Okay, finally over the jetlag and stuffed stomach from Thanksgiving. Led an excellent trip to the Red Sea aboard the Emporer Elite diving the 'Simply the Best' itinerary. My group landed in Cairo and all of our gear was there except for one divers. For the first time, my partner and I hired a tour group to arrange for transfers, hotels and tour guides. The name of the group was Jollys Tours. They were excellent and I will tell you why as I proceed. The next morning we took a short flight to Luxor to begin part of the land portion of the trip. Our guide made sure we had no baggage fees, flew down with us and the charter bus was there waiting to bring us to the hotel. Beautiful hotel with excellent but inexpensive food. She took us to the Valley of the Kings and several other truly amazing places. In the meantime, Jose, my room mate for the trip and the guy whose gear never reached Cairo was still a bit anxious. Can't blame him. Our guide was in constant contact with her person in Cairo, a great guy named Mamoud, who stayed on top of the situation and after 3 days in Luxor called her to tell her the gear finally had gotten in and was sent down to meet her and Jose at the Luxor airport. Jose was a happy camper. After leaving Luxor we drove to Hurgata and boarded the boat. We couldn't have picked a better time of the year to do this journey as the topside temps were about 85F and not the 120F it is during summer months. The water temps were warmer than we expected with the average at 80F and the lowest I recorded at 78f. The dive boat was excellent and the food was superb(and I'm a picky eater. Lived on french fries for 2 weeks at KBR) They definitely,however, need to do something about their lack of camera tables. The crew didn't speak too much English but knew enough and worked very hard helping everyone. Some of the dives were off the boat and some were off the inflatable. We had very little current to speak of and the 2 divemasters, Gabrielle and Maria, provided excellent briefings and did an admirable job of watching over my guests. After a week of diving where I finally got to film my first thresher shark as well as a few oceanic white tips we disembarked and flew up to Cairo where a new guide met us at the hotel. Cairo is one smoggy city and people love to beep their horns. We made the mistake of going to the museum first thing in the morning and it was jammed full of other tour groups. Got a bit claustrophobic. The error was that after leaving the museum, we then went to the pyramids but now the sun was on high which was not the best situation for lighting of video or photography. I would have definitely switched the order of the activities. The next day we made sure to go to the sphinx and a few other pyramids first thing in the morning to get the best lighting. All in all, it was a perfectly run trip and all the guests were more than happy.
Next trip will be either the Maldives, Yap, Lembeh( for the 4th time) Truk and, as always with me, there is a Cocos Islands trip in the future. Been there 11 times and still never get bored of the place.
Steve