor to another place in the red sea and we needed to get going soon). I was still feeling the cold very much even though I had a dry suit.

Best dives would be the dives on the Thistlegorm - spent well over an hour exploring the cargo holds and a COOL night dive where we went out the anchor chain to and when we came back at the bottom of the stern looking up at the divers lights scanning around! Rossalie Moller and a couple of wreck at the Abu Nas reef (Krisuola K/Giannis D) were very much worth a visit. To be honest i kind of forget where each wreck was as it was a wreck tour, so there were a lot of wrecks on the agenda.

Guides were Caroline and Mario, they were very good and left the rebreather divers off to do their own thing.

Dive boat was Whirlwind - see above link. Highly reccomended. Food was very good.

Would i do anything differently? Yes.... XL airways were the carrier from manchester to Sharm, i'll never EVER fly with them if it can at all be avoided. On the flight over I asked for a bottle of water as I was dying of the thirst, it took them a ****ing hour and a half to get it to me and during that time i had to ask them 3 times, each time getting the answer that they'd be bringing the drinks trolley out soon... ffs, just get the bottle of water... i'm a paying customer.
On the flight back we had tyo put down in Gatwick to refuel.... WTF?... this delayed us about 2 hours where we had to sit in our seats while the refueling took place.... Because of this people decided to get off the plane and then we had to remove their bags etc etc. Then some bags didn't travel from Gatwick on to mahcnester.... what a joke.
Their plane was small and uncomfortable and old. .... end rant.

I have no real photos yet, some underwater stuff will be posted over next week from the other rebreather diver on the trip so I'll post up some goddies then.

Paddy Diver

Sweet, sounds cool. Look forward to the pic's, espically Jan's black & white ones, if he took the camera that is!

Am off to Sharm the start of March, over to TekStreme to do some training cant wait for it.

NordicDiver

Ah sorry Ian, my new housing is not arriving before end of feb There was another rebreather guy with a compact camera that got a few good pics.

Jesus Kev 130 Euro from Dublin, you need to learn how to "Sharm" the check inn ladies...:p

Great week, logged 20 hours and the breather worked great, some might call me the "alarminator" but.....

All I can say is to buy a Pee Valve !! if ye thinking bringing the dry suit.

Thistlegorm was my favorit, be able to stay on it for over 2 hours with 0 deco is sweet on a breather.

Ps Ian, I have not given up on your regs

Paddy Diver

NordicDiver wrote:

Ah sorry Ian, my new housing is not arriving before end of feb There was another rebreather guy with a compact camera that got a few good pics.

All well, next time.

NordicDiver wrote:

Ps Ian, I have not given up on your regs

Good:) Whats actualy wrong with em?

Ian

Peace

Paddy Diver wrote:

Good:) Whats actualy wrong with em?

Ian

Please use PM

Paddy Diver

Peace wrote:

Please use PM

Sorry about that:o