Direct to Marsa Alam…
by Veronique Heyes

Travel
What bliss to find out that Excel Airways had added a weekly charter to Marsa Alam airport from Gatwick! Having driven the ghastly several hours back from El Qseir to Hurghada before, this was a welcome improvement.
The trip was booked via Regal Diving, and the arrangements went ‘on rails’ throughout. Excel Airways honoured their pledge to additional 10 kg weight for checked-in scuba equipment, but, as pre-warned, were pretty hot about sticking to the 5 kg or just above limit on carry-on bags. Flights were on time there and back, transfers were very good. We travelled in May 2004 for a week’s stay.

The accommodation
We stayed at the Sol Y Mar resort, which opened in 2003. Brand new it certainly looked. And the teething problems of youth it certainly had. Our air conditioning unit in the room was not working. It took however less than 5 minutes to convince engineering that the refrigerant might need topping up, which was done in a jiffy and hey presto, cold air we had. And it was needed with daytime temps of over 40°C and warm nights. Our bathroom sink was ‘live’, giving off more than a tingle when washing in bare feet...The room was spacious, comfortable, but furnishings were Spartan and the fittings and hard decorating finish standards a little happy go lucky…
Housekeeping was first class however, absolutely spotless. I particularly recommended the Beach facing rooms, the views are stunning.
Marsa Alam seems to be a cheap and cheerful packet all-inclusive holiday destination for Italians. Our hotel occupancy at say 70% was itself more than 80 % Italian. Don’t get me wrong I have nothing against Italians, some of my dear friends are, and this particular clientele was pleasant and courteous. But imagine a 4-class potential married to 1970’s Butlins and you have it. Today’s Butlins was heads and shoulders above.
The Italian major tour company Alpitour had an army of young tanned energetic ‘animators’ running around the place badgering hapless, and less than would-be participants into pool aerobics, beach volley ball, late afternoon aerobics, beach discos blaring out of portable high volume stereos, all day long. The impressive evening disco ran twice a week with all time favourites ‘aga do, do, do’ and the ‘birdy song’… We found it hard to believe that the Italians would not come had this ready digested entertainment not been provided, as we were led to believe, for the lack of enthusiasm the majority showed to being involved in any of it. Go figure.

Several discussions with some local English speaking staff revealed that all was not well with this massive influx of a one-style one-goal clientele, and was frankly, well, putting off the others. We, non ‘all-inclusive’ non-wrist band clad, were firm favourites with some staff who had their heads screwed on and customer service in their blood in order to get a deserved tip, while we were frankly a nuisance to others, including some in the disastrous restaurant…

We lived on rice, pasta, tepid stew and boiled carrots, because this was the all inclusive fare dedicated to the Italian clientele, which did not look like it might give you a couple of days in bed with the famous ‘touristitis’. The daily fry up/grill menu was uninspiring and provided by bored, rude and indifferent staff. None of the dairy or salad products were refrigerated; yoghurt, desserts, salads and creams were laid out in open containers for several hours at a time on ordinary counter tops, flies dipping in and out. The restaurant had a small number of ‘al fresco’ tables on terraces outside, which were coveted and cherished by those who had once or twice to endure the school refectory style service of the indoor ‘panoramic’ dining room. ‘nough said I think.
Needless to say, we did not spend much time in the resort, apart from the great beach bar, diving most days.
Insert: Beach Bar

And all the better we felt for it. For the diving was only just short of fabulous.

Diving from Marsa Alam
The on-site Emperor Divers had a very neat set up and slick operations. Good on-land facilities, and excellent boats and crews. A 20-minute ride to the docks was provided by local minibus, vying for comfort (overhead Kleenex boxes!) and the most polished chrome, there and back, all very easy and effortless. The centre offers full PADI 5 Star service including tuition and gear rental. Nitrox is available too.

The weather was not calm, with a good force 3 to 4 blowing at times to force 5 or 6 for most days apart from one very calm and millpond quality day, which was very welcome for those not used to good old UK style conditions! However, the boats were good and stable, and with only 10 divers on board on average, made it very comfortable indeed however uncomfortable the pitching and rolling got to be at times. A small charge was made additional to the diving each day to cover lunch provided on board, and this produced from the smallest galley was fresh, delicious and not short of miraculous. We basically survived the week from the food provided on board!

The dive sites
There are a couple of dozen sites accessible by day boat from Marsa Alam, weather depending, and many of those are within 30 minutes of the docks. I remembered the names of many of those, which I had visited several years back, when only live-aboards provided the opportunity to dive these southern sites. I was very much looking forward to revisiting and I was not disappointed.

Sha’ab Marsa Alam
As a first site, which was as a matter of fact dictated by the rather lumpy seas and limited opportunities, it was not the best the week had to offer. Lack-lustre colours, tired corals and high sedimentation onto the reef and wall made it a little disappointing, but hey, was it good to get back into gin clear water, all of 28°C warm! Fish life was a little sparse, aside of a large school of barracuda dancing out into the blue. Maybe at a different time or in better conditions, this site could be very good. The wall certainly had the makings of a classic Red Sea wall dive.
On the same day, we dived at:

Halibi Gamal
Though very close to the former site, this was miles better. Several pinnacles form an interesting reef habitat dominated by sheltered and current exposed areas. The coral quality and quantity was much brighter and better there, especially soft corals. Fish life was looking up too, with the Red Sea headquarters of masked puffers in residence, massive schools of oriental Sweet lips, and large numbers of free-swimming morays.
Not a bad first day!
The second day was to provide what this area has for best.

