Category Archives: Holidays

Hi, just a quick update to let you know that we have 2 spaces left on this trip!

Friday 9th August – Friday 16th August 2019

SIMPLY THE BEST ITINERARY

Sizzling sunshine and awesome diving with Ocean View

Cost:  £1499 per person all inclusive (+£31 visa)

Enjoy Seven nights, full-board basis on M/Y blue Melody.

Via Hurghada, this fantastic Red Sea itinerary takes in the stunning areas of the Southern Park, including The Brothers, Daedulus Reef and Elphinstone!

With up to 21 dives over the week. 12lt tank and weights are included in your package. All trips are fully guided with expert guides. Flights from Gatwick and transfers are included.

So come on… who’s up for some awesome diving and lots of fun?!?

If you would like to make a booking we will require the full holiday cost per person as we are within the final 90 days prior to departure.

Follow this link for the full holiday page

Hi, just a quick update to let you know that we have 2 spaces left on this trip!

 

Friday 9th August – Friday 16th August 2019

SIMPLY THE BEST ITINERARY

Sizzling sunshine and awesome diving with Ocean View

Cost:  £1499 per person all inclusive (+£31 visa)

 

Enjoy Seven nights, full-board basis on M/Y blue Melody.

Via Hurghada, this fantastic Red Sea itinerary takes in the stunning areas of the Southern Park, including The Brothers, Daedulus Reef and Elphinstone!

With up to 21 dives over the week. 12lt tank and weights are included in your package. All trips are fully guided with expert guides. Flights from Gatwick and transfers are included.

So come on… who’s up for some awesome diving and lots of fun?!?

If you would like to make a booking we will require a £400 (non-returnable) deposit per person to secure the booking and full balance due 90 days prior to departure.

 

Follow this link for the full holiday page

Maldives 2017

The excitement had been building for months, our trip to the Maldives was nearly here, well you can imagine how excited we all were when the day finally arrived.

For me it started really well, my friend and dive buddy for the holiday managed to get me into the lounge with her at the airport, now this is the way to start your holiday, no shops, no hustle and bustle… bliss

We were all off to Paradise, with the promise of Palm trees, white sandy beaches and sunshine.

Paradise yes, sunshine NO!

The day we arrived in Malé, the area was experiencing a Tropical storm, it seems we had bought the British weather with us, sideways rain and gusting winds met us at the airport, the boats were bouncing all over the place in the harbour to take their guests to their beautiful Island resorts.

This isn’t quite like the pictures in the guide books… well… maybe like a guide book to the UK 😉

We eagerly waited at the airport for our transfer to MV blue Voyager, which was to be our home for the next 12 days. We were picked up on Blue Shadow, the Dhoni for Voyager, the ‘Dhoni’ is essentially a smaller boat that all the dive gear is stored on, which takes you off to the dive sites, so we had two boats at our disposal for the holiday, now I’m feeling spoiled.

 

After introductions, boat briefings and of course lots of unpacking, we had a relaxed dinner and an early night to make up for the long journey, we were all looking forward to the first day of diving.

 

1st December 2017

Waking up at 6am was made easier by being handed a cup of tea whilst in bed, off for briefings and the first dive of the holiday, thorough briefings make the dives so much easier. We were still moored in North Malé Atoll, awaiting two more guests who had been delayed by the storm the previous day, so Back Faru was our first dive, this was an easy bimble for our check dive, with moray eels every few meters, a good start to the diving. Second dive of the trip was to be on Lanken Manta cleaning station, we were of course all hopeful for a glimpse of a Manta given the dive site name, we were not disappointed, the moment we dropped onto the station we had a Manta cruising around for us to watch, all mesmerized. There were a few shark shaped shadows at the edge of the reef, but they didn’t come in too close.

The grinning faces back on the Dhoni confirmed that everyone had thoroughly enjoyed their encounter with the first manta of the holiday.

Day one was topped off with the most sublime curry for dinner, I think we will be bringing the chef home, if we make it on the plane with our big bellies at the end of the holiday.

 

2nd December

A much better start to the day, the sky was a lot brighter. An early start again, time for briefings and dives. We had now moved down to South Malé Atoll.

First dive of the day was at Karumba, this lovely slow drift gave us lots of life to enjoy, we dropped in straight into a small shoal of Bat/Banner fish, early into the dive we were graced with an Eagle Ray gently drifting past us, closely followed by 2 or 3 black tip reef sharks, happily swimming around for our cameras, they weren’t shy either, coming in quite close. Also lots of the little critters too, octopus, Banded Shrimp, a lovely baby moray eel hiding in its little hole.

It felt like no time before we had to head for the surface, but hey, it was time for breakfast!

For our second dive of the day we were taken to Valassaru Caves, which are actually overhangs rather than caves, they provided plenty of places for the fish to hide. Our awesome guide Ali was trying to point something out to me in one of the deeper overhangs, I really thought he was shining the torch at a big rock… until it opened its mouth, I actually jumped underwater as I wasn’t expecting the ‘rock’ to move! What Ali had spotted was a huge Marbled Grouper.

Dive three was a bit faster, this is practice for what’s to come…. weeeeeeeeeeeeeee
If you blinked, you missed a lot, you have got to love fast drift dives, they are exciting.

We were then very happy when we were told that we could have a night dive today, a chance to catch some different fish out. Heart Tilha is a small pinnacle inside one of the island lagoons which meant there was no current, a nice easy bimble around a small pinnacle made for a relaxing end to the day, I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many feather stars, such beautiful colours and patterns.

