Marsa Alam

$Diver\'s Tales$


	Marsa Alam, Red Sea - revisited by Keith Waugh I last visited Port Ghalib in the Marsa Alam Nature Reserve with my wife Pauline, in October 2006. Not a great deal has changed. The area is still a development zone with a basic harbour infrastructure. The north side of the Port Ghalib harbour is quite well built up with modern tourist gift shops, cafes and a couple of 5 star hotels, however the south side of the harbour only has the Marina Lodge Hotel. Nevertheless the hotel is very well appointed and occupies plenty of space. There are 3 swimming pools, games rooms, a couple of bars and restaurants, plenty of grassy areas plus the all important comfortable rooms for the guests. In spite of having stayed at the Marina Lodge in 2006 it took me a few days to find my way around. As I said, the hotel is still sitting in isolation (see Google Earth photo). I suspect this is due to the recession and the disruption caused by the current political situation in Egypt. Having said that we saw no problems and the Egyptian people we met were very friendly and helpful. Our holiday was arranged through Regaldive, flying with Thomas Cook, with diving through Emperor Divers. They have their main dive centre about 10miles down the road but the dive boats depart from the Marina Lodge. In fact our room was a mere 50metres from the dive boat mooring area at the harbour. (see the photos). Accepting that air travel to anywhere in the world is a hellish nightmare of waiting in queues, being treated like cattle and having rather dreadful food packaged in to you, the whole holiday ran extremely smoothly. I pre-paid for a 10 boat dive package with Emperor Divers. The boats are very well maintained, the crews cheerful, helpful and professional. The dive guides were also extremely good and capable of coping with the unenviable task of dealing tactfully with everyone from complete novices to seasoned, experienced divers. We met at the boats at 8am (6am for Elphinstone), checked and assembled diving gear, the guides did the paperwork on new arrivals, all the info was taken to the harbour office for the "permissions" and we were on our way by 9am. It would be good to be able to get away sooner but the admin has to be done Egyptian style! The dive sites were all excellent though in many ways similar but then that is to be expected as this part of the Red Sea consists of a shallow reef top of 2-3metres extending to varying distances from the shore followed with a wall dropping away either very steeply or vertically to at least 30metres and in some areas somewhat more. Most of the dives could probably be done from the shore but doing them by boat was considerably easier. The Dive Guide would give a detailed briefing about the site terrain and what we may see, maximum depths and times etc, then buddy everyone up and we would get going. We all dived together but well strung out. This made sense as the dive guide obviously knew the best areas and knew what to look out for. We dived at Marsa Mubarak, Marsa Shouni Kebir, Elphinstone Reef, Marsa Morena and a shore dive by minibus trip 60 miles south at the wreck of SS Hamada, which apparently sank in strange circumstances around 1993. Water temperature in February was 22⁰c, air temperature at sea about 20⁰c with a bit of a chilly north wind. I found that my 5mm thick wetsuit was fine but some of the other "southern softies" and European divers were finding it a bit cool. The sea reaches 28⁰c in the summer time. What about the diving? Excellent! Colourful reefs with a multitude of very healthy coral, all kinds of fish life: Groupers, Lionfish, Clownfish, Parrotfish, Triggerfish, Surgeonfish, Crocodilefish, Cuttlefish, Blue Spotted Sting Rays, Torpedo Rays, Moray Eels, Turtles and so on and so on. I had hoped to see sharks and did see one below me at Elphinstone, but it seemed to be on a mission and sped along the reef heading south. On our last day of the holiday we were snorkelling in the bay at Marsa Mubarak and we enjoyed the company of a Dugong or Manatee which was happily munching on the Eelgrass and not at all concerned by the swimmers in the water. After each 1st dive the crew served up an excellent hot lunch consisting of chicken or beef plus pizza, salads and breads and rice. All prepared on board in a very small galley. I only had lunch on a couple of days as we were staying half board at the hotel and I really was beginning to eat too much!! All in all, very worthwhile and enjoyable with only one word of caution. My pre-paid 10 boat dive package cost £162. Very reasonable but probably reduced to try to encourage visitors during the recession and Egypt's political problems. But adding the "extras" for Nitrox, lunches & drinks, extra for Elphinstone "special" and extra for minibus shore dives to the Hamada wreck "special" plus harbour tax and optional donation to the Recompression Chamber, the 10 dive package now totalled £270. It could have been more if I had taken lunch and drinks everyday and gone on another "special" dive. Still a reasonable cost but it needs to be considered. So, would I go again? Yes indeed I would like to visit the Red Sea again but probably a different area. After all, the Red Sea is a big, warm place! Perhaps you would like to look at all the photos taken at Marsa Alam, so please go to: http://www.flickr.com/photos/keithwaugh/sets But please remember to come back to this website!!

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