Trip Report - Divers Down - Khorfakkan Sharja United Arab Emirates 

March 2010

Question

Where can you go in March for some (relative) warm water diving without spending a fortune or travelling for days to get there?

Criteria 1 - It’s not Egypt (that’s too easy)

Criteria 2 - Good diving without crowds

Criteria 3 - No more than 6 – 7 hours fly time

Criteria 4 - Budget less than a cheap last minute Red Sea liveaboard including the diving (£750 head)

Criteria 5 - By able to chill out as well as diving

Criteria 6 - Not too many Russians please.

Well that should be not too much trouble then. So where can we fly to? Possibly the edge of the Caribbean? Or how about Dubai! a quick sortie through the internet search engines  found that flights are available for around £300, but what about good diving? 

We knew the diving around Dubai is not what you would call spectacular and as with most things in Dubai it’s bound to be quite expensive. Staying in hotels and eating will definitely eat into the budget pretty quickly, but you are only 150km from the Indian Ocean so what’s over there?

Oman has a good reputation as an up and coming dive destination but again there are extra costs with getting there from Dubai (visa, additional car hire fees etc) but the UAE has a little known Indian Ocean coast, which are part of Fujeria and Sharja and only a two hour drive, how bad could it be!

A good search on the internet brought up a couple of possible dive centres but the one that stood out to us was Divers Down at Khorfakkan, a British run PADI five star IDC  dive centre only five minutes from the main dive sites and at the 4 star Oceanic Hotel. After a few emails with Carla the decision was made and Sharja bound we were for 5 days (with a couple of days in Dubai for retail therapy).

Our flights were with Air France via Paris and we arrived in Dubai late on a Sunday night. We booked into one of the growing number of budget lodges that are springing up in Dubai right by the airport and compared with the luxury hotels are a fraction of the price but with much better facilities than a budget lodge in the UK (Swimming pool, Restaurant, Bar etc).  We also hired a car for the week and for just over £100 had a full size car which fitted two set of full dive kit in the boot without any effort. (a full tank of fuel was around £10 how different from the UK). Driving in the UAE is fine when you know where you are going, the majority of trunk roads have slip road exit and entries but are well signposted and the roads are very good quality although pretty busy around the cities. Driving to Khorfakkan was pretty easy from Dubai airport take the airport road to route 611 north (to Sharja) then route 89 east across the desert where you pick up signs for Khorfakan. We did the journey (without a map although we had checked out the roads on Google Maps and Carla from the dive centre had also given us some directions) in around 2 hours.  The mountain areas before you hit the Indian Ocean are quite spectacular and make a nice drive, but beware of 4x4’s driving like idiots.  Speed limits or any road rules do not apply to these vehicles and they have a god given right to pass by any means once they have flashed and honked the horn at you (whilst being in toughing distance to your back bumper) regardless of the fact you are sitting behind a 40 tonne truck, you have been warned.

Hotel & Dive Centre

The Oceanic Hotel was a very nice 4 star resort hotel sitting on the sandy beech as far as it is possible to be away from the container port which is Khorfakkan’s main industry. The hotel rooms are currently being refurbished, and are of a good quality (ours had been refurbished) large rooms and enormous beds. A nice swimming pool and beach area made this a very comfortable base. The dive centre was a two minute walk away by the beach and we had a very friendly welcome from Carla, Paul (the owner) and Phil on our arrival. We were diving for the next 4 days and planed to make 10 dives during our stay, 3 days during the week and 1 day at the weekend when the town, hotel and dive centre were transformed from a quiet sleepy place to a very busy dive centre. The dive centre was in a U shape setup with the dive shop/office on one side, classroom & kit store on another and kitchen and store room making the third side. In the middle were 4 picnic style tables with a mesh cover to give a slight relief from the suns harshest rays and plenty of drying racks for your kit at the end of the day. The centre ran two fast dive boats one taking around 12 divers the other around 18. Most divers here come out for a day or two from Dubai & Abu Dhabi. For most of our visit we had the pleasure of Phil as our captain for the day. Dives were at 9:30, 12:30 & 3:30 and sea conditions during our stay were as flat as a pancake. Phil was previously a skipper of a boat in Weymouth and knew a boat inside out. The longest trip we had to a dive site was around 15 minutes but most of the sites were a quick 5-10 minute trip, at the majority of the dive sites we were the only boat there and on some of the dives we were the only divers in the water.

The Diving

We dived nine different dive sites during our stay they were all reasonably shallow with very few dives deeper than 20mtrs. Visibility was variable to say the least a few days before we arrived there was 20 meter vis, at the worst we had 2-3 meters at best 10-12. This was mainly due to some coral spawning which after a couple of days settled into the top 2-3 metres of water, this coral/plankton rich soup had its benefits as local boat captains were reporting whale sharks in the area with some regularity. Divers down had been diving with one individual a few days before we arrived and another two a couple of days after we left which is not surprising as the conditions were absolutely perfect for these magnificent animals. The water temperature in March was 23-24­C pretty similar t o the red sea at this time on the year, but can rise to 35­C in the height of the summer, you don’t want to think about what the air temperature is like at that time of year. Our favourite dive site of the week was Martini Reef.  One end of this reef where the current splits is covered with purple soft coral, along with the coral are large shoals of fusiliers, snapper and Arabian mackerel all feeding on the plankton rich waters. We spent 40min just hanging by the shoals watching the fish and getting extremely close to the shoals once they got used to us. Other dive sites that are worth a mention are the two Inch Cape wrecks, both purposely sank boats around 20m long, one at 20m the other 27m with great fish life and the best sites we found for nudibranches. Hole in the Wall was another interesting dive site with some large feather tail rays on the sandy bottom, Shark Island also lives up to its name in the shallows where the black tips reef sharks have their nursery in 1 -2 meters on the sheltered rocky shores.

Holiday Overview

A definite alternative to diving in the Red sea. Uncrowded dive sites, excellent marine life as you would expect in the Indian Ocean.  Good hotels and restaurants (the dive centre gave us some great recommendations of where to eat) The only drawback is that Khorfakkan is in a dry emirate so no drinking, but for those who can’t live for a few days without a beer it’s a 10-15 minute drive north into Fujairah where the bars in the international hotels would be all to pleased to serve you. Divers Down is a great base to dive from, very professional and efficient but very friendly at the same time with excellent staff. The dive centre Monday to Thursday is quiet and you can almost guarantee you will be the only boat at the dive site. At the weekend (Friday/Saturday) the dive centre will be busy so booking you place on the boats in advance is a must. A very relaxing dive holiday to be recommended, maybe not a place to spend a two week holiday but a super place to escape the hustle and bustle of Dubai for a few days.

Robbie & Rachel - rrmdivers - March 2010