The mango sauce at dinner seemed to be a winner all round, so a great day was finished off nicely.

 

3rd December

We stayed in South Malé Atoll for another day. Today was time for the practice run for the channel diving, we dropped down onto Cocoa Thila with a small current running, once down behind the pinnacles at the edge, it eased off to allow you to slowly make your way along the bottom to find a spot on the edge, once hooked on we could wait and watch. This dive we had just a couple of sharks cruising by, but it was a great taster of what was to come.

After breakfast, dive two was the same spot, the current had dropped a little, so it was easier to settle and watch, at least five Reef Sharks were cruising around, sadly it was all too soon before we had to come up off the ledge, and hook into a plateau further along the reef to watch all of the little fish going about their daily lives.

Todays diving was topped off to the max… Alimatha for our night dive.

This is where we witnessed a throng of nurse sharks and rays looking for their dinner in the sand, quite frankly they don’t care who they bump in their quest for food, it was all quite exciting, and non-stop.

There must have been about 8 sharks swimming around and maybe 4 or 5 rays. At one point though they all lined themselves up in the middle of the group, it was like they were having a mid-meal nap!

 

We had a few uninvited dinner guests as well, the appearance of a few Lion Fish at the edge of the group proved to be a pain, unfortunately literally for one of our guests, whilst in his quest to shoo one away with his torch to stop it from touching another diver, he got stung on the thumb. But all was ok the next day, he still had his thumb in-tact, just worse the wear for a very painful few hours.

 

4th December

So it seems we can’t escape the rain just yet, but it could be worse, it could be cold and rainy like home, but we are still at a balmy 28 degrees, so it’s all good.

We dropped onto the edge of the channel Miyaru Kandu, hopeful for the sharks, but unfortunately today was not the day, little to no current meant they weren’t out to play, so a very easy gentle reef wall dive, lots of little stuff to look at.

We then moved on to find another dive site to explore, always with the hope that some sharks or rays would glide past. The final dive of the day was at Fotteyo Muli, a site known for its amazing soft corals. Sheer walls with small indents and swim throughs with beautiful soft corals hanging from the ceiling of the overhangs made this a feast for the eyes. A fair amount of anemone and clown fish always provide entertainment.

Our itinerary is now being determined by the storm that has been going through the Maldives, the storm is heading North, so we are heading South, hoping for Mantas, more Sharks and if we are lucky some Whaleshark encounters… let’s see what the next 8 days offer up to us. We can’t control the weather, so we will be making the most of what we are offered.

 

5th December

We started the day at the same site as yesterdays last dive, time to see the beautiful soft corals in the morning light. Fotteyo proved to be a very pretty dive again, the soft corals in the morning light were lovely, lots of life buzzing around, we were lucky enough to see a free swimming moray, that then made its way into the hole of another moray, there was no aggression, so they must have been good buddies.

During the day we continued heading further south, we left South Malé Atoll, moving into Vaavu Atoll, which given the appearance of that lovely round yellow object in the sky is definitely the right way to be heading, we are leaving the storm behind us now and are seeing the results, blue water and bright skies, this is what the Maldives is meant to look like.

We were then in for a fun filled start to the second dive of the day, a steady current running along the side of the reef at Rakeedhoo gave us a great fly-by looking at lots of fish, once at the corner of the channel, the current eased right up to allow us to bimble along the reef to take in all the little critters making the sheer wall their home. We were graced with a huge Napoleon Wrasse at then end of the dive just before we had to come up.

Because of the weather affecting the visibility etc, our guide has tried not to put peoples expectation up too high, on our final dive of the day, this paid off.

We dropped in on Mulaku Kandu not expecting too much but were delighted to encounter Grey Reef sharks, White Tip Reef sharks, a Marbled Ray, schools of Barracuda, and the show was stolen by a very cute baby Eagle Ray, who was gracefully gliding above us.

 

 

6^th December

We had now progressed further south into Meemu Atoll. Dive one today was a fantastic dive. Dropping onto Gaahura Kandu, we started with a gentle swim down the side of the reef, this soon elevated into an exciting hook in on the corner of the channel to watch schooling barracuda, schooling jacks and of course a few sharks cruising around, flitting in and out of the schools of fish. As usual it was a disappointment when we had to unhook to go shallower, damn that NDL, we would have stayed all day if we could. However coming slowly up the reef wall at the very edge of this channel was a stunning array of coral heads, with nooks and crannies for hundreds of fish to hide in and go about their lives, giving us so much to look at whilst we hovered around on our safety stop, we even had a lovely Marbled Ray cruise past us at 5m, however due to having his head in a hole getting a picture, Dave completely missed it!

