Digideep Red Sea DigiJam
From July 19th till August 2nd I spent two great weeks at the Red Sea (Sharm el Sheikh, Sinai, Egypt). It was a liveaboard tour on the King Snefro 5 and 6, which has now become a regular event for the Digideep community each year. In the second week of this year's trip we even had two boats full with underwater photography geeks. We had very good conditions in both weeks allowing us to go to Sha'ab Abu Nuhas twice for extensive wreck diving and to our surprise a couple of dolphin dives and snorkel experiences.
First week
This time we arrived at lunch time, so that we had some time to prepare the boat and welcome the guests. To our surprise we found a free wireless lan at the jetty, which I used to put up a small news item on Digideep.
Ras Kati & Jackfish Alley
On our first diving day we started with a easy check dive at Ras Kati. Everybody just checked their equipment and made themselves comfortable with the conditions.
Our next dive was at Jackfish Alley, which is always nice. You start diving through a rather small cave on the way to a great coral pinnacle bursting with life. Glasfish, groupers and hunting tunas, just everything for a great dive. As the current was very calm we went out to the saddle in the hope to see some sharks or dolphins, but we weren't lucky. At the end Samuel found this huge turtle under a coral pinnacle.
Sha'ab Abu Nuhas & Carnatic
Blessed with great conditions, we could start our journey to Sha'ab Abu Nuhas across the gulf of Suez. During the crossing we were escorted by hundreds of dolphins next to our boat for over an hour, which was fantastic and everyone got even more excited. All of us hoped that they would go with us till Sha'ab Abu Nuhas and we would have the opportunity to dive or snorkel with them. But unfortunately this didn't happen - they had their own agenda. So the last dive of the day was at the Carnatic wreck without dolphins. It's a shallow and easy dive (if the conditions are good), because the wreck is open with lots of photo opportunities.
Ghiannis D. and Sha'ab Abu Nuhas Coral Garden
We started the third day with a dive at the Ghiannis D. wreck. Just like the day before I tried the Peleng 8mm fish eye lens, which offers almost 180 degree on a crop digital camera. Unfortunately it's all manual - focus, aperture. So I set the focus close to infinity and hoped that it would work out. I really had fun taking pictures with this lens, although it has its limitations (vignetting and softening at the edges).
Unfortunately it's a bit of luck to hit the right focus distance and setting and so almost all of the images from that dive are soft or blurry, but have their own charm. Btw. the wreck is fantastic. After the dive we went with the zodiac to the boat has some dolphins appeared right next to us. We begged Samuel (our dive guide) to jump in and after his confirmation did. A group of 7-10 dolphins were just around us for the brief moment of about 1-3 minutes (if you have a dolphin encounter time doesn't seem to matter any more - at least for me).
Back on the boat everybody just forgot about the wonderful wrecks at Sha'ab Abu Nuhas and just wanted to snorkel with the dolphins. We could see the dolphins surfing the waves just at the outside of the lagoon reef. Samuel then decided to try the coral garden just where the dolphins played the whole time. 
So we jumped in the water and waited for about 20 minutes and then it happened. A group of three dolphins just swam around us. I've never experienced dolphins like this slow. They really checked us very slowly, but only for about a very brief moment again.
Kingston (Sara H.) wreck
After that experience everybody on board was just happy and we headed back to the east side (Sinai side) of the gulf of Suez towards the Kingston wreck. The Kingston wreck is an old wreck from 1870's. It lies very shallow on the eastern side of Shag Rock - a part of the Sha'ab Ali reef. At good conditions - as we had them - you can clearly see details of the wreck from the surface. It's full of marine life and the reef around the wreck shouldn't be missed.
Nirshk & Small Crack
In the morning of the fourth day we started with Nirshk - a dive site with nice hard coral gardens at the end. It's the fourth time I dove that site and never managed to get to the hard coral garden as I always get stuck taking photographs before getting there. There is plentiful of life at this place. However the location is challenging in terms of photography, because of a lot of plankton in the water and the difficult light condition in the morning.
We then headed to Small Crack, on of my favourite dive sites in Sharm. Small crack is a reef with two smaller cracks, which create channels into a shallow lagoon. Depending on the tide you can either start at the outside reef and then continue to dive through either one of the channels inside the lagoon, or you start inside and go the other way around. In most cases you will find some current within the channel, which is why the places is crowded with life. The shallow part of the reef is always the best although the red anemone and the eel garden shouldn't be missed at the beginning of the dive - but the shallow part is my favorite.
Lots of yellow snapper, sometimes baby barracuda schools and just one of the nicest soft and hard coral garden. I could spent hours over hours there. We did a second dive there and as the tide changed we started inside the lagoon and went outside through the channel. Unfortunately this changed the visibility conditions. So I prefer to dive from the outside to the inside.
Shark Yolanda & Ras Za'atar
A must dive in Sharm el Sheikh is the Shark Yolanda reef, especially in summer. The reef lies at the southest tip of the Sinai peninsula, where the gulf of Suez and the gulf of Acaba meet. The two reefs are just two pinnacles reaching from the top down to 800m depths and are crowded by huge snapper, batfish and barracuda schools. You need to dive a bit into the blue, where the current is a bit stronger to find the barracuda.
