Cork SAC Weblog

Kris Hammerhead

Hammerhead

Seven Members of Cork SAC: Denis, Jim, Diarmuid, Helen, Anthony, Fiona and Dave made a trip to the Brothers Islands and Hurghada Egypt. to sample the diving there. We were joined by ten divers from the UK and one from South Africa.
We spent six days on the liveaboard: “Hurricane” and one day ashore. After a first day spent diving near Hurghada at the coral reef: Erg Abu Ramada, and it’s nearby pinnacle Gota Abu Ramada, we sailed overnight for the Brothers Islands. The two Brothers Islands are about half a mile from each other about nine hours boat trip south east from Hurghada. They both have spactular fringing reefs. The dives on both the Brothers Islands were very challenging, with strong currents and some choppy seas, but they were also very rewarding. On at least half the dives we saw sharks, mainly Hammerheads and Grey Reef Sharks, although the UK diver pictured going head to head with the hammerhead opposite, Kris, also saw a thresher shark.

Denis Numibia

Numibia Fish

Moray

Jim and Denis at Lighthouse

Anthony Fiona

Grey Reef Shark Helen

Though the egyptian authorities have thoughtfully provided Big Brother Island with a lighthouse, two ships have nevertheless managed to crash into it. The Numibia had no excuse.
The Aida was a lighthouse resupply ship so it did have some reason to be there. The Aida had earlier in her career been bombed by the same plane that sank the famous Thistlegorm; she sank, was refloated and sank again a few years later on Big Brother.
The Numibia is a spectacular dive, with good coral and great fish life, lying almost veritical at the narrow western end of the island’s fringing reef. She starts at about 10 meters and continues down to below 40 meters. The detached stern section ,we were told, lies at about 80 meters.
Though it is possible to visit both wrecks on the same dive, sadly the shallowest part of the Aida lies much deeper than remaining NDL would allow, but in water of that clarity, we had a great view of the second wreck below us as we drifted back to the boat.
The south and west sides of Big Brother island had the wrecks, but the north side had the shark action. The shark that came closest was a particular Hammerhead, identifiable by the remains of a fishing line hanging from it’s mouth, which came by several times to check us out.
After two days at Big Brother island, and after a visit ashore to the lighthouse for tea, a chance to buy a T shirt, and a smoke, we moved across to it’s little sibling. Here the diving was even more challenging especially at the cleaning station (where sharks come to have their parasites removed by cleaner wrasse). On Little Brother Island we saw sharks on every dive except one. Both Hammerheads and Grey Reef Sharks were about, and sometimes both species swimming together. Sharks are more likely to be at the station early in the morning, so we elected to get up the first morning at 5AM to catch them out, ironically that was the dive when we didn’t see any shark. We traveled to the cleaning station by small zodiac ribs, and the trick was to backward roll negatively buoyant off the rib and descend as quickly as possible with your buddy to the reef before being swept away. The cleaning station is below thirty meters. Some people found this to be a problem and had ear problems from trying to descend so quickly. Others found that they were low on air after such vigorous finning to get down and stay on the reef. Exciting stuff.
The last dive of the day was generally a more gentle drift with the current along one of the walls of fringing coral.
After four days at the Brothers Islands we headed back to Hurghada with some easy dives on Panorama Reef and Ras Dhimi reef. No sharks but moray, octopuses, barracuda and nudibranchs were there to be seen, and we were glad of the more easygoing pace.
In Hurghada, after a pleasant night on the town, and a morning by the pool, we had a ruinously expensive, white knuckle taxi ride back from lunch. The real sharks are the Hurghada taxi drivers.