If we were going home today, we would all be very happy campers after dive two on Muli Corner. This goes down as one of the EPIC dives of the holiday, if you were in the right place that is… he hemmm

It started as all epic dives do, with no camera! We were expecting a strong current on a channel dive, no point having expensive kit bouncing around on the rocks when trying to hook in, however in true sods law style, we had… wait for it… Grey Reef sharks at about 25m right at the start, with the silhouettes of mantas high above us on the reef plateau, good vibes from the start. As we levelled up a bit we had a stunning shoal of Harlequin Sweetlips, with the grey reef sharks cruising along below us now, as we came up over the top of the gently sloping reef we had an array of exciting events waiting for us, lots of the usual little stuff buzzing around, shoal of Fusileers, a huge octopus in it’s hidey-hole, one that Ali the guide probably knows well to have found him in there. We were graced with a juvenile Black tip reef shark, all of 2 feet long, circling us, I felt like a helicopter above a coral head trying to keep track of it, such a lovely encounter. We then had an abundance of Turtles either sleeping under small coral head ledges, or swimming around joining in the fun, I’m sure I saw about 8 different individuals, we were then graced by two Mantas floating past and through us, it was a case of not knowing which way to look, Mantas in one direction, sharks in another, turtles over there, goodness we didn’t think it could get any better, until whilst watching one of the many turtles, we spied a mêlée off to one side, coming our way, should we be concerned that a large beigy-grey mêlée of sharks, quite large ones, on the hunt, having a bit of a tussle were heading towards us, I think Natasha and I had the same thought…  but we’re ok, they are just nurse sharks, the larger ones were in excess of 3m long, wow…. what a dive. With most of it pretty shallow, we all had plenty of air to last the full hour we were allowed, none of us wanted to come up, but all good things must end… for now.

Luckily, for the disbelievers among you reading this saying “no pictures no proof…” Nat and Annette captured most of it on GoPro, hurrah!

The last dive for the day was rapid, but uneventful by the standard set on dive 2… however little did we know the best was yet to come.

We moored up for dinner, whilst everyone else was happily scoffing their beautifully crafted desserts, that I couldn’t eat, our guide rushed through the door to announce that there was an exciting visitor at the back of the boat, I was able to go and get the first shots of our unexpected dinner guest… directly off the back of the boat, a Whaleshark had decided to come and have his dinner too.

Of course I was very quickly joined by 23 other very happy gleeful people taking in this amazing creature, it probably took all the restraint we could muster to not get straight in, but all being respectful of this stunning animal in front of us, we went up to the Sky Lounge for our briefing on the guidelines for this encounter, if we were to get into the water to snorkel, there were some rules, which I am very happy to see!!

There was a limited number of guests allowed in at a time, minimum distance to be kept etc etc.

The first group were allowed in to gently encounter this amazing animal. Quite amusingly, he pretty much ignored us whilst he ate his dinner. To say we were emotional is an understatement. To our surprise, he stayed at the back of our boat for several hours, I can only imagine the MV blue Voyagers lights attracted the best plankton. We were relieved and lucky to see that there were only 3 boats in the area, the animal was not swarmed, at one point there was a small set of red lights making its way to our boat, we amusing realised that one of the other boats was flying over a drone to see what was happening… we waved gleefully showing off our 5m long guest!

We can only hope that it might give us a swim by on one of our dives tomorrow. This sure did make up for the dodgy start we had due to the unforeseen weather at the beginning of the trip. Sweet dreams all round after this encounter I think!

 

7^th December

We are leaving the most southern stop of the trip today, sadly heading back up through the atolls back to Malé, which of course means the end of the trip is approaching, but there’s still a few days left yet!!

Our first dive was on Dhiha Magili corner, on this one it was lots of the smaller stuff, including a turtle here or there, you can see they are the master of disguise, for the few who stayed on the boat, they were treated to a pod of dolphins playing on the surface near the boat. Difushi Kandi, our second dive also provided lots of the little stuff, lots of time to practice my signature picture, the backside of clown fish as they disappear into their anemone, I’m getting really good at that shot now!

 

The whole day paled into insignificance during the third dive of the day, we were going to chance a Manta Cleaning Station, Kurali. The best time to do this dive is usually the morning, but it was worth a shot, if not a bimble along the reef would do us just fine. We dropped onto the main cleaning station and all was quiet, so off we went after a while thinking it was going to be a quiet one, a little bit further along the channel, we were told to drop down next to a much smaller rock, and were duly treated to a good 30-40 minutes of manta action, from my spot at the back of the rock, I could see it playing over the divers at the front of the rock, then gliding round the back, and the first time it came past, it swam right over me, what a treat! At one point I managed to get a shot of its belly blocking out the sun.

I watched with glee as one of them swam right over Gareths head, it came so close, that I’m sure it buzzed him. At one point I was filming a manta at the main rock, I looked over to Naserra and Glen to see Glen pointing behind me, I panned round with the camera to see another manta being sneaky hiding behind the main group, then what would you know a third one turned up, but as the main attraction was in front, most people didn’t know it was there, I’ll share the video so they can see what they missed, just like buses, 3 come along at once!

Before we knew it, we had to leave to do our safety stop, as we were gliding along, gently drifting upwards, another manta came into view below us making its way along the channel to the mini cleaning station, I had enough air to have stayed for another 20 minutes… why do these dives have to end after an hour??

We are now hoping that tomorrow morning will deliver a similar event. Fingers crossed!

 

8th December

After the dive yesterday afternoon, we were hopeful, but the mantas decided to elude us this morning, to amuse us we had the eel garden spread out in front of us.

People saw lots of different stuff on dive two, we had Mantas gliding past us at about 25m, pretty cool.

 

 

The last dive of the day was on a lovely wall at Vatterru, with the treat of a huge Anemone colony, there were clown fish everywhere! But they are masters at disappearing at the precise moment you press the camera button, either no fish, or their backside…. hmmmm my speciality again.

Nassera and Glen were treated to a rare sight of a Guitar Shark on the corner, quite a lucky find for the few who saw it, nice one!