Ras Za'atar is a reef at the National Park of Ras Mohammed just at the corner of the Marsa Baraika. It is known for its overhangs and caves, which create beautiful light effects. At the corner to the Marsa Baraika there is often a strong current, but this also means that you can find big fish there. At Ras Za'atar everything can happen, but unfortunately the current were to strong for us this time, so we didn't have any special encounter at Ras Za'atar.
Tiran South Lagoon
Due to our journey to Abu Nuhas we only had little time to spent in Ras Mohammed this year. After the aforementioned dives we already headed towards Tiran, where we did our third dive this day (the fifth). South Lagoon at the late afternoon is actually known for leopard shark sightings, but we were out of luck. But even without the shark encounter that dive is beautiful - loads of anemone fishes. As we came out of the water we had rumors from other boats around us, that hammerhead shark have been seen around Jackson reef. So our mission for the next day was crystal clear: Find them! I had a short night dive at South Lagoon, which was really nice, too.
Tiran Jackson all sites
So the next morning all of us were eager to jump into the water and to dive with hammerheads. We got up very early and jumped into the water on the northern part of the reef just next to the Lara wreck, that became a popular landmark on the Jackson reef. The dive wasn't planned as the usual reef dive. We set off to the blue with the reef in our back and went down to 30m and waited. For more then 10 minutes we just hang out in the blue looking around to spot anything that would look like a shark. And then suddenly we saw a single hammerhead checking us out, while a group of 7 to 10 were keeping distance.
Everything happened very quickly and although the single curious hammerhead was not that far, I hadn't the camera ready with proper settings and therefore decided to just enjoy the moment. After that we continued the dive close to the reef. The other two dives where at the southern part of the Jackson reef, but unfortunately without any shark sightings.
The next day we tried the same dive in the morning again, but unfortunately we had no luck although we stayed longer in the blue.
Tiran Thomas and Kormoran
After the somewhat boring first dive in the blue we decided to dive the other great dive sites at Tiran. So our second dive was at the Thomas reef, which is among Jackson reef and the Shark Yolanda reef one of the nicest dive spots with tons of soft corals in all colors. The dive starts pretty deep, where you can find some huge Gorgonian fan corals and some times you will have the luck to see some sharks around the sandy bottom (I saw my first shark at this reef actually - but years ago). After that part the shallow part of the reef gets more interesting where you see all the colors of the red sea and in most cases you will see a turtle as we did. In most cases that happens if you reach the northern tip of the reef where the current is picking up a bit and you where you need to swim against the reef for a little while until you reach the back site of the reef, where the current then stops all of a sudden. But in that area the life is rich and therefore worth every effort to stay there a bit longer.
We did our last dive at the Kormoran wreck. Very easy shallow wreck dive, with nice light conditions at the late afternoon. I always stay to long at the bow of the wreck, therefore having less time for the rest of the wreck, which is somewhat scattered around the reef. The wreck is broken in several parts, which all have become integrated into the reef, but make it hard to follow the wreck sometimes. As the wreck is close to the sandy lagoon, the visibility can be quite bad at the later part of the dive, but is still very enjoyable.
So that was our first week, where we had 20 dives all in all. I was stoked about every single one. Unfortunately some of the guest had to leave us and I needed to change the boat as we had two boats for the second week.
Second week
As I said above we departed the Sharm el Sheikh jetty with two boats in the second week. So Andi was on one boat and I was on the other trying to entertain the underwater photography geeks that are just like us. The people on my boat were bit more international then on Andi's boat, who had a German group altogether. On our boat we had a group of four very nice Spanish divers, a photographer from Poland and two photographers from Austria. As we had an underwater photography competition running for the two weeks we wanted to give the newly arrived people the same conditions and therefore decided to stay as close as possible to our original route from the first week. Fortunately the weather became even better, so that we could go the Sha'ab Abu Nuhas a second time.
We had the same luck with the dolphins at Sha'ab Abu Nuhas again. We did two dives at the wrecks. The third dive was also planned as a wreck dive, but as we went out with the zodiac we were suddenly surrounded by dolphins. I instantly asked if everybody is happy to jump right away into the water skipping the wreck dive in favor of the dolphins. Our new dive guide Hassan gave us green light and we jumped right in the middle of a group of dolphins. We had some time to swim with them, but not very long.
This time we spent the whole fourth day in Ras Mohammed diving all day long Shark Yolanda, which I could do over and over again. The schools were even bigger this week. As with any dive site Shark Yolanda becomes very crowded with daily boots starting from 10am till 4pm. So the second dive, which was just around 9:30am (we did the first dive very early) was already crowded, which leads to very absurd and ridiculous situation, that 10-15 diver just hang (hover) around and watching a single turtle while she is having her coral breakfast. On the third and last dive on that day on Shark Yolanda something really strange happened. We jumped into the water and we got shocked somehow. The water was boiling hot and when I write boiling hot I mean around 35-40 degree Celsius at least. It was totally strange, but it was only on the surface.
Unfortunately we hadn't have luck with the hammerheads in the second week and enjoyed two dives somewhat bored completely in the blue without any reef anywhere close. Fortunately everyone was fine with this and didn't complain about wasted time and dives.
So the second week was over even quicker then the first one. All in all I enjoyed it very much again. The people were really nice and I had a good time, both diving and socializing on the boat.
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