Sharm El Sheikh & Colona Liveaboard, 1999
Author: Tony Matthews 

I have just returned from a week in the Red Sea. The trip was booked with Explorer Tours, and the diving was run by the Colona Dive Center. There have been requests for information on this trip recently, so hopefully this  report will fill in some details, and also cover some of the things I  learned.

 I booked on the "cruise and stay" that consisted of 4 nights at a hotel and 3 nights on a liveaboard.   Explorers was pretty efficient to book with. However, a common complaint  amongst the divers on the trip was that insufficient information was  provided by them about what should be expected, and what the arrangements were in Egypt. This was mainly around the transfers and the diving program - we were moved from the airport to the hotel with little or no  idea of what to do after this (some commented that Regal do a much better  job in this respect).

 The hotel was the Ocean Lodge (renamed the Tropicana Inn just this week).  This is a short taxi ride from Naama Bay (LE 10) [Egyptian pounds, LE 5.5 is about 1 GBP]. The taxis need to be seen to be believed... agree the fare before you get in and make sure you have good life insurance cover!

 The hotel is reasonably comfortable; breakfast is basic, but, by all accounts, they do a good hot buffet in the evening. Most (all?) of the guests are divers. I booked "solo", but found it easy to socialize with others, got buddied up, and got on really well with the other people on the same trip (if any of you are reading this - welcome to UKRS and thanks for a great week!)

 I had to change rooms on the first evening, and was given a letter from Colona that detailed the pick-up arrangements for the next day only when I  went back to reception. There was an 8:15am pickup at the hotel to transfer to the dive center, and then onto a day boat. The overall itinerary was:

 Day 0 (Fri) - fly from Gatwick and transfer / hotel
 Day 1 (Sat) - Day boat diving / hotel
 Day 2 (Sun) - Day boat diving / hotel
 Day 3 (Mon) - Day boat diving / hotel
 Day 4 (Tue) - Liveaboard
 Day 5 (Wed) - Liveaboard|
 Day 6 (Thu) - Liveaboard
 Day 7 (Fri) - fiz and fly back to Gatwick

 Colona used to be based at the Oasis hotel, but has moved recently. The new Colona Dive Centre is about 3 minutes walk from the Ocean Lodge Hotel. Once there, cert cards were checked, and weights and any equipment needed were  issued. This, plus your own kit, is then all placed in a crate for transfer  down to the boat at the Naama Bay jetty. All divers in the group were PADI Advanced or equivalent or above, with experience of between 15 and 1400  logged dives.

The day boat was MV Colibri, with a compliment of two crew, two dive masters and around 12 divers (in our case a mixture of English and Dutch). This is now quite an old boat, and probably lacks some of the sophistication of the newer boats, but it is reasonably comfortable, has a sun deck and a flat dive deck at sea level with two sets of ladders. The boat carries enough 12L luxfer aluminum tanks for two dives per day, each charged to 190/200 bar.

 Unlimited soft drinks on board cost LE 10 per day, or if you have lunch as well, LE 25 per day. Food is cooked on board, and consists of fish / meat dish plus potatoes, pasta, rice, salad with fruit for dessert - pretty good value.  Colona also run another day boat - MV Nemesis. I think this one is more up to date, but I didn't see it, so can't comment in any detail. 

It is now winter in the Red Sea, and wind and sea conditions limited the dive sites that could be accessed by the boat in the first couple of days.  We really wanted to get up to Tiran, but we had to turn back and did not actually make it until Day 3.

Dives logged on the MV Colibri included:

1. Ras Bob (11:40am, 22m, 38min, 26C, 2*)
 2. The Tower (14:44PM, 20m, 44min, 24C, 3*)
 3. Far Garden (10:14am, 22m, 38min, 25C, 2*)
 4. Near Garden (14:06am, 17m, 38min, 26C, 2*)
 5. Jackson Reef (10:38am, 21m, 41min, 26C, 4*)
 6. Woodhouse Reef (13:43pm, 19m, 43min, 24C, 4*)

Most of these sites are well known and documented, so I won't go into any more details. Viz was 20-30m - just not an issue. Suffice to say that fish life was plentiful on the various reefs - we saw turtles, napoleons, schools of jack and fusilier, grouper, lionfish, electric ray, chromis, moray, parrots, crocodile fish, triggers, box fish and lots more. There was also plenty of time to sun bathe or snorkel over the reefs at lunch time (you see most of the same fish this way, and have more time to study them up close).