 

9th December

Jumping in on Vatteru again this morning, a nice easy bimble along the wall with many overhangs to explore, with some Octopus action on our safety stop, we watched as a slightly larger octopus basically evicted a smaller one out of his little hidey-hole, I was fascinated with them, they move with such grace.

After several hours motoring back up to Vaavu Atoll, we were ready for dive 2 of the day, we were jumping in on Niyaru Kandu where grey reef sharks, white tip reef sharks, an eagle ray and a school of jack fish were on the list of sightings.

 

We had a bit of a fight against a current to get to the corner, once there we had a few reef sharks cruising around over the flat and out in the blue, but they soon disappeared when the ‘pro-photographers’ came along 10m off the reef to make sure they got the good shots of them, and as if by magic, poof, the sharks were gone, so we had nothing left to see. No other real big stuff turned up. There is always the next dive.

Dive 3 was much of the same, a battle across the channel mouth didn’t yield the results hoped for, just a lot of air used.

 

10th December

We are well on our way back now sadly. Back to South Malé Atoll, we re-visited a spot we dove on the way out a week ago, hoping for some more shark action.

Cocoa Thila did not disappoint. We dropped down onto the end of the Thila in the channel, at first we thought we were in for a quiet one, hooked in at the corner we didn’t see too much, just a ray going past, so we all un-hooked and drifted back a long the wall a short distance, as we reached the indentation in the side of the Thila, we were all in for a fantastic treat, as a shoal of sharks were cruising past. The large grey reef sharks were coming in pretty close, for me the baby black tips were the highlight, cute sharks!!!

Our second dive of the day was the Kudu Giri Wreck, this was definitely one for the smaller aquatic life, including Pipe fish, shoals of Glassfish, Trevally, Hawkfish, Scorpionfish and turtles.

 

 

 

 

The Kudu Giri was purposefully sunk as an artificial reef, next to a small pinnacle, it is a great little wreck, that can easily be covered end to end in one dive, still allowing time to explore the reef walls of the pinnacle.

 

 

 

 

The third dive of the day was a very odd one for me, it is called Fish Tank, it is known for the huge abundance of feeding aquatic life, because it is off the jetty of a tuna canning factory, there is always some leftovers for the local fish to get an easy meal.

It was pretty crowded down there, fish everywhere feeding on the carcasses of the tuna. The Moray Eel population is massive, as are the morays themselves, they look like they are on steroids they are so large, clearly they have an easy living there, the highlight for me was when Sophie came and took me away from the main spectacle to show me a baby yellow box fish she had found, cute doesn’t cover it!

That was one of only two bits I enjoyed on this dive, the second was finding two juvenile sweetlips, they are so cute as they appear very confused, swimming around fast and erratic like they’ve had about 20 cans of red bull!

 

11^th December

This is our last day of diving on the liveaboard, so of course we are all hoping for something special.

Being so close to Malé now, what could we expect?

Well we weren’t disappointed!
We were back at Lanken Manta cleaning station, sadly there were also several other boats around, so it was very busy with divers.

 

For most of the last week we have been the only ones on the dive sites… we had been spoilt! Until this dive we hadn’t realise how spoiled we had been, it was diver soup down there, it felt really crowded. But the show in front of us more than made up for it, and what a show we had.

We were all dropping in and before we could get settled we were treated to the ballet of the mantas, this went on for a good 45 minutes, at one point I counted 7 Mantas circling the small cleaning station, they seemed to be playing more than being cleaned, they were having fun, and so were we!

As usual, it was with a heavy heart that we had to leave the mantas and come up to the surface again.

What a way to end the trip!

 

 

We had one more dive allowable, so a small Thila was chosen for the final dive of the holiday, after the Mantas, it was very sedate, a nice easy bimble, the viz wasn’t as good as we had been used to, Gareth likened it to Wraysbury… steady on there… we could see at least 8-10 metres!

For me the highlight of this last dive was finding a long nose hawkfish hiding in the coral.

 

As an end of trip treat, our last night on the boat meant one more meal, and we had been promised the curry again… And it was Goooooooood, the chef makes the BEST Dhal!! full bellies all round, it was fantastic!!

We then finished the evening off with a game of Cards against Humanity, for me this was my first encounter with the game, I’ve of course heard of it, but never played it. What was even more weird, is that previous guests had put their own stamp on the game and made some changes to the answers… Hmmmm, well I can safely say I know a few of the guests sense of humour a bit more now, and I will be afraid… very afraid.

 

For some of our group, this was the end of the trip, airport in the morning, and off home. However there is 3 days of R&R at Bandos Resort booked in for six of our group, some snorkelling, massages and lazing by the pool coming up, with perhaps a few cocktails thrown in for good measure.

 

MANTAS    SHARKS    TURTLES    WHALESHARK
What more could you want!?!

 

How about white sandy beaches, palm trees and sunsets….

 

 

I believe by the end of the three days on Bandos Resort we had all had a great time!

Sue had managed to squeeze in as much snorkelling as possible, Gareth had managed to get some tranquil reading time in and enjoyed snorkelling off the beach right by the rooms, Nassera and I decided to get some Paddle Boarding lessons and had a good go at the watersports on offer, along with sampling the spa and cocktails.

We had regular sightings of the Crane, who was quite happy to fish with all the guests nearby, he’s obviously used to the attention.

Did I mention that we were thrilled on day one to see juvenile reef sharks in the shallows just off our beach, basically learning how to hunt in the shoals of fish lining the beach, being just half a meter away from them was amazing.

I won’t go into just how much food we all ate, all-inclusive means seconds and as many desserts as you can handle!

