“Yes! wonderful things”
This was what Howard Carter famously said to Lord Carnarvon whilst peering into a dusty and ancient antechamber illuminated by just a single candle, and not looked upon by human eyes for over 3000 years. It was full of treasures from the tomb of Tutankhamen and is arguably the most significant archeological find in recent times. And all of us on my latest Snorkel Venture tour to Egypt were treated to viewing these wonderful things on our visit to the brand new Grand Egyptian Museum laid out in what is the largest museum in the world.
The sheer scale of this astonishing feat of modern engineering designed to display and make accessible those treasures found by Howard Carter and others after him is simply breathtaking.. It’s so well done and whilst massive it’s quite easy to navigate especially with the aid of our Egyptologist Amira who took us on a curated selection of the most famous exhibits. We were there only half a day, and it’s not enough, but for our group of travel weary Americans and a fellow Brit it was just enough to savor this incredible place and whet our appetites for a future visit.
The day before which was the official start day of our Red Sea Snorkel Venture tour we visited the pyramids and in keeping with the GEM they’ve revamped the accessibility and made the whole process more organized with hop on hop off air conditioned tour buses which get you around the sites major landmarks including of course the Sphinx which was the last stop on our tour. As the majority of our SV guests travel in from the States via Cairo then it would be a terrible shame to not visit these wonders of the world, and so when the flights and itinerary allow we kick off our trips to Egypt by visiting these special locations.
Onwards and Upwards
After a couple of days in Cairo which like most big cities is full of chaotic hustle and bustle, we were glad to be flying out on a short hop to the Red Sea coastline around Marsa Alam, Red Sea Diving Safaris dedicated snorkeling and diving resort positioned around a sprawling house reef running to the north and south hundreds of meters in length. This place is famous in the area for not allowing rampant tourism to overtake it and impact the reef, and our travelers didn’t waste any time after their introductory briefing to hit the water.
There’d been a bit of wind in the previous days so the close in house reef was slightly affected by untypically poor viz for the Red Sea, but once I took the guys on a trip to the further reaches of the house reef that famous Red Sea visibility was back and all the usual suspects of Sgt Majors, Surgeon Fish, Morays and Crocodile Fish were viewed in abundance.
Oh, and turtles there’s aways turtles.
Lets have a day out…
I visit Marsa Shagra and it’s sister locations a lot and one of the best things apart from the unlimited house reef snorkelling is the excursions further afield, usually by a zodiac if the journey is within 25mins or by minivan if over this. Our first journey away from the resort was by zodiac to look for a ‘mythical creature’ otherwise known as a Dugong and we had Anja our Swiss guide who was the current in form whisperer for these big beasts. They’re loosely related to Manatees and are their sea water cousins, they live on a diet of sea grass which they graze consuming around 50kg daily to maintain their impressive size.
When we arrived at a likely spot, it was only a minute or two before the skipper spotted the almost imperceptible signs on the featureless water surface, but Anja slipped overboard and there we were right on top of one, munching away on what has got to be a very boring diet. The guests followed quickly and despite its size it moved pretty quickly to a more bountiful spot, so all aboard for another drop off and all got to see the unlikely looking creature. I didn’t get a shot this time but I’ll put up some pics from a previous encounter to give you an idea.
The day didn’t end there, though. After our exciting meeting with the ‘mythical creature’—a name I’ve given it because for a very long time I simply didn’t see one, and because I’m always reluctant to tempt fate by guaranteeing a sighting—it was time to move on. After all, this is nature we’re dealing with, not Disneyland.
Before long, we found ourselves in nearby Abu Dabbab Bay, where beautiful reefs fringe another vast seagrass meadow. These underwater grazing grounds are home to some truly enormous Green Sea Turtles, which can often be found peacefully munching their way through the seagrass as if they own the place.
Starry Starry Night
That very same night as there was just a sliver of a new moon we decided to take our evening tour into the nearby desert where Mohsen our guide who’s nickname is Star, introduced us to his Bedouin family at their weekend retreat.On the way there we passed by a working well, which dates back to Roman times, and came across a small herd of Camel belonging to his family, they have freedom to roam the valley so it was a rare treat to see them, take pics and get close.
When we got settled in camp, Star made us traditional Bedouin coffee and Karkhadi which is made from Hibiscus Flowers. We then had a barbecue meal as the sun set under a sky quickly darkening but dotted with stars. After the meal, Star took us to his observatory on a nearby hill where we looked trough his telescope at the moon, planets and stars interspersed with his knowledge of the heavens both relating to Bedouin navigation and also the latest astronomical findings.