Day dives were run as two groups, led by Dive Masters Kelvyn and Susan. This Welsh/English husband and wife team has good experience of the Red Sea, and the dives are well organized - I dived with Susan, who was excellent, very professional with due consideration for the range of diving skills and experience in the group. A full briefing is held before each dive. Some rivalry, and the occasional differences of opinion between the two DMs makes the briefings lively and entertaining!

 This was the first time that I had dived for more than two consecutive days, and I found I was having some unusual problems with reverse blocking by the third day - this gave me excruciating pain in my upper jaw when ascending. I thought this was a sinus problem at first, but eventually put it down to air spaces in my teeth/fillings! This was fixed by buying Sensodyne toothpaste at the local supermarket, and smearing this on my teeth and gums! Something else to add to my diving kit bag...

All our kit was transferred to the liveaboard, Colona V [Colona Five] for day 4, and we were picked up from the hotel and taken to the boat at around 8:30am. Colona V is a 21m boat with 4 crew, 4 twin berths for divers, a lounge, sun deck, and sea level diving deck complete with compressor. The boat is also showing the signs of age, but was generally comfortable enough - just don't expect loads of hot water for a shower at the end of the day!

 All meals are cooked onboard by the crew - quality and quantity are both good. There is a small charge for drinks (USD 0.5 for bottled water, USD 1 for soft drinks and USD 3 for beer). There are also charges for Ras Mohammed (USD 5 per day) and the hyperbolic chamber at Sharm (USD 1 per day). 12L aluminum tanks are provided, charged to 210/200 bar.

 We had 6 divers on board, plus Dive Master Dave Bennett and his girlfriend Sarah. Dave is English, and an excellent dive master - he supervised and informed the group (rather than dictate to us) and allowed divers to be relatively independent whilst taking due care of safety. He made recommendations, but the choice of dive sites was down to us. Dave is due to start his IDC this week, and is planning to setup a dive centre on the Isle of Arran next year (may be a future UKRS dive destination?).

The standard routine was: wake up, dive, breakfast, dive, lunch, dive, snack, night dive, dinner, sleep, allowing for up to 4 dives per day. However, problems with getting permission for Ras Mohammed and weather/sea state limited the number we actually did to less than this.

Dives logged on the MV Colona V included:
7. Shark Reef / Jolanda (11:31am, 32m, 43min, 5*)
8. Jackfish Alley (15:16pm, 19m, 49min, 5*)
9. Ras Katy (19:36pm, 15m, 60min, 3*)
 (return to jetty to get permission sorted out)
10. Thistlegorm (10:19am, 26m, 35min, 5*)
11. Thistlegorm (13:25pm, 25m, 34min, 5*)
(tried to get to Sarah H for 3rd dive, but weather not good)
12. Shebna Reef (18:40pm, 17m, 36min, 1*)
13. Sarah H /Shag Rock (7:29am, 27m, 51min, 5*)
14. Dunraven (11:19am, 28m, 34min, 4*)
15. The Lighthouse (14:59pm, 21m, 9min, 0*)
16. The Temple (18:52pm, 18m, 45min, 4*)

There are many great memories of these dives - we dropped straight in on a turtle on the first dive, and swam through a school of trevally, swimming through the caves at Jackfish alley, the rays at Ras Katy, spirals of Jacks near the bow on Thistlegorm and batfish on the shot line (not to mention all the other spectacular sites at Thistlegorm), blue spotted ray and a very relaxing drift at shag rock, and finally a yellow spotted burrfish at the temple. I guess it will take me a little while to come around to thinking of poking around in the mud in Portland Harbour with 1m viz as a good dive again!

With hindsight, we should have stayed for a third dive on Thistlegorm, rather than try to go to Sarah H that afternoon. However, some of the other divers on board had done Thistlegorm before and were keen to try new sites.  Ce La Vie.

A lot of people think the Red Sea is easy to dive (and Thistlegorm was very mellow by all accounts), however, the conditions at this time of year are not always ideal and one dive (#15) was aborted. One peice of advice from UKRS before going was that I would not need either my SMB or D-SMB. I took both and was glad I did - I carried the SMB with me on all dives, and loaned the D-SMB to another buddy pair. Dave also loaned me a power whistle.

