Trip report – Blue o2 Liveaboard  - Blue Fin  -  Deep South

November 2009

(taken from blue o two website)

Liveaboard diving can be a pretty intense week, 3 – 4 dives a day, early starts, strong currents, the heat, rough seas or alternatively it’s a perfect rotation dive, eat, sleep with a few beers to round off the day and assist the last sleep.

It's been a good few years since we have been proper paying customers on a liveaboard so we were looking forward to being looked after in the customary manner of liveaboard staff the world over. We booked direct with Blue o2, why? Superb boats to start of with, a British run company, always very good stand at the dive shows and, as is often the case with specialist dive companies, the employees are divers who have been on the boats themselves. It makes a big difference when your questions are answered by someone with first hand experience rather than someone reading off a computer screen.

Flying with your dive equipment these day’s is becoming harder and harder as the airlines restrict there weight allowances (you can off course pay extra for a few kilo’s more) so we were very pleased to hear that we had 25kgs baggage allowance, loads compared with some of the trips we have been on. We were flying with Viking Airways?

But other guests on our trip also flew with Thompson and Easy Jet. A tip if you are flying with Viking they sell additional leg room seats at check in, their leg room is miserly to say the least and on a five hour flight to Egypt its money well spent and we are pretty short by modern day standards . Everything else about the flight was pretty standard for a charter/low cost carrier. Pay for everything and don’t expect a smile from the hostess. It should be said the Blue o2 staff around the check in area were very nice and helpful at the rugby scrum that is Gatwick Airport.

Flights over and arrival in Hurgarda was a relative painless affair. By the time we had gone through visa and passport control our bags were on the carousel and we were out to meet the Blue o2 guide. Only one couple had lost their bag so a slight delay as people started to become acquainted with each other but we were soon away to our bus for the transfer to the boat. We were under the impression (it was on our itinerary and we also had an email about it) that after our 5 hour flight we then had a 3 hour journey to Marsa Alam to meet the boat. Having worked on live board’s the one thing you learn is that things change at a blink of an eye and instead of a 3 hour journey our boat was at the marina by the Hilton hotel and was a 15 minute trip, sounded good to us.

On arrival at the marina our first impressions of MV Blue fin were excellent. We were not disappointed by the boat, it was every bit as good as the promo photos on the web site and the holiday brochures, spotlessly clean and our cabin was something else. We upgraded to a suite for a week. For us it was money well spent and also very impressive. After the boat brief and the cabins were allocated the normal kitting up scrum on the dive deck, bags everywhere and the first opportunity to check out what sort of group was on the boat, before our first dinner on board and the excitement of a weeks excellent diving ahead of us.

The best trips to work on were usually the non charter trips where there are no large groups and everyone got on well together, chatting and exchanging stories from the start. Although the boat was full for our week the largest group was only 5 people,  Their were around 6-8 instructors’ on the guest list as well as many experienced divers which from the first impression meant that Karin our Tour leader and Hani the other dive guide on the boat could well be on for a fairly relaxed trip.

Day one

We had to wait for the port authorities to lets us leave the marina in the morning before we sailed around an hour and a half to Tobai Arbaa off Safaga for our check dive before moving on the wreck of the Salam express in the afternoon.

We were given our leave and as we slowly reversed out of our birth the air was filled with a huge cloud of oily smoke as the boats main generator decided now was a good time to blow up. Our first reaction was we could well be on a weeks trip around Giffton Island but luckily the boat had a back up generator and we continued on to our first dive site where repairs could be made while we were diving. Our check out dive was very pretty, a shallow dive site around seven coral columns, this was obviously a popular snorkelling site as we shared our mooring with quite a few day boats full of life jacketed snorkelers . After lunch (the food was already proving to be both mountainous and very good ) we were given the bad news that we were staying put while we waited for some spare parts from Hurgarda and would dive the check dive site again rather than the Salam Express. Work on the generator continued but we finally had the good news late in the afternoon that the generator was finally fixed and after the night dive (which was again at Tobai Arbaa) we would be sailing south overnight.