All at sea
After a week that flew by too quickly the second part of our Red Sea adventure beckoned and we took a short trip to nearby Port Ghalib where we boarded our luxury Liveaboard Turquoise also known as Red Sea Aggressor IV. Everyone seemed very impressed with her, she’s a pretty and spacious boat, which was great as she was to be our home for the next week. After settling in for a night in port some opted to have a wander about the souvenir shops and markets here to grab some last minute stuff, as we were due to head south early the next morning for our eventual southernmost destination of St Johns not to far from the Sudanese border famed for its hard coral off shore reef systems and remoteness.
Dolphins!!!
The skipper opted to break our southern trip into two big journeys so as not to be doing too much traveling at night and so our first stop was the very popular Sataya Reef. Popular because of the resident pods of Spinner Dolphins, they shelter inside this 3 mile long reef after hunting outside in the early hours. The dolphins are famous for interacting closely and enthusiastically with the humans that come to say hello. We weren’t disappointed as our first snorkel here we had a very good encounter with the Spinners, cavorting madly and seemingly getting more excited the more we got excited, it was breathtaking to be honest and such a treat to be so up close and personal with these engaging wild animals.
Bring on the Clowns
We still had more journeying to do though and after a late afternoon snorkel at South Sataya we headed off towards Paradise our next early morning destination for the first snorkel of the day. However it was very windy and we feared that we may not be able to get in but our wily skipper had positioned the boat such that we were actually more sheltered than it initially appeared, and so we were rewarded with a glorious snorkel in coral canyons in spectacular visibility.
Definitely worth getting in and proof that you never can really tell, so despite it being a bit choppy, once you got your head down everything got calmer and colorful.
The end of the snorkel there’s a little inlet with some very big Anemones in a vibrant red with a colony of Clown Fish in a contrasting yellow, a perfect photo subject, but quite a challenge on a single breath, I’ve dived this spot quite a lot and so was very pleased that I was up to the task of getting a decent result on just one breath.
Quick Turnaround
Once we’d reached our southernmost point of the journey it was time to head backup north stopping off again at Sataya for round two with our fast swimming playful new friends. And second time around they cranked up the display a notch and I can honestly say that the was one of the best dolphin encounters I’ve had in the last five years of coming here, and all before breakfast. Our guide Mohamed always came up with great suggestions and this second dolphin bout was just to provide a buffer and to allow us time at our next destinations to minimize being with too many other boats who were all parked in the south so this was a very good call.
Island Life
On our way northwards we snorkeled at a variety of reefs and being off shore we had great week long visibility. To mix things up a bit on our penultimate day out at sea, we visited an island called Syul Island, but Mohammed knowing it would be busier got us there a few hours early so we had the place to explore and snorkel around before other boats arrived.
Aba daba doo
Our final day early morning outing was at Abu Dabbab, not the same spot as we’d visited whilst at Marsa Shagra to see the Dugong, but some offshore reefs parallel to that location and they’re helpfully numbered from 1 to 6, we opted for between 3 and 4 and despite the ravages of recent hot water events in 2012 and 2024 the reefs are bouncing back and showing some hopeful resilience which were all very relieved about, and the smaller reef fish like the Damsels and the other grazers are doing a magnificent job eating the algae and preparing the surfaces for the new coral growth which is slowly returning, lets hope it stays like this.
Being more accessible these closer in reefs can be monitored more easily, and I was happy to see that they appear to be doing better than they were a couple of years back.
So our penultimate snorkel here was a positive one, and so light in heart we travelled to nearby Marsa Shouna where it’s tradition to finish these southern trips.
Another sea grass and coral reef fringed bay, we once again saw a bunch of big Green Sea Turtles to finish off our epic Egyptian Land and Sea Adventure.
A short while later we made our way back into Port Ghalib for our traditional last night meal all together at DeVinos on the harbor side.
Last Words
Trips like these with lots of variety always seem to fly by, but also when you check back on what you’ve done it seems like loads of stuff has happened and conversely an age away, and not two fast weeks, from walking around the Grand Egyptian Museum marveling at the boy King Tuts Golden Death Mask.
Indeed in the words of Howard Carter ‘wonderful things’.
Paul Duxfield SV Tour Leader
And as always all photos taken on either the ubiquitous Olympus TG7,GoPro’s or DJI Action Cameras.
