After catching the ferry from Hurghada to Sharm El Sheikh I was picked up by Debbie Metcalfe. Debbie runs the Blue Eye FX underwater video studio in Sharm,  this is where Jamie had been staying for the last few days. We stayed overnight there and met with other underwater videographers. Luckily, it just happened that one of the guys, Paul Willetts, was going to be on the same live aboard that we were here to get!

This live aboard trip was a bit of a surprise, about 10 days ago when in Denmark with Lars Kirkegaard and Dave Bennet, they asked Jamie and I if we would like to do a safari trip while in Egypt. It just happened that  their Sea Safaris company, was offing a new week long live aboard trip out from Dahab. The trip travels the ‘Golden Route’ , north in the Gulf of Aqaba where other boats don’t visit. We were ecstatic and quickly took them up on the offer!

So on the 14th September, Jamie, Paul and I travelled 100 km north to Dahab to meet the rest of the passengers that were all from Norway, one of which, Trond Jarle was a familiar face that we dived with in Kristiansand! It was a good crew of people and the 10 of us had a great trip diving the Gulf of Aqaba on the beautiful Golden Emperor 1 vessel from the Sea Queen fleet.

We travelled north for our first dives at Ras Abu Galum, this was a nice area and normally only accessed from shore by camel safari. We then travelled further up the coast to the nice secluded area of Ras Mamlach, it is a stunning area of coastline, with tall mountainous deserts, Egypt on one side and Saudi Arabia clearly visible on the other. I had heard a lot about the Red Sea reefs and was happy to say I was not disappointed at all. The coral cover and diversity is spectacular and the reefs are all teeming with fish and other invertebrate life. After some nice dives north we travelled back to El Bells and the Blue Hole near Dahab. That was a great dive with very steep wall before crossing back into the blue hole, and looking down into the depths of this infamous dive site. We also dived the Lighthouse at Dahab, with a great diversity of macro life, seahorses, pipefish, octopus, many different inverts and juvenile fish of all sorts.

We then headed south to Tiran Island out from Sharm El Sheikh for some of the most popular diving in The Red Sea. We arrived in the afternoon at Gordons Reef for an afternoon and night dive with lionfish everywhere! Before moving to Jackson reef for the early dive, Paul our videographer knew the whereabouts of an anglerfish and we located it at 28m perched on a nice bit of coral, stunning little fish! After this dive the day boats flocked here with 17 boats all moored up next to each other. It was surprising that with the many hundredds of divers these sites see every day, the reef was remarkably healthy, still with a profusion of marine life! After a few more dives on the nearby reefs, our boat then continued back up the coast to Ras Abu Galum where I had the best night dive of my life. We anchored up with the floodlights on but I noticed some large dark shapes in the water, and upon entering we were surrounded by a huge school of baitfish! This school was massive and would completely surround us reflecting light in different directions. After taking some photos I jumped back out and got the video camera, and filmed the rest of the dive in the warm dark waters without a wetsuit!

During the time on the boat, between the delicious meals, Jamie and I were helping Paul film a promotional video for the vessel. We helped with different camera angles, lighting and filming different parts of the boat and it was good to learn the attention to detail and how various videos are shot. We also watched Paul closely with his filming and editing a trip DVD and picked up on lots of tips and tricks that will help us with filming and video production during the year.

All too soon the week was over and we had to depart the vessel and say goodbye to our Norwegian friends. Driving back down the Sinai Peninsular to Sharm El Sheikh we could think about the great diving we had. So thanks again to Lars and Dave Bennet from Sea Safaris for this week on the boat, it was awesome and I am sure it will be a successful live aboard route for the coming years!