Alexandria, Egypt, September 2007

by Hilary Howarth

We flew with BA Connect which seems to have now changed it's name as I can't now find it on the web.Just found flights to Alex on Dial-a-Flight, direct for around £400. That's for November but it won't probably change much for other times. I forgot to say, the viz is supposed to be best in the autumn but, as usual, when we got there we were told that October is much better than September! The water temperature was around 25 26 degrees, we all dived in 5mm suits and were warm right through the dives.

The flights cost £450 each, including taxes, and arrived at around 7.00 pm. This was a much better bet than flying to Cairo. All those flights arrived there at around 1.00am and then we needed to find a bus for the 2.5 hour drive to Alex. (We arrived at Borg el Arab airport, the flight went on to Addis Ababa, I hope this helps someone to find it). Dr Sabri recommended the Union Hotel, this was fairly basic but clean. All rooms were en-suite and had a sea view and the hotel was about 15-20 minutes walking distance of the dive centre. Best of all, it cost £5.00 per night per person including breakfast!

Diving was USSD90 per day with a 10% discount for 5 or more days. The dive centre was very laid back and took a bit of time to get organised. To be fair, they are geared up to cater for the occassional back-packer or local ex-pats, we were the first group they had ever had (we had 11 divers.) Said is the main dive guide and extremely enthusiastic about his dive sites. We went out on the dive centre boat for the first 2 days.

The boat was fine, with a toilet. The sunken city was very interesting but the visibility was extremely bad, we went in groups of 4 or 5 and all held hands to try to stay together. There was the wreck of an Italian bomber in the bay, that dive we only managed a total depth of 5.9 metres. We did a couple of the city dives again when the vis was a bit better and I did find it very interesting. There are several sphinx's, but only one with the head intact. We had a great time digging the sand away to expose a bit more of the body, there must be so much down there that is covered over, just waiting to be discovered.

The third day we started diving the wrecks, that was when the elusive Dr Sabri appeared. He is on a mission to find all the wrecks and is doing pretty well so far. There were a couple of them that he didn't know the names of, so he dived with us every day, mostly to do more research. He was incredibly enthusiastic and knowledgeable so all the briefings were great. Dr Sabri has the only dive centre in Alex and most people don't do enough diving there to do the wrecks so you can imagine how untouched they were. We even dived one wreck that Dr Sabri had only just found and even the rest of his staff had never dived it.

We dived WW1 and WW11 wrecks and the Napoleonic Orient which went down around 1780. There were cannons and several cannonballs scattered around. It seems that nothing has been removed from any of the ships. The later ships still had guns attached, a crate of wine, still with the corks and loads of portholes still with the glass. One wreck had loads of ammunition still in packs, Dr Sabri was very specific about "do not touch anything on this wreck".

As the wrecks are farther out, Dr Sabri hired a bigger boat. This was not really a dive boat, but it had a decent platform at the back and plenty of help to get back in. I should imagine it is a bit like the Red Sea diving was 20 years ago, and personally, I can accept a bit less luxury for the privielege of diving with absolutely no other boats around. Also, the staff were very helpful, they changed cylinders between dives and were always there to help with kitting up.

Eating out was cheap, we went to the expensive hotels (I can't remember it's name but it was very close to our hotel) and, including wine, we paid around £10.00 each for the meal. We also went to one recommended by Dr Sabri where all the locals go. It was vegetarian and didn't allow alcohol, but we ate there for £8.00 for 11 of us, so less than 80 pence each. We found several places that came somewhere in between those prices.

We had a city tour on the last day. That cost USD50 each and we went to the Citadel, the Catacombs, Pompeys Pillar and the Library. Unfortunately we were there for the start of Ramadan, so all these places closed early and we were rather rushed round the sites. It was very intersting and I could certainly spend a whole day in the library.

We also took a taxi to the private beaches at the other end of Alex. There isn't much else to do there for non-divers but the only non-diver who came with us enjoyed himself. He came out on the boat a couple of days and there are plenty of markets to go to and I would love to explore the tram system. There is also the option of a day in Cairo by taxi, bus or train.

Dr Sabri is hoping to open another centre in El Alamein within the next couple of years. The visibility is consistently better there, although we had most of the dives in good vis. There is more silt the closer you go to the mouth of the Nile. El Alamein has no rivers to pollute the sea.

We didn't see much fish life, there was more on the wrecks, but we didn't really miss that so much as I thought I would as the wrecks were so fascinating.

I suggest you go soon and see it as we did, I'm sure you would have a great time.
Thanks for encouraging us to go, I was very apprehensive about what we would find, but it worked out very well and all of us enjoyed it, especially all us girls who flirted shamelessly with Dr Sabri.


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