Day Two

We arrived at dawn with a 5.30am wakeup call and our first proper dive site at Marsa Shona. Once the shock of waking up so early has worn off we enjoy watching the sun rise at sea, slowly sipping a cup of coffee. I always love early morning dives, and this site was one to savour. Only 100m off the shore the coral wall slopes down to around 30-40 metres. The water clarity here was something else. Visibility in the Red Sea is always excellent with no land run off and plenty of deep water around, but it really was spectacular here.  Little current and a nice easy dive, just taking in the coral wall teaming with life. I love how the reefs here almost breathe with the movements of the Anthias on the coral heads. As we moved into the shallower water the sand bottom turns into a sea grass area, full of different life from the wall. Blue spotted and feather tailed Rays “flew” over the sea grass. Green turtles munched breakfast and if we had more time remaining we would have loved to go looking for the Spinney Seahorses and pipefish that hide in the vegetation. We surfaced with smiles on our faces to await the rib and our breakfast back on the boat. The next 4 hours were spent cruising down to Elphinstone Reef accompanied along the way by a huge pod of dolphins, quite special. Dives 2 & 3 were spent exploring the world class Wall’s of Elphinstone. Probably the best wall we have dived outside of Indonesia. We were slightly disappointed by the lack of large pelagics, but without a ripping current there are not so many feeding opportunities, so the lack of big stuff was understandable.  The life on the wall was great with some huge fans.  We did have the bonus at the end of the second dive to have our first encounter with the regions oceanic white tip sharks. A true scavenger/predator of the sea, truly awesome and one of the things I wanted to see on this trip.  After 3 great dives today I stuck to my principle of never spoil a great day’s diving with a night dive and instead enjoyed a sundowner with the more sensible boat guests.

Day Three

 We thought it was an early rise the day before but we had our early morning wake up call at 5.15 today.  The reef systems of  St John’s Reef and the dive site of Habili Ali was our first  and second dive of the day. A large submerged coral pinnacle with a shear wall down to 40m before a slopping wall to the real depths. Quite a few boats around but as we rise so early most other boats divers were just having there first taste of coffee when we were hitting the water so no problems there. Habili Ali had a few larger fish than Elphinstone. Tuna, trevilies and a solitary grey reef shark. Unicorn fish were cruising around especially where the current split on the reef, but apart from the normal reef fish, invertebrates and nudibranch etc were very hard to find although there were many places you would expect to find them. Again the mild current probably effected the amount of pelagic on what is an outstandingly beautiful dive site, but maybe one for wide angle photography rather than macro. 2 dives here left me slightly disappointed as something was missing on such a beautiful dive site.

Dive 3 was at Small Habili, as we arrived the one boat that was already here was already collecting its divers to leave us alone on this small pinnacle. As we got into the rib to our drop point an Oceanic cruised behind us. Small Habili although small had far more soft corals than the previous dive sites and on its north side travelies, snappers and emperor fish cruised in to the current. After around 30 mins of circling the pinnacle we met the Oceanic we had seen in the rib. The next half an hour we watched this magnificent creature check us out and pose very co-operatively for photos. Moving away for a few minutes and then retuning in what will always be a memorable and outstanding dive.

I slightly amended my night dive motto too after one great dive don’t spoil it with a night dive  although Rachel kept the side up and enjoyed her night dive at Abu Bassala where apparently it was both wet and dark before she and her buddy for the dive returned to the wrong boat, classic! I my self navigated my way through a rum and coke (very successfully) and looked at shark photos.

Day Four

We were now getting used? To be woken up at 5 something in the morning, today we were still diving the St Johns reef system with Small Gota our first dive, along with half the boats in the area. Again another fantastic small pinnacle with a wall to 40m with lots of sea fans, which we inspected hoping to find something interesting but to no avail. Back on the boat and snuggled in to the very soft blue o2 branded dressing gowns breakfast was again upon us. The daily egg fest (any combination of eggs cuisine appears to be accommodated) sprang into action. I being a creature of habit enjoyed a splendid cheese omelette most mornings. Dives 2 & 3 were at Cave Reef. A Change from the walls and some nice easy shallow diving along the caverns that honeycombed this pretty reef. The caves here have light penetrating the reef top and give this dive site a magical feel to it. There were some interesting life in the caves as well with some interesting small pipefish and a few nudibranch. Everyone jumped at the chance to have the third dive here and after a relatively short surface interval we re-entered the water before other boats arrived. Probably one of our favourite dive sites of the week. A long sail towards land (2 ½ to 3 hours) gave us plenty of time to download photos and snooze before we decided it would be to much effort to night dive, maybe tomorrow.   