The last day finally arrived, it was with a heavy heart that I had to say goodbye to the sunshine and unlimited food.

Now just to decide what movies to watch on the plane!

We have all been counting down to this holiday of a lifetime for over 18 months and I don’t think I even read the full itinerary before handing over my deposit to secure my place.

The Galapagos….. Ocean Views biggest dive trip yet…. 12 days experiencing all the wonderful things mother nature has created both above and below the water.

A lot has changed since paying over my deposit – Brexit, Trump and most importantly the exchange rate between the dollar and the pound meaning the price going up a bit but hey, this is a trip of a lifetime, not to be repeated so it is a sound investment. There was no way this holiday was going to be dull or mundane!

The BBC seemed to know that we had this trip planned and screened an amazing three part documentary on this unique location with the last episode showing the day before we flew……. there was the chance of schooling hammerheads, sea lions, mola mola, whale sharks, manta rays, silky sharks, mobula rays, the kitchen sink……. it promised to be THE most amazing trip.

After a long flight, we finally touched down in Guayaquil (Ecuador) on Good Friday. Tired and excited we made our way to the hotel for a good night’s sleep ready for some sightseeing on Saturday before transferring to the Galapagos Sky live aboard on Easter Sunday.

Sightseeing around Guayaquil was interesting and we visited Iguana Square and then climbed the 444 steps to the highest point to take in the 360 degree views of the city. It was a hot day wandering around what is surprisingly a very clean, modern and pretty city. The definite highlight of the day being the ‘crocodiles’ at the Isla Santa Ecological Park.

Sunday, we completed the final leg of our travel to arrive on San Christobal Island where we were greeted with the sight and smell of sea lions and pelicans!

Finally on board we set about unpacking and assembling dive kit ready for our check out dive. Our dive guides for the week would be Solan and Max. Max used the tannoy system on the boat to provide information i.e. get up, eat, dive, and signed off by giving quite a convincing impression of a sea lion just to be sure we heard him.

We backward rolled in for the check dive around 5.00pm. Not the most thrilling dive, murky, cold and not much to see but it served its purpose and we successfully adjusted our weights and checked everything worked ready for the start of the real adventure tomorrow.

Monday 17th April

Today there would be three dives with the opportunity to see the sea lions in the water and Red Lipped Bat fish. Pinson Island was our first stop and we would be diving Dumb Rock. This would be the opportunity to see the Red Lipped Bat fish. The sea bed was quite baron apart from being covered in sea stars of all shapes and sizes. There were some Red Lipped Bat fish scuttling along the sea bed but as the dive groups seemed to be travelling in packs they were scared off before I had an opportunity to get a picture.

We then moved on to Santiago Island for two dives at Cousins Rock. The water temperature was cooler here, around 24 degrees, but as dive times are limited to 45 mins the cold wouldn’t present too much of an issue but I put my heated vest on just in case. You could clearly see and feel the thermoclines. It was another gentle drift dive where we were buzzed by a sea lion.

Later that day the crew took us through the procedure for boat evacuation and we all had to put on our life vests which caused much amusement. We were then issued with Nautilus LifeLine Marine Rescue GPS radios and Diver Alert signalling device so if we got washed away in the currents we could alert the boat easily and be picked up. This could really only mean one thing….. we were off to Wolf and Darwin!

I now had the feeling that the diving up to this point had been to check us out in the water and to gently ease us in to the diving conditions of the Galapagos.

Tuesday 18th April

Today was Wolf Island day, oh, and our dive team leader’s birthday!! Would we get the legendary schooling hammerhead show as a well-earned Birthday present?!

The guides gave a very comprehensive briefing explaining that the dives here would require a negative entry and a swim down to the rocks below. The guide would choose a spot and everyone would then select a rock, nook or cranny to wedge themselves into, get comfy and wait for the show. There was no coral life so touching, grabbing on to rocks was not going to be a problem. The ground was covered in huge boulders that were covered in razor sharp barnacles and moray eels. The Kevlar gloves would come in very handy as when the current is running, and the surge hits, you have to cling on so as not to be blown away!!

Our first dive was Shark Bay and we had a huge pod of Dolphins following the panga (rib). Exciting! Would they follow us in the water too?! When the BBC filmed here they had loads of sharks so expectations were high but the site only yielded sharks towards the end of the dive once some of us had started our ascent.

We then moved to Landslide and it was decided to do two dives here and the second one was AWESOME!! It has gone down in OV history just as ‘Dive 3!’

As we descended a hammerhead swam underneath us. We found a spot to settle behind some rocks and just waited. Rattle, rattle, rattle…. the dive guide furiously pointing in to the blue (murky grey)…. eventually you could see a Galapagos shark. Wow, they are huge! then another, then several hammerheads. Backwards and forwards they cruised along in front of us. I thought I could hear another divers strobes recycling behind me as they snapped away at the action. Nope. Dolphins. A whole pod of dolphins swimming right in front of us! Double Wow! This was awesome. This is what we had travelled all this way for.

In between the boulders were numerous moray eels, sleeping groupers and Hawk fish but taking photos was really tricky. My camera was now striped down to a shadow of its former self to try and make it easier but with one hand clinging to a rock, trying to hold and operate a camera single handed, with great big thick gloves on was a nightmare!! I am really glad I had my GoPro with a wide angled INON lens to capture the action as I wasn’t going to be getting many stills on this trip.

