Dive Club Trip to Marsa Alam

By: Krizzy Sean
Submitted: 2009-06-17 14:23:01
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My local dive centre, Galaxsea Divers, organised a dive trip down to Marsa Alam in southern Egypt. Marsa Alam is one of the newer resorts in Egypt and is primarily a diving resort so I took the opportunity to visit the area. Our group booked a 7 night trip to Marsa Alam, staying at the Marina Lodge on Half Board basis with 5 days diving. The cost per person was £659. Our flight was direct from London Gatwick and took just over 5 hours.

Port Ghalib at Night

Marsa Alam airport is only a few minutes from Port Ghalib where both our hotel (the Marina Lodge) and dive centre (Emperor Divers) are based. The town of Marsa Alam is some 60km (40 miles) to the south. In between are a handful of hotels which are all pretty much self-contained. The majority of the hotels are to the south of Port Ghalib although there are a few to the north as the roads heads towards to the town of El Qesuir.

Port Ghalib is a rapidly developing facility which will eventually have a capacity of more than 1,000 vessels of various sizes up to 60m. The Marina Lodge is on the south side of the port while to the north are some apartments and a couple of restaurants.

The Marina Lodge is a very well set out hotel. The rooms are spacious and comfortable. The powerful shower was very welcoming after a day diving. Each room also had a built in safe, television and mini-bar. Breakfast and dinner is served in the restaurant. Most tables are indoors but there are a few tables located outside. Having stayed in a number of hotels in Egypt, I would rate the food at the Marina Lodge among the best I have been served. There was a good selection and variety of food every day whilst there were plenty of waiters on hand to serve drinks.

Signing in at Emperor Divers is the same efficient procedure as they have at all their centres. The necessary paperwork doesn’t take long to fill out and they also provide a price list of the various extras (eg – third dive of the day, additional trips, equipment hire). I brought all my own equipment so I was given a small crate in which to keep my gear during my time at Emperor Divers.

Our first days’ diving was at the local dive site of Marsa Mubarak. This gave all the divers the chance to get used to the daily diving routines with Emperor Divers, perform a weight check in the water and generally orientate themselves with diving in the Red Sea. We completed two dives at Marsa Mubarak which were pleasant without being spectacular.

The following day, we headed a bit further south to Ras el Torfa. Despite the long coast line, there are relatively few dive sites where a boat can moor safely. The Egyptian coast runs north/south as does the wind and current. The dive sites tend to be in little bays which cut into the reef which allows the boats to moor safely away from the effects of the wind and waves. At Ras el Torfa, we dived the southern part of the reef first as later in the day, visibility gets worse. At one point in the dive, there is a very low piece of table coral with a couple of small reef sharks hiding under it. This was mentioned on the dive briefing and sure enough, when we got to table coral, the little sharks were hiding there.

The third day’s diving was one of the trips that cost an additional 20 Euros. Abu Dabab is about 30 minutes away by bus at the Sol Y Mar resort. The bay is a sandy bottom, covered in sea grass and is renowned for attracting turtles and the Dugongs (aka Sea Cows). These gentle giants are related to the Manatee and are generally comfortable in the company of divers and snorkellers. As the Dugong is a wild creature, there are no guarantees of seeing one but we were told, our chances were good. Abu Dabab is a shore dive so the soft sand and breaking waves made entry and exiting the water a bit more of a challenge. The dive site isn’t deep, generally around 5-8m and no more than 13m which mean nice long dive times. Our group decided to spread out to cover as much area as possible. Soon after the dive started, we found a turtle, complete with a couple of ramoras on it’s shell, getting stuck into its lunch of sea grass. It was completely unfazed and we surrounded it taking photos for a few minutes before continuing with our search. At one stage, we found a Ghost Pipe Fish. This is a tiny little creature that looks very similar to a dark piece of seaweed or sea grass. However, on closer inspection, you can see its little fins and recognise it as a little fish instead of a turtle’s snack. The first dive didn’t result in any Dugong sightings so after lunch, we went in again. The dive was similar to the first with some excellent close up time near a couple of turtles but once again, no Dugongs.

Day four was back to the boat for a couple of dives at Marsa Shouni Soraya. We made two mooring dives, one to the south part of the reef followed by one to the north part of the reef. There was a good selection of marine life without anything too spectacular. On the way back, some of our group opted for a third dive which was a drift dive at Marsa Mubarak.

My final day’s diving was at the famous Elphinstone Reef. The journey from Port Ghalib is about 2 hours by boat and there is a supplement of 35 Euros for the trip. Elphinstone has a reputation as an excellent dive site although there is a requirement that all divers must have logged at least 30 dives and they must also carry an SMB (Surface Marker Bouy). Elphinstone is a long pinnacle a few miles offshore running north/south. There is generally a north-south current making it an ideal drift dive although current direction may vary. The reef is about 300m long so the plan for the two dives was to drop us at the north end of the reef and drift to the south end. The first dive was on the eastern wall of Elphinstone and the second dive was on the western wall. The great thing with Elphinstone is that if the current is running north-south (as it was for us), it’s a nice effortless dive which you can do at a shallow depth (10-15m). This in turn means you won’t use as much air so you get a longer dive time.

Both the east and west walls of Elphinstone drop off into the blue so there is a mass of coral to search as you drift along. Its also worth keeping an eye out to the blue just in case something a bit larger swims past. Although, nothing spectacular made an appearance for my final dives of the trip, the dives were very pleasant and I managed to take a few nice pictures.

My final full day in Egypt was a non-diving day so I took the opportunity to head up to the town of El Quseir which is around 65km north of Port Ghalib. Quseir dates back to the times of the Pharaohs when it was a trading port with other parts of the East African coast. Later in Roman times, trade routes to Asia were developed and Indian pottery has been uncovered in the area.

El Quseir is also a traditional embarkation point for Muslim pilgrims on the Hajj (the pilgrimage to the holy sites of Mecca and Medina). There is a quarantine building on the waterfront where returning pilgrims were kept for up to 60 days while screening for diseases. Throughout the town are numerous tombs of Shaykhs (holy men) who died in Quseir during the Hajj. Their origins in West Africa, Yemen,Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Somalia and India testify to the great diversity of pilgrims that passed through the town. The tombs show that to die on the Hajj was not unusual and was considered a blessing. The journey and ritual have also always been physically challenging, today due to sheer weight of numbers made possible by cheap air travel, but previously due to the long and inhospitable terrain that had to be crossed.

Modern day Quseir is still pretty well unaffected by tourism although there are a few shops where souvenirs and the like can be bought. There are a few cafes and restaurants and the old fort dating back to 1571 is worth a visit. There is a nominal entrance fee of around 15 LE. The fort was originally built by the Ottoman Turks to protect the town and Mecca-bound pilgrims from attacks by the Bedouin. The fort was abandoned by the mid 1700s before Napoloen’s army occupiedEgypt and strengthened the defences. The British navy bombarded the fort but failed to take the town. In more recent times, the Egyptian coast guard had used the fort until 1975.

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