On 20th August my brother celebrated reaching 50 and I took off to Marsa Alam for a well earned break and some warm water diving with family in tow. Destination Marina Lodge and Emperor Divers. With Billie as my buddy for the week sadly the rebreather was left at home but given the choice I would rather be diving with my beautiful daughter who has developed a passion to match mine since qualifying in March.
As you may expect Marsa, which is tucked way down south in Egypt, is pretty hot at this time of year. I always feel like I am on my holidays when the blast of heat hits you as you step off the plane, No exception here then, as the temperature on arriving in the late afternoon was soaring past 40 degrees.
We were actually staying in Port Ghalib where I had last visited two years ago for the sole purpose of boarding a livaboard. Then the area was an embryonic building site that had very little to offer but promised to look good in the future. Because of this previous visit I had chosen the hotel only after asking a series of questions about it and the area especially as I had an 11 and 13 year old in tow.
There is no doubt now that I will have to review my questioning technique and listening skills because the hotel while, ideally located for dive boats, was not well located for anything else. Port Ghalib still offers a lot of future promise and the plans for development are stunning. The area where the Livaboards dock is largely finished however many shops are empty and at this time of year at least, it's all but deserted. Unfortunately the Marina Lodge is situated well away from the port area and is somewhat isolated and without a beach front. The hotel itself is fine with some great pools and friendly helpful Egyptian staff. The food is reasonable but even though not full there was evidence that the single restaurant was struggling to cope. More importantly I would say that the hotel really wasn't suited for children.
For divers it is a different story with the day boats moored right at the hotel and a selection of enticing local dive sites at close hand. As Billie and I waded through the mountainous paperwork on the first morning we both felt excited and eager to get in the water. We boarded MY Amy with dive guides Alan and Vicky and set off to do our shakedown dive at Marsa Mubarak. A great couple of dives followed during which we saw a range of the expected Red Sea critters and in particular a large number of puffer fish and stone fish. The water was bath warm and everything seemed right with the world which I could tell from Billie as she sung her way through both dives to a ditty from Sponge Bob Square Pants.
Alan and Vicky were both delightful despite the fact they were immanently returning to the UK and not looking forward to the change in weather having guided for a number of years. Alan was planning to qualify as a commercial diver and Vicky was soon to be a Geography teacher and I am sure that both will do exceptionally well.
Food on board Amy was extraordinarily good and it always amazes me what the boat cooks can turn out from such small galleys. In this case it has to be said the quality and presentation surpassed that of the hotel very easily.
During our first days diving we also got to select the additional diving activities that we were interested in for the remainder of the week. They included a trip to Abu Dabab to attempt to locate a Dugong, Elphinstone, Dolphin House, a night dive and a wreck all obviously at extra cost to the dive packages already paid for as is the Emperor way. We booked Abu Dabab especially because this was a beach dive and it meant the whole family could go. We also both went for the Night dive as Billie absolutely loved her previous experience. I chose to go to Elphinstone alone as from experience this can be a challenging site.
Elphinstone meant an early start the next day at 6am with breakfast on board MY Sea Dreams. Vicky was still with us but she was accompanied by a German dive Frau who provided an all too thorough and officious briefing in which we were told in no uncertain terms that if we dipped below 30m we would not be allowed to dive for the rest of the day. I buddied up with Stewart, a BSAC Dive leader and we jumped in to discover the current had been misread so suddenly the whole party was fighting hard to get round the north tip of the reef with a couple having to abandon the dive because of the effort. As I confidently swam off in search of the shark life my buddy also decided to abandon due to a painful stomach. So a 13 minutes dive ensued, no sharks and the potential for no more diving as my computer showed slightly deeper than 30m. But then again what our dive Frau doesn't know will not hurt her!
The second dive passed off without incident as Stewart and I took a gentle drift along the east side of the reef capturing numerous photographs but without spotting any pelagic life. On the way back to Port Ghalib the dive Frau informed me that Billie and I would be going to Abu Dabab in the morning but that there was no room for the rest of the family. Not at all impressed and left with no real option to cancel or rebook the trip Billie and I decided to go.
Abu Dabab is a lovely dive site set in a bay with a massive area of sea grass that attracts the local sea cow Dennis, though only in the afternoon and apparently not seen recently. Our first dive along the house reef was superb, a beautiful reef full of live gently sloping down to 20m. I have never seen so many pipe fish in one dive and Billie and I left the water satisfied and excited at the prospect of seeing a sea cow in the afternoon.
The second dive consisted of a hour long search for an elusive sea cow across the sea grass. We were rewarded with some very close encounters with several massive Turtles and Cuttlefish but Dennis proved to be an illusiorary distant blur. Still it was a lovely day with a great pizza for lunch.
The following morning I discovered that there had been a night dive that somehow nobody had
felt appropriate to tell us about. Oh and there was not going to be another on this week. Billie was devastated as she had been looking forward to watching the Lion fish using her torch to hunt once again. While Billie lamented at poolside I took off on MY Amy for another day off great food and some high quality local diving for three dives. Well actually whilst they were all good dives this time with new buddies David and Martin the first was at the entrance to the Port and the first 40 minutes of the hour long dive consisted of wondering at the amount of dead coral clearly impacted by the local development. Strangely the better coral was closer to the port entrance at the end of the dive.
For our last day of diving we headed north towards Ras El Torfa where the topography of the reef was amazing but surprisingly the visibility was not gin clear as it had been all week. Once again we saw nothing big but the diving was nevertheless very enjoyable.
Over the week I experimented with my new camera housing taking in excess of 500 photographs several of which will now appear on the main site.