 

Air running low it was time to ascend. The dolphins gave us their final pass by playing at the surface so we could see them whilst on our safety stop.

As there was a sheltered bay where we were moored this was to be the location for the only night dive of the trip. Hopefully this would be my opportunity to get some pictures. Strobes charged and remounted I was ready to go.

Brrrrr the water was cold. As soon as I was in the water the heated vest was switched to maximum heat. The site was made up of lots of huge boulders. There was the usual collection of crabs, sea urchins, shrimps and lobsters to see. Some buddy pairs saw a sleeping turtle and a shark. My view and auto focus was mainly distracted by all the plankton in the water which is why these islands are so full of life and I am so lacking in pictures!

We all had a fantastic day which was capped off with a large cake for the birthday boy too.

Wednesday 19th April

The engines started at about 5.30 am and we made the cruise from Wolf to Darwin. The famous arch came into view

just after breakfast. It really is a magnificent sight, let’s just hope the diving lives up to what we have seen on the BBC!

We would have four dives here today, all in and around the base of Darwins Arch. This is the location for the famous schooling hammerhead pictures. Would we be lucky?

It was the same dive drill as we had followed at Wolf. There was lots of surge and you were rocked back and forth as you picked your way over the rocks down to the relative shelter of the reef wall. Dive one was a bit disappointing, not a huge amount to see but dive two we saw a few hammerheads and a couple of very large turtles. At one point it got eerily dark and as you looked up there was a massive ball of fish. It was an amazing sight seeing the ball of fish expand and contract in the sunlight.

The other dives yielded Galapagos sharks, hammer heads and mobula rays but all on the edge of visibility. A few close

encounters but nothing spectacular…. which was just as well as I was still struggling with my camera. Thank goodness for video!

All safely back on board the crew had lit the BBQ and were cooking huge slabs of meat and prawns for our sunset chill out party. The sunset was fabulous, reminiscent of the Japanese flag the way the sun rays radiated out across the sky. A beautiful ‘wish you were here’ style picture postcard sunset.

Thursday 20th April

Today was the last day at Darwin Arch. Due to the viz the crew were considering return to Wolf Island a little earlier with the hope of better conditions. It was frustrating. The sharks were definitely there but right on the edge of visibility and depending where you settled you could either see them or not.

We did the first dive at Darwin and then moved back to Wolf Island for the last two. The water temperature had dropped and that combined with being stationary for a lot of the dive, it was cold. The heated vest was turned up to full power again!! The current had also picked up just to add to the excitement. Even being wedged in behind a rock I still found myself clinging on for dear life as the surge tried to lift me and send me backwards somersaulting over the rocks. I was definitely getting my money’s worth from the Kevlar gloves!!

Due to the cold and the current on the last dive I blew my air fairly quickly so my buddy and I headed off to the blue for our safety stop. As we hung in the water you could see the sharks all around which was nice although a little unnerving! We surfaced and couldn’t see our usual friendly panga driver, Christian, waiting to help us back aboard.

Normally he would follow our bubbles to be ready as we surfaced. Very odd. I launched the SMB and we waited. And we waited. And we waited a bit more. The pangas were a long way away so we decided to use the audible signalling device (Diver Alert) we had been issued with during our first briefing. Wow….. it is loud!! and immediately got our taxi drivers attention! phew! safely retrieved from the water we were amazed how far we had drifted from the rest of the group as was Christian!!. Deep respect for mother nature!

Friday 21st April

Our last full day of diving! It has all gone so quickly. Today was Mola Mola and Iguana day………. so exciting!!!

Our first dive at Cape Douglas would be the last chance to see the Red Lipped Bat Fish as well as other species like Galapagos sea lions, bull head sharks and the illusive sea horse.

We backward rolled out of the panga…… gee whizz…… the water was cold…. a good 7 degrees cooler than Wolf and Darwin. The clue should have been when our dive guides had ditched their semi dry’s for full dry suits. I borrowed an additional hooded top which was surprisingly close fitting and by rights should have prevented any water ingress. It was a chilly 21 degrees at the surface dropping to 19 at depth and after 30 mins I reluctantly signalled to my buddy that I was cold and in a short while I would need to ascend. The dive was largely uneventful which was actually quite nice after the last few days of challenging diving and all the colours of the soft corals a complete contrast.

Dive two was for Marine Iguanas…… we needed to be ready so didn’t really de-kit. All eyes were on the Iguanas basking on the rocks, warming themselves ready to dive in the water and feed. I must admit after the last dive I felt just like an Iguana, lying on the sun bed in my wetsuit trying to warm up ready for the next dive!

AWESOME!! is the only word to describe this dive. Max depth of about 3 metres, swaying back and forth in the surge looking for these prehistoric looking creatures. These chaps had attitude written all over their faces. They seemed to tolerate your presence for a while but eventually they seemed to flick you a look to say ‘Really. Are you still here. Seriously, just f*** off.’ My buddy and I snapped away while admiring these most amazingly out of place creatures. They were so cool. You could hear them munching on the algae and then after a while they would ascend for a breath. Everyone was buzzing and agreed that this had to be one of the best dives ever – apart from ‘dive 3’ of course!

The next dive would be the hunt for Mola Mola at Punta Vicente Roca. Our guides wanted us to wait at a cleaning station for about 15 mins to see if any Mola Mola would come along. It was cold and being still really didn’t help.