Dunraven was the first difficult dive. There was a strong swell and a current running across the wreck (W-E) and bow to stern. We dropped in more or less mid-ships directly above the wreck, and went straight down. The current pushed us over the wreck, so I dropped behind it to get out of the current, and worked my way down to the stern. I rounded the stern into the current and fought my way to the relative shelter of the inside and started to work up to the bow. The dive was good, with glass fish, lion fish and a devil dish in the mid/bolier section, and large bat fish around the bow. I started to drift back along the top of the wreck. The fight against the current had taken it's toll on my air (now 60 bar), but I felt comfortable that I had enough for a controlled ascent.

The plan was to group together and ascend around Dave's D-SMB. However, when I got back to the stern, a rope had been looped around the wrecks rudder stock and three of our group were on the rope. I started an ascent up the rope, and dumped most of the air in my BC to give me negative buoyancy to ascend the rope. At around 7m, the swell really got going, and the rope started to snap violently. My ascent alarm started going off, as I was tossed around in the middle of the rope (turned out this was not our boat or rope anyway). I let go, regained my buoyancy / equalization at a depth of around 14m and drifted with the current. I checked my gauge again, and found I now had 30 bar, and still needed to do a safety stop. Meanwhile, Dave was busy deploying his D-SMB, and gathering the group to him. I knew my buddy was much better on his air, so I signaled up, grabbed his BC strap, and moved onto his alternate as I got to less than 20 bar. We did a nice slow, controlled ascent with a stop of around 1 minute at 5m. At the surface, the boat was about half a mile away, so I put up my SMB (big safety sausage type) and the other buddy pair put up my D-SMB; we held the group together by holding tanks and waited for the boat. The remaining air in my tank was used to inflate my BC and drive the power whistle. After about 10 minutes, the boat arrived, dropped a trail line, and we mounted it in the strong swell.

The next dive was The Lighthouse (Mangroves). This has only just re-opened after being closed. The plan was to drop in the water, and gently drift (E-W) around into The Quay. As Dave said at the briefing, this one has not been dived recently, so he did not know quite what to expect... we dropped in and started our descent, only to hit a strong W-E current that was tearing up bits of reef and creating a sand storm, and that reduced the visibility down to about 2-3m (suddenly I was back in the UK!). The buddy pair in front on me were fighting their way against the current, and holding onto rocks to stop being swept away. I turned around and looked up to see Dave at the limit of visibility deploying his D-SMB and signaling to drift with the current (before disappearing). However, neither my buddy or the other buddy pair saw this and appeared to be trying to carry on against the current. I scribbled on my slate to drift with the current and ascend to 8m to sort ourselves out - but the other pair had decided to abort by now, so the four of us stuck together and headed for the surface. Out came the SMB / D-SMB again. We could see Dave's D-SMB on the surface about 20m East of us.

The boat was, of course, expecting us to go the other way and was, by now, rounding the corner into The Quay to wait for the pickup. Another boat spotted us, and radioed our boat to come and pick us up. I ended up sitting the dive out on the boat, watching Dave's SMB work it's way from the Lighthouse to Jolande Reef. At least when he surfaced with the remaining buddy pair, they had a boat to get onto! Apparently, this was one of the best dives of the week...

So not everything went to plan (but heh, that's the nature of diving). Dunraven taught me to be more conservative with my air (and the true value of a buddy that always comes up with more air than me), I learnt to always carry a D-SMB (even when other people say you don't need one), and I am now going out to buy a power whistle to add to my kit. All in all, I had a great week - can't wait to go back and see more of the Red Sea.

Colona are a good outfit, and are Swedish owned; whilst I was there, there were two rumors 1) that Colona V is due for a refit in the coming months and 2) that the management had decided to work exclusively with Swedish tour operators in the future. It would be a pity if this were true. 

People also often ask about books on the various dive sites. I found the best book was the "Sinai Dive Guide" - Sea Level Productions. This covers most of the sites around Sharm, and has excellent sketches of the sites/wrecks that also give general compass directions and depths at various points. This is really an essential book for diving in this area. You can buy it in the supermarket in Naama Bay for around LE 40 (cheap at around GBP 7), or I think you can get it via Amazon if you want to look before you go.

Overall, whilst I have some reservations about Explorers, I would have no hesitation in recommending diving with Colona. Although the dive boats are not the most up to date, and may not offer the ultimate in comfort, the Colona people are very friendly and professional. I thoroughly enjoyed diving with them, and can't wait to go back to the Red Sea again (did I say that already ??!).

 -Tony

©1999-2007 DiveAtlas Web Publishing.  All Rights Reserved
This entire domain and all associated e-mail addresses are located in the State of Washington,
and sending mail to addresses at this domain is subject to the provisions of the Revised Code of Washington.