Scuba Diving Adventure » Red Sea http://www.scubadivingadventure.com The Next Level of Diving - and I don't mean "Techie" Wed, 05 May 2010 13:21:07 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0 Red Sea Diving – MV Asmaa http://www.scubadivingadventure.com/red-sea-diving-asmaa/ http://www.scubadivingadventure.com/red-sea-diving-asmaa/#comments Wed, 20 Jan 2010 10:44:16 +0000 admin http://www.scubadivingadventure.com/?p=71 The Emperor Fleets boat Asmaa is not one of the Red Sea’s biggest liveaboards accommodating only 16 divers when full. I joined this boat at Marsa Alaam on the 12th of May in 2006 for my first ever visit to the Red Sea. It did the trick and I have been back most years since!

The [...]]]> The Emperor Fleets boat Asmaa is not one of the Red Sea’s biggest liveaboards accommodating only 16 divers when full. I joined this boat at Marsa Alaam on the 12th of May in 2006 for my first ever visit to the Red Sea. It did the trick and I have been back most years since!

The Asmaa currently does two different itineraries, St Johns and the Deep South was the one I was on out of Marsa. The other is the Classic Cruise out of Hurghada. This one takes in some of the northern Red Seas best sites including the four wrecks at Abu Huhas and the famous Thistlegorm.

My group of divers was from the club attached to York’s only diving shop Overland Underwater. Without my usual buddy I was diving with a chap called Ken. It is always a worry going away on a trip alone that you will end up with a bad diver and spend your whole holiday in ‘instructor mode’. I needn’t have worried, Ken was an excellent diver – in fact usually he could be found with twin sets and other technical gear diving to 100 metres!

With a smaller group of only 16 people who loosely knew each other the holiday went very well. The boat was excellent if not quite as luxurious as some of the bigger better models. However, there was nothing to fault and given the price is usually around £200 – 300 less than the bigger boats this trip represented very good value for money.

The boat is 28 meters long but doesn’t feel small in any way. It has nitrox on board at extra cost and has two zodiacs to assist with the diving. It also offers a free PADI nitrox course but you will have to pay for the course materials and certification which comes to around £60/£70.

All dive guides that I have encountered working on the Emperor Fleet have been great. On this trip we had Alicia Hattersley and Richard Seale. Recognizing that we were all competent divers they left us to our own devices, but were always there if we wanted help and assistance. The way it should be.

On this trip we didn’t manage to spend a long time at the deep south as one of the Asmaa’s twin engines developed a fault and the captain felt that we should slowly make our way back north to Marsa. The diving was still superb, with dives at Elphinstone, Daedelus, Rocky, St Johns and Fury – 20 dives in the six days. To polish off the holiday in style we spent the seventh night on land at the Coral Bay Hotel – fantastic.

It would be worth bearing the Asmaa in mind when choosing your next Red Sea liveaboard trip – it is a very good value for money boat and can deliver a holiday every bit as good as those offered by the bigger ships.

]]> http://www.scubadivingadventure.com/red-sea-diving-asmaa/feed/ 0 Scuba Diving in the Red Sea http://www.scubadivingadventure.com/scuba-diving-in-the-red-sea/ http://www.scubadivingadventure.com/scuba-diving-in-the-red-sea/#comments Fri, 11 Dec 2009 13:47:00 +0000 admin http://www.scubadivingadventure.com/?p=48 The words scuba diving red sea always bring back memories of the three trips I have made so far to the Red Sea to scuba dive from a live-aboard boat. Twice I have been on a Regal Dive excursion out of Marsa Alam and once with Tony Blackhurst Scuba Adventures on a scuba diving boat out [...]]]> The words scuba diving red sea always bring back memories of the three trips I have made so far to the Red Sea to scuba dive from a live-aboard boat. Twice I have been on a Regal Dive excursion out of Marsa Alam and once with Tony Blackhurst Scuba Adventures on a scuba diving boat out of Sharm El Shaik.

Each trip was for six days of diving and the last day of the week was spent ‘degassing” in preparation for the flight back home. For those of us from the UK this means a five hour or so flight back to Manchester or Gatwick airports. For anybody travelling from the States this trip is very much longer of course.

Having been scuba diving in the Red Sea, a five hour trip back to the UK is long enough. For me I still have either a two or five hour drive back home once I have passed through the airport. This is an important consideration for those intending to do a scuba diving Red Sea trip for the first time if they don’t live conveniently close to an airport in the UK or are travelling from even further afield from the USA and other places.

During the 6 days diving you will do around 20 dives. The dives can range between moderately shallow night dives to wreck dives of 40 metres or so. One of the best dives I did on my last trip to the North of the Red Sea was on the wreck of the Rosalie Muller where even the shallowest part of the deck lies at around 35 metres with the sea bed at 50 metres.

The upshot is that the repetitive dives can make you very tired indeed. On my first trip my return drive from Gatwick to York involved around 5 stops for strong coffee during the five hour drive home! My eyes did not want to stay open. Therefore the advice is to:

1. Make sure the boat you are diving from has nitrox available. The enriched oxygen content will alleviate some of the exhaustion that air diving would give for such concentrated week of diving.

2. Plan your return trip appropriately, share any driving that may be needed, use public transport or arrange for a stop over before travelling the last leg.

3. Definately come to scuba dive the Red Sea – even if you are travelling from the States. It is a ‘must do’ destination and provides both incredible wrecks in great visibility and some fantastic marine life encounters.

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