Red Sea 2006

21 dives in 6 days including 5 night dives!! WOW!! 10 wreck dives and 11 reef dives, one of which included some wreckage (plus toilets and baths) so 10.5 of each, a good half-and-half trip.

Wreck dives:

• Chrisoula K
• Carnatic
• Ghiannis D
• The Barge (2) including a night dive
• Rosalie Moller (2)
• SS Thistlegorm (3) including a night dive

Reef dives:

• Ras Katty (3) including initial check dive and 2 night diveS
• Abu Nuhas
• Shark - Jolande - Satellite Reef (three small reefs in one dive, with the toilets and baths between Jolande and Satellite)
• Jackson Reef (2)
• Thomas Reef
• Anemone City - Shark - Jolande Reef (again three reefs in one dive)
• Ras Ghazlani

NB Spellings vary, depending on which map you look at.

Hopefully, different members of the party will write up their most memorable dive(s). I think though, it is safe to say that Tinky's will be of the Rosalie Moller. I'll leave that to him.

The water temperature was 26/27 degrees except for the two dives on the Rosalie Moller when it was 24/25 (because of the greater depth). The visibility on most dives was a long way. The sea was calm apart from being a little choppy when we were getting out from the first night dive at Ras Katty (also the dive with the poorest visibility).

I first dived the Thistlegorm 12 years ago, but on both dives then there was quite a strong current. This time we did three dives, including a night dive, and only encountered a slight current on the shot line on each dive. On the night dive we had to enter with negative buoyancy to avoid drifting away from the shot in the surface current, but once down there was no problem at all. The rifles, motorbikes, shells, trucks, coal tenders, water containers, mobile generators and engine cowlings for planes are still there, but the Wellington boots and sandals seem to have almost disappeared. Of course we had to go in the captainùs cabin and inspect the bath and wash basins. This time we noticed the radiator was also still there. On the side we descended we were able to swim round a locomotive on the sea bed. On the wreck itself there was also abundant life, the most notable of which were a large Napoleon wrasse, two scorpion fish and a nudibranch.

All the reef dives were full of life including, amongst others, anemones with their resident øNemosù and domino damsels, a rare red anemone, nudibranchs, hard corals, soft corals, gorgonian fan corals, diadema urchins, pencil urchins, moray eels (ranging from 5cm to 3.5m!!), lion fish, scorpion fish, stone fish, crocodile fish, lizard fish, goat fish, banner fish, butterfly fish, bat fish, unicorn fish, surgeon fish, anthias, gobies, shrimps, porcupine fish, puffer fish, angel fish, blue spotted stingrays, chocolate dip chromis, sergeant majors, fusiliers, trigger fish, glass fish, pipe fish, jacks, squid, hermit crabs and even the fairly rare long nosed hawkfish. Some members of the party were lucky enough to see turtles and/or get very close to an eagle ray

.

Thomas reef was a lovely dive with beautiful corals, a 'fence' of gorgonian fan corals, a few of which were home to the long nosed hawk fish, small caves sheltering big-eye fish, at least two types of nudibranchs and most of the other fish mentioned above. But the reef dive that stands out most for me was a gentle drift along Jackson reef. On the first dive of the day weùd swum left along the reef and there was a very slight drift. On the dive between breakfast and lunch weùd swum to the right. The current was slightly stronger, but when we turned to come back we realised just how much stronger it had become. There was no chance of stopping to look at things on the way back - we just had to fin for it. We certainly knew weùd done a dive after that one!

Thanks to Steve for booking both the holiday and (yet again) the weather. Tracy and David, the dive guides on Typhoon, said they'd not seen the conditions as good all year for diving the Rosie. The weather forecast for the week after us was horrendous and they didn't think they would be able to do a lot of the dives we'd done, let alone make the crossing down to the Brothers Islands where they were scheduled for.

We had a great time - good company, good weather, good food, friendly and helpful crew and dive guides, four dives most days (being woken most mornings by the engines starting up between 4.30 and 5.30am!) all rounded off by a night out in Naama Bay in a roof top bar, sitting on cushions having a go on the 'hubble bubble' pipe, and then the following day at our leisure before leaving the hotel at 6.30pm to go to the airport. Most of us arrived home somewhere around 3am on the Sunday, absolutely shattered. But it was definitely worth it.