Elphinstone Reef
It was really touch and go whether we would be making it to Elphinstone with again, very lumpy seas and over a 2-hour ride out to the site. However, perseverance paid off, as we were pretty much alone there on arrival! Imagine, having this legendary site to yourself…
Having dived Elphinstone several times before, it is one of my all times best, favourite dives, and with trepidation was I looking forward to this again. Everything is there. Gorgeous coral gardens in the shallows, fantastic vertiginous walls covered in soft corals, whips, fans, massive schools of reef and pelagics, and the chance of ‘big encounters’. And, we had it all. The prettiness, the cornucopian dimension of fish life, and the adrenaline rush of shark (white and oceanic white tips, hammerhead) manta rays, and dolphins! Oh, and I forget, turtles foraging on the shallow plateau, and Mini Cooper sized napoleon wrasse. We did 4 dives in all there, and each one better than the previous.
The weather turned nasty for the return, but, no one thought of complaining…

Dolphin House (Shab Masadai)
Not to be confused with Dolphin Reef, which is another site further south. Dolphin House is protected by government edict, and an environmental patrol is in place each day to monitor boat and swimmer traffic. A group of several dozens spinner dolphins have made their home in this crescent shaped reef, which has a very wide and shallow sandy protected cove. It is a popular dive and snorkelling site. As luck would have it, the dolphins were out shopping when we came, and only returned as we pulled up anchor to go home, but, the diving, and the snorkelling was very good, nonetheless. We dived the South East Corner, and the Pinnacles.

South East Corner
This dive features the ‘obligatory cave and swim through’, which we declined in favour of visiting several large clumps of anemones with resident clowns and dominos. They were teeming with every size of fish, from nail size to dessert plate size, and needless to say, much film was spent here in order to provide nephews and nieces with real ‘Nemo’ pictures! Several of us lost our guide, but had the most interesting dive in return, falling upon sleeping turtles, and were nearly mobbed full frontal by a massive spotted eagle ray as we rounded a corner! We thanked our good navigation training in getting us back to the ladders of the boat, after a good hour doing our own thing.

Pinnacles
As the name indicates. This dive resembled the Halibi reef in many respects for shape and size, but what a difference for life and colour! This has got to be one of my favourites that week. Caves full of glass sweepers, huge porcupines, every grouper and parrot variety under the sea, stone fish, scorpion and lion fish galore, and several stingrays. Good corals too.
We also did what the area was famous for before the advent of resort boat diving, some shore dives.

Abu Dabab
From a crescent shaped sandy beach, access is easy along the reef, which comes right into the shore, and descends gradually from 2 m to 25 m. It’s a fairly long swim to the 15 m depth mark, and you should aim to get there quite quickly on the first dive, as this has by far the better scenery, and fish life. As the reef slopes away, several large coral lumps sit across a sandy sea grass covered bottom, in around 25 m of water.
Our first dive was very good, and we spotted stonefish and crocodile fish in the shallows. Sea turtles were in numbers, including an enormous example, which swam along with us for quite a while. The area is famed for its turtles, which like to forage out in the bay on the vast sea grass covered bottom, and is also the home of dugongs, or sea cows. We sadly did not see one. The second dive of this two-dive deal is roughly a repeat of the first, but by then, many groups of divers and an increasing swell in the shallows had all about wrecked any hope of good visibility. Getting out of the heavy surf back onto the beach was an undignified experience for many including yours truly at the end of the second dive!

Finally, we squeezed in a night dive on our last full day, as we did not leave for another 24 hours the following evening (another bonus of the Excel Air flight!).

This dive started from the Emperor centre, right in the resort, with a short walk to the end of the Sol y Mar resort jetty. A giant stride entry of some 3 meters in full kit into the inky black, was enjoyed by some, but not so much by others. However, the dive was very good. The reef there is in perfect shape, not being dived very often, and drops off to about 20/25 meters making it a perfect night dive at the mid range level. Caves and inlets into the reef were teeming with hunting lionfish and feeding shrimps, and many parrots slept in their duvet of jellylike cocoons. Spanish dancers were spotted, and the obligatory extinguishing of torches revealed copious luminescence. Getting back on land was reasonable, with somewhat steeply upright and slippery ladders onto the jetty. One of our party managed to climb the ladder the wrong side (well it was dark), ending up with no clear surface and a lump on his head has he hit the underside of the jetty!

My final take on this would be:

Diving: First class sites, good facilities, and pleasant and efficient service. One criticism was on some of the dive guiding, which was a little too eager to show too much, too fast. This did not phase the experienced divers who ended up left behind and finally rejoined the boat, thanks to the excellent dive briefings, or indeed, through the experience of losing guides regularly due to stopping for a while for that heart arresting photo. However, it was clear from discussions back on board that the less experienced divers who kept up with the at times marathon guiding were somewhat short-changed of the option of seeing much of the macro life, which was in as marvellous abundance as the big stuff.

Location: The area will, I fear, return to being ‘live aboard only’ for many of us, within a few years. A sure sign of uncertain times were the half finished hotel and apart hotel complexes lining the coast line ‘cheek by jowl’, and I got the distinct impression of sitting on the time bomb of mass diving tourism developing here before too long.

With so many world-class diving reefs within spitting distance of the shoreline, I leave you to ponder.

Véronique Heyes
e-mail: verhe7759@btconnect.com

Useful links:
www.regal-diving.co.uk
www.excelairways.com
www.emperordivers.com
www.solymar-hotels.com
www.touregypt.net/featurestories/marsaalam.htm


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