Simply the Best - June 2007
A friend of mine Mal Bridgeman had organised this trip last year but I couldn’t make it because of getting time off work. When I was made redundant I decided this was just what I needed and phoned Mal to see if there were any places available, lucky for me there was and I phoned the agent and booked my space.
The trip couldn’t come round quickly enough and I was looking forward to it immensely. Mal, Mike and Di had already decided to order twin sets, I wasn’t too bothered but agreed to dive them so we could dive together.
I drove down to Norfolk to meet Di and then we drove to Gatwick, the time pasted quite quickly and it was soon time to board, we arrived at the gate and boarded a bus to the aircraft, we had to wait for a couple of people and then missed our slot which meant we sat on the plane for about 90mins before takeoff.
The flight wasn’t too bad although as always it seemed to go on forever, even though it had taken the same time the week before to drive down to Dover, we arrived at Hurgharda and the transfer through the airport wasn’t too bad. We arrived at the marina and walked down the jetty the bags were driven down on the pickup, as normal everyone wanted their “pound” to load and offload the bags.
We boarded Hurricane and noticed there was only one twin set, don’t worry we were told they would arrive shortly. We went up to the main deck and met Thijse and Nicole the dive guides and paperwork had to be completed, all the usual stuff. Then we went to set up kit, which took longer than I thought it would, the bands on the twin set didn’t seem to be round and one of the rods wasn’t straight – anyway we got there in the end. I had taken my tail weight and 1kg V weight, I also started with a couple of kilos on a weight belt but soon ditched that, I should have removed the kilo V weight but really couldn’t be bothered.
Cabin was sorted and then it was time for a beer, the first dive brief was to be quite leisurely and wouldn’t be until 7.30am, a bell would ring for either a dive brief or a meal, you would know which by what you had just done. Time for bed and as usual a restless night. I got up early and headed for the main deck and cup of tea – routine never changes 
The first dive was at a local site called Gota Abu Ramada, quite a nice little dive site for a check dive, we had been told the max dive time was 60mins but these seem to get extended by us just a little. Usual variety of reef fish, blue spotted ray, small moray, huge titan trigger fish and my favourite the masked puffer. A couple more local sites followed then a night crossing to Little Brother. This was a bad day for me as during the first dive of the day my knee locked and when I signalled to Di I had a problem she thought I had cramp and proceeded to try and stretch it for me, ouch and I continued the dive with only one working leg. Getting in the zodiac was interesting and so was getting back to Hurricane from the zodiac. Most of the afternoon was spent in my cabin and having been given strong painkillers by Di I don’t remember much about it. Nurse Di was great organising a huge bag of ice for me. I took it easy when I eventually got up as tomorrow would be Big Brother and I didn’t want to miss it.
The dive brief was of the Numidia and was my deepest dive of the trip at 38.6m, which was done on 28% mix. Unfortunately we were dropped in the wrong place and ended up on the Aida, the current was also in the wrong direction and Nicole the dive guide turned the dive. Nicole and another two guests surfaced soon after, so as she indicated she was ascending, I deployed my SMB so they would know where we were as we continued our dive. We arrived on the surface as a 4 and realised we couldn’t see Hurricane or the cover boats, we all deployed SMB’s so we had 4 on the surface. We got together and drifted with the current, the waves were quite big. We were on the surface about 10mins; I thought what a good decision a twin set was. The zodiac arrived and picked us up, Nicole and the others had been on the surface 30mins; we were on the opposite side of Big Brother to the one we should have been on. Two more dives on Big Brother including the Numidia again drifting over the Aida during the dive.
Another overnight sail to Deadalus which was like a mill pond when we arrived and the chance of hammerheads, we took the zodiac with Thijse the guide and dropped into the blue, we waited a little and then they came in the distance but none the less they were there about a dozen hammerheads, yes just what I had wanted to see. They must have gone round a couple more times and we also saw a grey reef shark. The entire dive was spent out in the blue, which was an odd feeling, as I had to keep checking on the position of the reef as you can soon become disorientated. The second dive was also done in the blue and as before we were to see the hammerheads; I also saw a large pod of dolphin’s way below.
Overnight to Elphinstone which was also flat calm, it is hard to imagine the same dive site where people were lost due to strong currents and big waves, we did have a current to negotiate as we made our way along the line down to north plateau and down to see if there were more sharks. There was one and a hammerhead out in the blue on the east side. Another dive on the west wall but there no more sharks.
We did a couple of local dives on the way back but these weren’t a patch on Big Brother, which has to be one of my favourite dive sites. Apart from the hammerheads, just as dinner ended one evening there were shouts and whistles from the crew - we had a pod of dolphins riding the bow wave :D. We spent about 15mins at the bow before I decided to try and get my camera which I hadn’t picked up, I thought they would have gone by the time I got back but they hadn’t and we must have had them with us for nearly 30mins :) Fantastic, hammerheads, sharks and dolphins what more do you need.