Perched on a corner the surge buffeted us up and down and periodically blew me around the corner of the reef much to my buddy’s shock! Eventually the signal to move came and we started to retrace out fin kicks back along the wall. My buddy and I started to ascend a little seeking an extra degree of warmth and then in the distance we saw a Mola Mola!!!! We screamed through our regs to try and get our dive leaders attention as he was engrossed in his camera. Eventually he spun around and saw the unmistakable outline of this enormous fish. AMAZING!

On surfacing most of the divers were cold and because they had seen the Mola Mola decided to skip the last dive of the day in favour of warmth and a panga ride around the bay looking at the wildlife. It was brilliant and our dive guide explained all about the different animals. There were literally piles of sleeping Marine Iguanas, Sally Lightfoot crabs, Noddy Terns, Blue Footed Boobies, sea lions and turtles. Lots of snapping and I even managed to get some Go Pro footage of a seal playing with a puffer fish!

What a great last full day.

Saturday 22nd April

Today was the day to leave the boat which was sad but it did signal the second part of our adventure and the land tours.

We started the day with a land tour of St Bartolome Island. There was a long walk up many steps to reach a view point that opened up the most spectacular views across the islands. As we wandered Max gave lots of information about the animals, birds and the island formation. It was hot but worth the walk.

Our final dive was at La Punta. It was a lovely dive, warmer than yesterday, and a very gentle drift over the reef formed by the volcano and lava flows. We saw turtles, sharks and a few mobula rays. A very pleasant, easy dive to finish our week.

Once back on board it was the usual drill of breaking down kit, washing and drying. The crew was very helpful with washing out BCDs and wet suits but there would only be a couple of hours to try and dry stuff before departing from the boat to journey to the hotel.

We said our farewells and disembarked for the Red Mangrove Hotel on Santa Cruz Island via the Giant Tortoises farm and “Los Gemelos” (The Twin Craters) which are two enormous collapsed lava chambers.

The Tortoise Farm was really interesting and a great opportunity for pictures. It is a 600-acre private reserve where differing size Tortoises roam around freely munching on plants and poisoned apples giving the occasional grunt if you got too close!

We arrived at the Red Mangrove late afternoon. The decked area outside the bar was covered in basking marine iguanas and sea lions hogging the sun beds. I got the impression that the sun beds hadn’t been used by hotel guests for some time! Pelicans bathed in the shallows and crabs scurried around the rocks… this was a great location to be staying with so many photo opportunities without straying outside the hotel bar!!

Sunday 23rd April

In the morning we would go kayaking and snorkelling on Santa Cruz Island. The kayaking would give the opportunity to get close to the rocky cliff face where numerous birds were nesting. Unfortunately it was quite a wet experience which was cooling but meant not suitable for cameras. We were quite uncoordinated paddlers in our two person kayak but we enjoyed ourselves and mostly saw lots of different bird life unless fellow paddlers scared them off first!!

Once dried off we wandered along the path past the salt lakes to an inlet which the locals seem to be enjoying. I was convinced to take a dip by my buddies already in the water. I jumped off the end of the jetty…… Whooooo……Cold/’refreshing’!! I immediately swam to the side and climbed out. That was too cold for me without my heated vest!

Our guide collected us again from the hotel after lunch for a trip to Tortuga Bay. It was a longish walk along a path that cut through the Candelabra Cactus forest but gave opportunities to look for more wildlife. We eventually reached the white sand of the beach and there was a surfing competition in progress. This meant the red flags were up so no swimming allowed. We wandered along a little further to a more sheltered cove and we all dived in the water to cool off. We tried to snorkel but the viz was unfortunately worse than our favourite local inland dive lake so that idea was abandoned in favour of just splashing and lounging about.

Monday 24th April

There was a muddle up with the excursions in the morning so we took the opportunity to wander around Santa Cruz

which is a very clean, pretty town. The fish market was especially funny with Pelicans sat on the work tops and sealions sat in between the fishmongers preparing the fish. Every now and then the scraps would be thrown to the animals and pandemonium ensued. We collected a few souvenirs from the many shops that lined the coast road and headed back to the hotel for lunch.

The afternoon tour was the Charles Darwin Research Center which was only a short walk from our hotel. Our guide explained all about Lonesome George and the breading program for the giant tortoises. It was very interesting and a nice stroll around the mangrove setting seeing many different birds and lizards along the way.

Tuesday 25th April

Our last day of touring and we had saved the best until last! Plaza Island….. our last opportunity to get pictures of the sea lions, iguanas and varied bird life.

We left the hotel at 8.20 to take the coach to the other side of the island to meet our boat the Sea Finch.

The trip included a short snorkel around a beautiful turquoise bay and then a sixty minute sail to the Island. As we arrived on the island we were immediately greeted by baby sea lions playing on the jetty and in the shallows. We all took lots of pictures of sea lions and crabs while our guide tried to explain about the island and usher us along. It was hot and there was no real shelter. It was mostly low growing plants with the odd prickly pear. There were loads of lizards and iguanas crawling around and the guide explained that they were struggling for food so either starving to death or eating birds. He then showed us dried up remains of both!

There was loads of bird life too – Frigates, Blue-footed Booby, Swallow Tailed gulls one with a chick, Brown Noddy Terns, Red-Tailed Tropic birds. It was amazing to see all this life and it made us realise that we had only just scratched the surface of what was here in the Galapagos.

90 minutes and 668 photos later we left the island for lunch and the journey back to the hotel.

Wednesday 26th April

A sad day. The holiday was over and we would start the epic journey back to the UK at 10am Santa Cruz time.