For those considering the Marina Lodge and Emperor I would say you could do better in the area. The week before we went Gary had been out in the same area with Ecodivers and seems to have had a better experience. Of course the diving was great and I wouldn't change that for the world but Emperor need to improve on this showing.
As you may expect Marsa, which is tucked way down south in Egypt, is pretty hot at this time of year. I always feel like I am on my holidays when the blast of heat hits you as you step off the plane, No exception here then, as the temperature on arriving in the late afternoon was soaring past 40 degrees.
We were actually staying in Port Ghalib where I had last visited two years ago for the sole purpose of boarding a livaboard. Then the area was an embryonic building site that had very little to offer but promised to look good in the future. Because of this previous visit I had chosen the hotel only after asking a series of questions about it and the area especially as I had an 11 and 13 year old in tow.
There is no doubt now that I will have to review my questioning technique and listening skills because the hotel while, ideally located for dive boats, was not well located for anything else. Port Ghalib still offers a lot of future promise and the plans for development are stunning. The area where the Livaboards dock is largely finished however many shops are empty and at this time of year at least, it's all but deserted. Unfortunately the Marina Lodge is situated well away from the port area and is somewhat isolated and without a beach front. The hotel itself is fine with some great pools and friendly helpful Egyptian staff. The food is reasonable but even though not full there was evidence that the single restaurant was struggling to cope. More importantly I would say that the hotel really wasn't suited for children.
For divers it is a different story with the day boats moored right at the hotel and a selection of enticing local dive sites at close hand. As Billie and I waded through the mountainous paperwork on the first morning we both felt excited and eager to get in the water. We boarded MY Amy with dive guides Alan and Vicky and set off to do our shakedown dive at Marsa Mubarak. A great couple of dives followed during which we saw a range of the expected Red Sea critters and in particular a large number of puffer fish and stone fish. The water was bath warm and everything seemed right with the world which I could tell from Billie as she sung her way through both dives to a ditty from Sponge Bob Square Pants.Alan and Vicky were both delightful despite the fact they were immanently returning to the UK and not looking forward to the change in weather having guided for a number of years. Alan was planning to qualify as a commercial diver and Vicky was soon to be a Geography teacher and I am sure that both will do exceptionally well.
Food on board Amy was extraordinarily good and it always amazes me what the boat cooks can turn out from such small galleys. In this case it has to be said the quality and presentation surpassed that of the hotel very easily.
During our first days diving we also got to select the additional diving activities that we were interested in for the remainder of the week. They included a trip to Abu Dabab to attempt to locate a Dugong, Elphinstone, Dolphin House, a night dive and a wreck all obviously at extra cost to the dive packages already paid for as is the Emperor way. We booked Abu Dabab especially because this was a beach dive and it meant the whole family could go. We also both went for the Night dive as Billie absolutely loved her previous experience. I chose to go to Elphinstone alone as from experience this can be a challenging site.Elphinstone meant an early start the next day at 6am with breakfast on board MY Sea Dreams. Vicky was still with us but she was accompanied by a German dive Frau who provided an all too thorough and officious briefing in which we were told in no uncertain terms that if we dipped below 30m we would not be allowed to dive for the rest of the day. I buddied up with Stewart, a BSAC Dive leader and we jumped in to discover the current had been misread so suddenly the whole party was fighting hard to get round the north tip of the reef with a couple having to abandon the dive because of the effort. As I confidently swam off in search of the shark life my buddy also decided to abandon due to a painful stomach. So a 13 minutes dive ensued, no sharks and the potential for no more diving as my computer showed slightly deeper than 30m. But then again what our dive Frau doesn't know will not hurt her!
The second dive passed off without incident as Stewart and I took a gentle drift along the east side of the reef capturing numerous photographs but without spotting any pelagic life. On the way back to Port Ghalib the dive Frau informed me that Billie and I would be going to Abu Dabab in the morning but that there was no room for the rest of the family. Not at all impressed and left with no real option to cancel or rebook the trip Billie and I decided to go.
Abu Dabab is a lovely dive site set in a bay with a massive area of sea grass that attracts the local sea cow Dennis, though only in the afternoon and apparently not seen recently. Our first dive along the house reef was superb, a beautiful reef full of live gently sloping down to 20m. I have never seen so many pipe fish in one dive and Billie and I left the water satisfied and excited at the prospect of seeing a sea cow in the afternoon.
The second dive consisted of a hour long search for an elusive sea cow across the sea grass. We were rewarded with some very close encounters with several massive Turtles and Cuttlefish but Dennis proved to be an illusiorary distant blur. Still it was a lovely day with a great pizza for lunch.
The following morning I discovered that there had been a night dive that somehow nobody had
felt appropriate to tell us about. Oh and there was not going to be another on this week. Billie was devastated as she had been looking forward to watching the Lion fish using her torch to hunt once again. While Billie lamented at poolside I took off on MY Amy for another day off great food and some high quality local diving for three dives. Well actually whilst they were all good dives this time with new buddies David and Martin the first was at the entrance to the Port and the first 40 minutes of the hour long dive consisted of wondering at the amount of dead coral clearly impacted by the local development. Strangely the better coral was closer to the port entrance at the end of the dive.For our last day of diving we headed north towards Ras El Torfa where the topography of the reef was amazing but surprisingly the visibility was not gin clear as it had been all week. Once again we saw nothing big but the diving was nevertheless very enjoyable.
Over the week I experimented with my new camera housing taking in excess of 500 photographs several of which will now appear on the main site.
For those considering the Marina Lodge and Emperor I would say you could do better in the area. The week before we went Gary had been out in the same area with Ecodivers and seems to have had a better experience. Of course the diving was great and I wouldn't change that for the world but Emperor need to improve on this showing.
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