Red Sea - Hurricane June 2006
by Mark Willoughby

Sharm on a day boat 2005, my buddy, Ken, looked to me and said, "Ever fancied a live aboard"? My reply was an instant yes, to dive remote areas only accessible by a live aboard would be fantastic I thought.

A quick conversation on the boat pursued and once back in the UK a decision to book Hurricane with Tony Backhurst was decided upon, the itinerary "simply the best" to cover Elphinstone, the Brothers and Daedalus.. some of the most popular remote islands in the Southern Red Sea.

The usual trip from Loughborough to Gatwick and we were at the hotel ready for the next days flight. Chaos at Gatwick is the norm 27 kilos of dive kit and the bags were gone.. the flight was on time next stop Marsa Alam airport.

Picked up by coach to Port Galeb and the first sight of Hurricane as we turned the corner, impressive I thought from the coach.

Off the coach to a lovely welcome by our guides and hosts for the week a friendly ozzie guy called Jo and his Swiss partner Karin. Quickly on board we were welcomed by the crew all given soft drinks ready for the boat brief. England were playing at the same time so the messages were coming in thick and fast with scores while Jo briefed us on the boat to his annoyance but eh this is England playing.

The boat brief was very concise and thorough, then we all went to our respective cabins. Ours was cabin no 1 small but enough for 2 guys for the week, saying that I do like my space.




Then to the dive deck to assemble our twin 12s that we were diving on for the whole of the week... the normal huffing and puffing pursued trying to get a wing to fit to banding with bent steel rods that were to long... but with a lot of pulling and pushing the twins were assembled.

DIVING DAY 1 LOCAL

A check out day local to Marsa Alam diving UM-EL-RUS a very shallow first dive diving over a lot of sea grass where we saw quite friendly massive turtles munching away on the sea grass, guitar sharks.and a very friendly sea cow called Dennis. the second and third dives were a reef/wall dive in the same area to gain some depth, but our weight was spot on and the trim of the twin sets superb... with shutdown drills completed happy divers we were.

DIVING DAY 2 ELPHINSTONE

Elphinstone reef is a 2-hour trip out from Marsa Alam but an ideal reef en-route to the Brother's islands. These reefs can be very subject to strong currents, which we soon found out. Into the RIB for a 10 minute ride then off the back to get depth onto the reef. This did not happen. After 20 mins of fighting against a strong current it was time to finish this dive, we were both mid water in the blue with the reef disappearing fast.. dsmbs deployed faster than I have ever deployed one in my life. While I was at 18m I saw my buddy sinking fast, thankfully the next thing I saw was his dsmb fly past me! Was I relieved! At least we both now had stability under water. I hung on until he reached me we then both made a steady assent to the waiting RIB. "Bad current" the driver said, I just looked at him with contempt!

The next two dives on Elphinstone were superb seeing both grey reef sharks and white tip reef sharks. Elphinstone is a cracking dive with unspoilt reefs.


DIVING DAY 3 LITTLE BROTHER

Little Brother is one of the two Brothers islands. Another remote reef accessible by live aboard only... another unspoilt reef. Normal reef marine life on this reef. No shark action but a nice small reef that can be dived the whole way around in the 3 dives we did on this day.

DIVING DAY 4 BIG BROTHER

The first dive of the day was a wreck dive "THE AIDA" a supply ship to Big Brother that met its fate smashed on the reef. She starts at about 28m and is a pleasant little wreck to get stuck into filled with an abundance of marine life, superb to dive on twins with a 32% nitrox mix.. we were now ready for the big wreck on Big Brother.

"THE NUMIDIA" lies just around the corner from the Aida and lies upright down to a depth of 85m. She starts at about 10m. We sank to approx 40m to make our way back up through this wreck.. It feels strange diving a wreck almost upright in the water but makes for a great dive. Care must be taken if entered as she does have some small holes for easy entrapment but a lot of the wreck can be entered. We saw a very large grey reef shark on this dive.

The third dive of the day was also the "NUMIDIA" once again quick depth and we were up through the wreck giving the engine room close inspection. Once again on all of these dives a quick descent is important and get shelter from the side of the wreck as the currents whip around this part of Big Brother. This is not the end of the dive as once up through the wreck the Big Brother reef is quite an amazing reef one in which with plenty of gas was enough to slowly dive back to the boat.