We were all sad to be leaving as we all had the most fantastic time seeing some amazing things. There was already talk of return visits, another live aboard, more land tours. I have to say I am very tempted as there is so much to see, experience and photograph!

Maybe this IS a trip I will be repeating!! We will have to wait and see!

A HUGE thanks to Ocean View for arranging yet another stunning adventure.

 

Red Sea Liveaboard – November 2016

by Jen Elfverson

“DON’T go to Egypt!” they said… “It’s Scary over there!” They said….

Well, I don’t know who “They” are, but “They” are wrong.

Hurghada, November 5^th My Blue Horizon: Lets go DIVING!!!!

What a trip. We arrived all bright eyed and bushy tailed (well some more bushier than others!) to the beautiful Blue O2 boat My Blue Horizon. Welcomed on board with a lovely juice and the friendly faces of the Crew who could not do enough for us all week. Luke and Hanna our fantastic guides gave us the rundown and safety briefing, got us all excited for what lay ahead and introduced us to crew.

Once all the kit was together and all the paperwork signed sealed and sorted we were off! We motored north to our first dive site Poseidon’s reef for our check dive. Warm clear water, about 26 degrees a lovely easy one to get us started and get a few new divers wet!

As this was the first trip to Egypt for a few of us there were huge smile and eyes the size of dinner plates. Us old timers laughed knowing that this was just the tip of the iceberg compared to what was yet to come.

The next site was Emperor Frazer which was a beautiful reef with loads of life, stunning coral gardens and of course huge moray eels.

Day 2 brought us to the national park Ras Mohammed and Shaab Mammoud which was a spectacully colourful dive. Everyone was up Bright and early for a 6:20 am dive where we saw our first Turtle! John Ashton’s smile getting bigger by the second. Then we were on to Jackfish alley, a very popular breading ground full of fish and anthiaers.  Mr Dave Brown, surrounded by a harem of pink fins (Lauren, his daughter and Annette) chose to do twin set for the trip and seemed to lose the ability to tell the time…. Dive time that is.

By midway through day 2 Jim Mckenna began his “no Current – Drift Diver Specialty” and went off in the zodiac to “check the conditions at Shark and Yolanda. A notoriously strong current site between 2 pinnacles … and a flag… which was no longer a flag but a pole!

Status report back – Conditions “Great! Current :….Zero”( Oh well Jim , next time)  Off we all jumped again for huge fan coral, beautiful fish species and hundreds of Toilets… the SS Yolanda went down carrying bathroom supplies in 1985 scattering sinks, baths and toilets across the sea bed.

Mike and Linda Witchell joining us for their first Ocean View trip along with Gus, Jim, Sten and Mare-Ann who all seemed to melt into the group as though they had always been with us!

Linda being the only Non-Diver (but avid snorkeler) of the group decided to get herself a job and become the surface cover paper work checker. Counting us divers in and out, checking our times and depths and making sure all were on board before she would let the crew leave… Thanks Linda!

Before Lunch we crossed to arguably the most famous site of the red sea the “SS Thistlegorm” where we were to stay for the next three dives and Gareth Walsh to mark his 100^th dive mile stone (and yes- he got the t-shirt)!

Bikes, boots and bombs this wreck has it all. Carrying vital supplies to the troops during the war it was bombed by the Third Reich bombers on October 6^th, 1941 and she now lays in her watery grave on the sea bed full of places to explore.  This use to be the busiest dive site as well but it was a fantastic surprise to only have 3 other boats on the site which made it much easier to get “that shot” without someone else in it!!! (Possibly the most noticeable change occurring from the recent political issues).

Continuing the Wreck theme we headed to Abu Nuhas an area of treachery where 4 ships all were lost (accidently? On purpose? It’s anyone’s guess). Our captain managed to get us right on the door step of both the Carnatic and the Ghiannis D (Yay no Zodiacs). 1, just a skeleton, the other modern and hugely intact both these dives were beautiful in their contrast and offerings.

The Carnatic sank more than 150 years ago (one of the oldest wrecks of the area) also known as the “Wreck of wine” for its cargo of hundreds of bottles of port wine. In contrast to the modern wreck of the Ghiannis D which hit the reef April 19^th 1983 and went down within just 15 minutes. Its huge engine room and shards of light penetrating throughout this spectacular site gave us all a chance to take some amazing classic photos while exploring the various decks.

With all that rusty metal out of our systems it was time for a long crossing and to head south to the Brothers. Diving the Big brother, Aida and Numidia first.

SHARKS!!! Sharks and Sharks!!! We had a little wait, and then there they were, hanging around under the boat along with many divers just waiting and watching. I did the 20 minute swim against the current to get to the other boats anchor line to get a better view, only for Lynzi to point out we were still under our boat!!… We found your current, Jim!!!

Small Brother wasn’t a disappointment either, so much colour and fish in abundance, nice to see that the reef is getting the chance to regenerate.

Our trip wasn’t over yet, our crossing back towards Hurghada was met with a full on Roast Turkey dinner with all the trimmings. Question is who had the Turkey in their cabin then?!! And how did it fit in that tiny oven?  It still amazes me how the Chef and his team turn out the most incredible food all week.

Our final dives were some of the prettiest wall and reefs I’ve ever been to.  Small Giffun and Gota abu romada the wall which were AWESOME …and definitely not the Mine sweeper!!!

All in all an amazing trip, with a great bunch divers and some new friends made.  Thanks everyone.