This 2 week trip was a week of two halves. The first week consisting of a weeks liveaboard on the MV Blue Pearl followed by a week of reef diving at a friends dive school in El Quseir ( Phaorah Dive Cub )

I had ordered the Tokina 10-17mm prior to this trip and was looking forward to using it. I had read so much on this lens i just hoped I could get it perform as well as others had on here. I was hoping to be shooting close up to Oceanic Whitetips.

The boat was a pretty good size, food was good, guides great. The only downside was that there wasnt any sizeable rinse tank for big rigs. Having said that they did have low pressure watering hoses on the dive deck so a quick rinse with that and it was not a problem.

The dive programme was for a local check out dive, then head for the Brothers for 3 days, then to Elphinstone for a day then to do a couple of local reef dives prior to going back to port.

The check out dive was a pretty standard Red Sea reef dive with hard and soft corals and plenty of reef fish.
Now it was on to the Brothers. These 2 islands are way out to sea and are only diveable from liveaboard. Little Brother is the smaller of the two as the name sugests. It is a reef well known in Egypt for its soft corals. We spent one and a half days here where we encountered grey reef sharks, a couple of hammerheads, oceanic whitetips ( on the surface at night only though ) large Napoleon Wrasse also known as Maori Wrasse. The diving was fun drift diving.

After Little Brother it was Big Brother. Big Brother is best known in Egypt for the two wrecks that sit 17 metres ( Namidia ) and 26 metres ( Aida ) below the surface. They are both resting in an almost vertical position practically defying gravity. Being so popular they were quite busy with liveaboards and divers which made photography a bit of a pain as divers and their bubbles would nearly always be somewhere in the frame where the were not wanted. The diving was great here, but for the photographer frustrating.

So with not too many shots for my efforts it was on to Elphinstone, this is a submerged reef plateau that has shear walls down to a southern and northern plateau. The Oceanics had failed to make a show during the day at The Brothers we were hoping that Elphinstone would be different as it had been on previous trips there. Well luckily for us Elphinstone brought us Oceanics and BIG smiles. We did have some very close up action with them and the started taking a liking to a few of our fins. I had a pectoral fin hit me across the back of the neck whilst getting a shot of another at close range. We had a few days diving here and managed to find them on all dives.

From here we headed towrds port and dove a sea grass area in search of the famous Dugong ( sea cow ) Dennis. This didnt throw up any shots either. Needle in a haystack are the words used to finding Dennis.

Well this was the first week over and now it was off to El Quseir to meet up with our friend at his dive school. We were supposed to be diving areas in search of new dive sites as this region of Egypt is little dived. We were given the chance to go back out to The Brothers on a 2 day liveaboard with my friend as he had a load of UK divers turn up last minute who were wanting to do a trip out to dive the Brothers. We didnt need asking twice, so the next day we took a flight up to Sharm El Sheik to go and look at the development of a property we are having built up there. Nothing had changed since Ramadan ( Muslim holiday ) which was 6 weeks ago. Hopefully it will be ready for us to use in the new year.

Back out at the brothers, there were even more boats than the previous week. We had left our camera rigs behind at my friends dive school and were going to actually dive without cameras. DIVE WITHOUT MY CAMERA - BUT I CANT DO THAT. !!!!!!

As I had any just been to the Brothers I was more or less left in charge of the diving with regards to where we would be diving and what we could expect to see. The advice I gave to all the divers was spot on and hammerheads were seen, grey reefs were seen and we had an amazing 2 days with the oceanics during the day. We got in the water at 415 pm on our last and were literally chased out of the water by 6 oceanics at dusk. There is a strict NO NIGHT DIVING rule at the Brothers and I could see why. We had another great time with the sharks but sadly didnt get any images or video of it as we had no camera with us. We were not too bothered as we had plenty from our trip to Elphinstone. It was actually quite nice to dive and just be a diver as opposed to diving to take photos. I was amazed how much air i had left without carrying the rig on a dive.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/26034596@N08/...ith/2966853794/

here are a few of my favourites from the first week

Nice report. Some very nice images there. Have had the same troubles with too much activity at the numidia. Had to change to a straight zoom instead of a fisheye to "get some privacy".

/c

edit: BTW, you must have been sitting on top of that hammerhead if you shot it with the 10-17. Cropped?

Good stuff Stew.

Thanks for the report. I am off to Elphinstone for my photo-workshop in a couple of weeks. Really hope that the oceanics will be there. What's diving without a camera like?

Hope it is not too cold in Southampton. Its sunny in Vegas!

Alex

cheers Alex, I absolutely love this lens. I took quite a few close up soft coral shots with it and was very happy with the results apart from a ring that appeared on them, it must be some kind of reflection when aiming into the sun, so these shots got deleted.



I wish I could go back !!! just make sure you are out in the blue past the furthest boat above the southern plateau and they are there. not many divers were venturing out that far and didnt get to see them. As for diving without a camera, it was actually something that i had forgotten how to do. i didnt know what to do with my hands. my air consumption was amazing. we were doing 40 mtr dives with good profiles and average depths and lastin 70 minutes and still with 70 bar left.



5 degrees and cold. still got my shorts on though. Have a good one. Stew

Hey Stew, the 'Pearl' and its sister ship the 'Seas' have long been my favoured Red Sea liveaboards. They are older boats but very comfortable and, as you say, have great guides. Pia, Nina and Ashraf are very accomodating of photographers. Pia and I usually buddy and its rare we ever see one another...

Nice one Stew

I'm off to Marsa on November 19 after a week in Eilat for the "Epson Red Sea Shoot-out"
I haven't been in the water with Oceanic's since 2001 and having seen your excellent images I can't wait.
Thanks for the trip report .... and for sharing.

Nige Wade

if you are staying at shagra, be a little cautious with your kit. a friend of mine was there last week and had his bcd stripped of all his shiny bits, ie reel, caribiners etc.

Thanks for the heads-up Stew.

I'm staying in Coraya Bay north of Port Ghalib the dive centre seems pretty secure (dived with them in 2006)
Dont you just hate the theiving b******s, it may be fellow divers which makes it worse!

If anyone looked at my BCD they're more likely to leave me a new reel and some caribiners out of pity.

Nige Wade

I know this is drifting off topic but you do have to be careful at Shagra. The dive centre does not have a secure area for cameras which is why I always take a Madyafa chalet when I am staying there. There are stories of safari tents being ransacked and money stolen but hey, you don't need money day to day and the dive centre has a safe...

Because of the adjacent hotel developments and Shagra is not a closed site, there is a traffic of non-diving holiday makers walking through which may be the cause of pilferage there.

At Lahami, I'll happily stay in a safari tent (which is the better option in the summer heat) and leave kit and cameras scattered around. Its a much smaller and therefore more secure dive centre. But it still dosn't sport a camera room though...

Thanks for that info, I'll be putting my wallet in the safe from now on!

I'm staying at both Shagra and Lahami next month; tents at both. I was concerned on my last visit to Shagra to see 'outside' divers and snorkellers using the changing area and I noticed one who was taking too much interest in a crate belonging to a 'resident' diver, so I let him know it..........

Hope the oceanics hang around until I get there!!!

R

Great report Stew, and , as I have said before, I love the photos. I wish you would have pushed the sharks up to Sharm last week for me

Tristan