DIVING DAY 5 DAEDALUS

Daedalus the son of Icarus. Why this island was named this nobody knows but it was named by the British who built a lighthouse on this island to warn shipping travelling through the Red Sea. Daedalus was where we got our main shark action.. Me and my buddy moaning like crazy due to the lack of hammerheads.. Diving along with the reef on the left I heard a muffled shout through Jo our guide's mouth piece. I turned round to look to him and there they were - 3 of the most prefect scalloped hammerhead sharks I had ever seen! I was over the moon. We were at approx 30m, computers bleeping like crazy as divers were going into deco with little remaining bottom time. This is where the twin 12s came into their own. As others were heading for the surface we stayed clocked up a decent amount of deco to witness one of the greatest dives of my life. The hammerheads stayed with us for quite some time, one turning into the reef and heading straight for me then made a dash into the blue at my relief, not that I was scared but at the end of the day I give these creatures massive respect I am in their domain.

Dive number three on Daedalus was similar to number two taking in the other side of the reef with the reef wall on our left. Once again we were kept company by a grey reef shark and a single hammerhead that swam past me within 10ft - brilliant! I learned to dive eight years ago. My logbook entry after these dives was "I LEARNED TO DIVE EIGHT YEARS AGO FOR A DAY LIKE TODAY!

DIVING DAY 6 LOCAL

The last day's diving is an anti climax. We had had some of the best diving in my life I was now shallow in a local shore reef and was bored. We did the one dive on Marsa Shouna and decided that was enough we got our kit dry and packed ready for the boat transfer to the hotel where we spent our last night. The transfer was by RIB to the hotel followed by our baggage, a night relaxing in the hotel then next day transfers to the airport.

MV HURRICANE

For a boat that is 4 years old she is already starting to look tired in places. The carpets in the cabins could do with replaceing.. Rust in places is starting to appear.
The crew are second to none - caring for our every whim, the food was excellent, the only thing required to be paid for is beer and spirits and mixers, all tea coffee and soft drinks are inc in the price. Tipping is between £30-£50 for the guides and the crew one envelope is placed on the table and you can put into it what you want. The guides do a dvd of the week for sale for £35.00, T-shirts towels etc are all available also.

THE GUIDES

Jo and Karin are superb on the boat giving concise awesome briefings and a lovely "morning briefing" at 0630 everyday in a lovely Swiss accent from Karin, they are both very approachable and anybody is free to knock on their cabin at any time of the day or night with any problems. And I feel I have made two very good friends in them both.

THE DIVING

The currents can be strong around all of the reefs I have spoken about. We were told that divers are swept off the reefs every month but it's not reported. You do need to keep your wits about you while diving, these currents split and divers can get split from the main group all going in different directions, good buoyancy and the use of delayed surface marker buoys is important. I would say sports diver and above with a good number of dives under their belts in varying conditions is a must. You need to be able to dive these reefs yourself without being guided as if you lose the guides due to splitting currents then you are on your own... ribs are never far away to pick you up from any point where you surface.

Nitrox is available on board for which we paid £100 for a week's unlimited nitrox but individual fills can be paid for nitrox for a single cylinder unlimited is £60.. Well worth it in my eyes with doing 3 dives a day. Air is inc in the price. We paid £80.00 for a manifolded twin set, but you can take your own banding and set up your own twin set free of charge.

LIVEABOARDS

This has been an unbiased article from my own personal opinion on the liveaboard Hurricane. Would I do a live aboard again? Never say never but up to now no. I like my space and plenty of it. Being ex navy it was just like joining a ship again. I even had flashbacks while walking on board for the first time. The boat is small and once the diving is over there's not a lot to do. I had a couple of beers before dinner and was in bed most nights before 9 0'clock.

However I would recommend livaboards to anybody. You get to remote sights inaccessible by day boats. If you like meeting new people this is the way to do it, we even had a 75 year old guy diving with us who is a regular Tony backhurst customer. There was a mixed bunch, couples, and singles, ranging from 18 up to 75 years of age. There is room for 22 guests we had 20 on board, not all of them were my cup of tea, but eh we were only together for one week - this I could live with. I'm sure I wasn't everybody's cup of tea either. There are places to get away from people but not many - the sanctuary of your cabin is the main one.

The last thing the toilets. It's paper in the little bin I'm afraid. Not a lot of room for privacy if sharing with somebody you don't know while visiting the toilet.

Roll on the Maldives 2007

Mark Willoughby


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