Egypt - September 2005:

ASC members ventured off to Egypt in September to enjoy warm water diving. Malcome and Jayne visited the quiet, unspoilt resort of Mr-Al-Salam and undertook a full week of diving including the classic Elphinstone reef. Dive report to follow.

Mean while opting for a flight out of Manchester, as opposed to Gatwick, Nick and Angela baked in Luxor for a week, before travelling overland in a slow and miserable convoy to Hurghada. This resort is now massive with hundreds of dive and snorkel boats blasting out every morning to the classic reefs. The most popular reef encountered, Gota Abu Ramada, saw 25 boats anchored in the dive period. Fortunately underwater the conditions were more favourable and no other groups were encountered.

Staying at the Sofitel Hotel, a fair distance out of town, we were subject to the ever increasing rip-off prices implemented by hotels in Sharm and Hurghada. However being from Yorkshire a £1 ( after haggling ) taxi ride takes you into town where prices for beer and food plummet to one fifth of the former prices, e.g. tasty soup, half a duck, salad and chips plus 3 local beers for two people costs £10, excellent value.

The dive centre, a German operation, at the Sofitel was very good. Catering mostly for German, Austrian and French clients, as a token Brit I found the diving and organisation the best I had encountered in the Red Sea. Operating in proper buddy teams, as opposed to on-mass Italien style, we enjoyed 50-70 minute dives, on 12L tanks, after our instructors had checked out our qualifications and basic underwater skills. Nitrox and 15L tanks were available, as was all gear hire. The basic 2 dive day package was 48 EUR per day. In contrast to Carribean operators a 2-3 hour surface interval between dives was always undertook. Overall I was impressed with the standard of the PADI divers and dive operation every day.

The best dives being the drift dives at 20-30m along the walls off the East side of the Giftun Islands. At this time of year the strong Northerly winds make some reefs, e.g. Careless a more difficult proposition.

Nick Leathley.