Travelogue Dive Cruise Red Sea 2021 with MY Independence II Marine Park Tour and South
After two unsuccessful attempts during the Corona Pandemic it finally worked. A business class ticket at a bargain price facilitated in particular the packing of hand luggage and in the Senator Lounge in Frankfurt we passed the time until departure. After an hour waiting the short-notice replacement, a long-haul plane then took off in the direction of Hurghada. Seldom so comfortably sat on the way to Egypt (exactly the opposite then on the return flight).
In Hurghada we had a pleasantly short ride to the port, since the tour exceptionally did not start in Ras Ghalib. For the first time we had booked cabin No. 10 in the front of the Indy, which unfortunately was not a happy decision, because Roland injured his right foot on the stairs to the cabin on the 2nd day.
After the check dive at Gotta Abu Ramada the next morning, Captain Mohammed decided that we should not go to the Brother Islands as planned, but stay in Safaga for another day because of the predicted strong swell. Here we dived the Panorama Reef in the early morning, a good decision because the wind was really strong. In the evening we had a very agitated crossing to the big brother, where we had the 1st dive early in the morning. At the south plateau we saw two thresher sharks at the cleaning station unfortunately in relatively large distance, in addition a grey shark and 2 Napoleon wrasses.
In the afternoon we changed to the "Little Brother", but there were quite a lot of boats and divers on site and the sharks we saw (Longi, grey shark, hammerhead) stayed in a safe distance.
After the crossing to Daedalus Reef we gave everything with the goal to find the hammerheads. We succeeded on the 2nd day during the early morning dive, the scout passed quite close to the reef and shortly after we could see the rest of the group (7 or 8?), but beyond the 50m mark. In the afternoon we had an encounter with a really handsome silky shark. All in all we have to say that the visibility was quite clouded by many floating particles, it was actually manta or whale shark atmosphere. Shortly before casting off we had the opportunity for the traditional T-shirt shopping tour at the lighthouse.
We went on to the Fury Shoals, the very next morning we were at one of the most beautiful reefs there, at Shaab Maksour. At Abu Galawa Soraya we dived the wreck, here we also had the first night dive. With that the 1st week was already over.
The following day we were at Rocky Island and Zabargad. Already early in the morning the dolphins jumped in front of our boat and accompanied us also on the 1st dive. Rocky Island is a legendary dive site, the reef walls are full of the most beautiful soft corals, gorgonians, black and sea fan corals. Zabargad Island is known for its stunning turquoise lagoon, it is also a nesting site for sea turtles during the summer months.
We continued to the Saint Johns Islands, unfortunately we could not dive Habili Ali because of the strong winds. At Gota Kebir we saw again 4 dolphins very close, as well as a silvertip shark and a turtle (Green Turtle). At Umm Arouk we saw beautiful coral towers (Ergs) with many anemones. Um El Aruk means "the reef with many coral blocks".
We had a very interesting dive in St. John's Caves, at least until a second group of divers met us. The caves are partly very nicely overgrown with soft corals, there were also some very nicely overgrown coral blocks, where one could linger well. At Shaab Sataya we did a combined sunset/night dive, this time without any dolphins.
Then we went back to the north, again with course Daedalus. We wanted to know it again, there were actually a few less boats and divers there, also this time we met the scout of the hammerhead sharks, at the south plateau the Longimanus passed by relatively quickly.
One of our last destinations was Elphinstone Reef (Abu Hamra), which is located about 10 km east off the Red Sea coast, north of Marsa Alam. Here we had a total of 3 dives, only on the last one we had the perfect encounter with a Longimanus, with an incredible amount of fish at Split Point
(this is the place where the incoming current splits and where you also have calm water).
Unfortunately we had to skip the dives on the last day in Marsa Shouna, Roland anyway because of the strained ligaments in his foot and Antje because of a cold. However, also here a larger troop of spinner dolphins came by and said goodbye to us.
The trip was characterized by many stories about other diving groups, unfortunately the associated boats could not always be identified (but the "Princess Diana" was always there). There were tech divers with really strange postures, divers being towed, divers on emergency ascent, divers on collision course - it was quite interesting. But also some new things were learned - hand signals and gestures for NUDY branches, tank filling (?) and much more.... Leonie tried really hard to practice THE CORRECT hand signs even with the last diver.
Fact: It was again a very nice tour with Bluewater Safaris with many interesting conversations, especially the morning shaking rhymes of Joachim and the selection of egg dishes we will miss but very much. Shokran to the crew of the Independence II, a big thank you to Leonie and Fadlallah. Until hopefully soon on the Indy III.
