Five club members and my wife, Fi, enjoyed a one week liveaboard in the Red Sea recently. We picked up our dive boat, Hero, at Hurghada (booked through BSAC) for the ‘deep south’ itinerary: a trip I’d always wanted to do. The boat was fine, the crew fantastic and other divers great (all Brits).
We dived St Johns, Fury Shoals, Elphinstone, Salem Express (wreck), etc and did two night dives – 18 dives in total were possible (I missed the last three days due to a tummy bug 😢). The viz was 30m+, water temp 27C and it was nice and warm above water.
We had a good time and saw: several sharks, turtles, barracuda, napoleon wrasse and lots of reef fish. However, in the deep south (St Johns and Fury Shoals) there was massive coral die back which was soul destroying and, so bad, that I personally wouldn’t go back until it recovers The cause? Possibly global warming? The crown of thorns starfish (which eat the coral) are increasing in numbers as the fishermen catch their predators and pollution from the conflict in Yemen may all be playing a part. Whatever the reason, it was terrible to see the state of the coral which, apparently, had deteriorated significantly in the last 12 months.
Further north (Elphinstone etc) the coral was much healthier.
We had a great time. The BSAC boat was fine. Their organisation pre-holiday was somewhat chaotic but eventually worked.
I’d recommend the red sea to anyone but you are probably better off diving the northern part until the St Johns areas recovers.
Alan B