Living aboard a liveaboard
The Red Sea
Well, it's been a while - safe to say life has been beyond hectic. Great, but hectic!
It's not everyday that you get to wake up to dolphins outside of your cabins porthole and the essence of sea sickness tablets wearing off, but for a whole week in June that's almost exactly how we woke each morning.
A liveaboard, that's what they call it. When you 'live' 'aboard' a boat for a whole week, dive, eat sleep, repeat, that's how they generally go. I'll be honest from the start, they're not relaxing, diving for around 4 hours each day certainly takes it's toll on your body but weighing this up to the reward you get from experiencing the marine life around you more than makes up for life on Kwells (sea sickness tablets which SAVED us).
We were lucky enough to encounter turtles, dolphins, sharks, wide varieties of coral reefs and the multitude of fish that inhabit them.
The people we get to meet on these trips are amazing, all very like-minded, planet conscious, ocean loving, diving fanatics! Somehow I was able to worm my way in to the chefs' kitchen most mornings and try traditional Egyptian dishes whilst sitting on the floor with the crew. Whilst we're on the subject of the crew, they work hard! From making up our cabins, helping to sort any problems with kit, cleaning the boat, navigating (with just a compass and using the stars) to dive sites to a cinderella service of help those who need to put on their fins!
As spectacular as living off grid is, the trip didn't go without some hard hitting realities. Eight days prior to boarding our vessel, a tragic fire broke out claiming three lives of divers whom were currently onboard. Subsequently we were moved onto a different boat with rigorous safety measures and fire drills carried out imminently after boarding.
Once all safety measures were implemented, it was time to set up our gear to prepare for the following mornings dive. Morning dives are always the ones you want to make an effort to get to, albeit for a 5am alarm call! The water and bed of the ocean is the most undisturbed in the morning, with high chances of dolphin sightings - if you hadn't already spotted them riding the slipstream of the boats bow.
We were lucky enough to see many 'spinner' dolphins who love to spiral like a spinning top (hence their name) through the crystal clear waters, showing off their agility, speed and fascinating ability to launch out of the water!
Other dives required shark safety briefings due to the nature and environments of where we were diving, away from the safety of the reefs and into the blue. We were warned about the intelligence and curious nature of the 'Longymanus' more commonly known to us as the Oceanic whitetip before entering the water - however were only ever met by mantas gliding by and timid hammerheads briefly swimming beneath our fins.
Was it a weeks workout with minimal sleep, yes, would I do it again for a fourth time, also yes!
Sorry mum ;)
Bryant, x