Day Five

Back to the mainland and to the off shore reef systems at Sha’ab Claudio. With a max depth of 20m a long dive is guaranteed for all. Away from the main reef the sea bed was littered with coral heads, the main feature of the reef itself apart from some large shoals of bream and friendly napoleon wrasse were the caves in the reef, small pockets of light penetrated through the reef roof in to the caves to give some beautiful swim throughs’.

Our second dive was at Small Abu Galawa. A circular reef with a sheltered lagoon in the middle of the reef. A small wreck of a yacht lies to the west of the reef in about 15m of water. As we were back in the range of the day boats there were a few other boats arriving as we prepared for our dive and you can understand why its such a popular site. The lagoon had a special feel about it,  excellent corals and some interesting small critters for the odd photo. After a good lunch and the boats afternoon snooze our third dive was at Shel Iainiate a long shallow sheltered reef, we were dropped by the zodiacs away from the boat and enjoyed a gentle drift back in the gentle current. This was one of the few sites where there were a few Nudibranches around as well as plenty of docile fish that almost seem to queue to have their photos taken, very strange. The last chance of a night dive was tempting until Mohamed brought up a huge platter of freshly baked cake, combined with the riggers of five day’s diving allowed the good English response of  “look love I can't be arsed!”   

Day Six

Our last day of diving  and a bit of a lie in this morning as we are only doing two dives today our first dive of the day was at Sha’ab Sharm and probably one of my favourite dives of the week. A wall dive with a great plateau at 27- 40 metres we descended on to the plateau  to look for the longnosed hawkfish that hide in the sea fans that are abundant in the good current, we edged out to see if anything big was out off the drop off but with the exception of a couple of barracuda we worked our way slowly back up the wall. Excellent life on the wall all the way to the shallows, helped by the best current of the week.

The last dive of our trip was at Sha’ab Marsa Alam, famous for a pod off resident dolphins that often play here in the afternoon. A very busy site with 6-7 dive boats as well as large collection of snorkellers. Unfortunately it was a no show from the dolphins but the antics of a Polish dive boat moored behind us kept everyone amused. The dive itself was a pleasant shallow last dive best described as a bimble. The rest of the afternoon was taken up with washing kit and setting it out to dry (not a long process in the Red Sea) before we sailed in to Masa Alam Marina. As with many things in Egypt the marina at Masa Alam is still very much a work in progress. We had to stay on board overnight and enjoyed a final night quiz hosted by Karin. Our team (Rob's Angels) after a good start, we somewhat faltered to finish last but it was a fun last night on the boat.

Overview and Recommendations

Blue o2 are a very well organised liveaboard specialist, they do what they do very well. The staff are extremely helpful and have an excellent knowledge of the area the work in. The boats are exceptional and stand out against the majority of the other Red Sea boats (we saw both Blue Horizon and Blue Melody on our week on Blue Fin) Any problems were sorted out (including the generator) as quickly as you would expect. Excellent food and spotlessly clean we have to say our trip was value for money for what is a top end Red Sea liveaboard. If you were lucky enough to get a last minute deal on any of the blue o2 boats you have yourself a bargain. The Red Sea can be a very busy place to dive, early starts to the dive day and good dive site planning meant we saw fairly few other divers underwater but we were diving at a quite time of the year (November 09). The Southern Red Sea has some excellent dive sites and if you are lucky some encounters with some quite rare marine life. Visibility is almost guaranteed (along with the sunshine) to be outstanding although it can be chilly both in the water and in the breeze during the winter months. Blue o2 came up to our expectations and we are more than happy to recommend them as an excellent liveaboard and holiday company.

Robbie - RRMDIVERS Dec 09