Ray’s asked me to sort out group tickets for LIDS, and a place for a meal afterwards.

For those who’ve never been before, LIDS is the biggest Dive show in the UK, and takes place at the ExCEL centre in Docklands. There are 100s of exhibitors, as well as talks by leading Dive professionals.

You can find more information at the Diveshows Website

Tickets are £7.50 (£10.50 on the door), but group bookings of 8 or more are entered into a prize draw for a £4000 holiday for 8 to Malta, so it makes sense to book through GLUG.

If you’d like a ticket, please email me (link on the Events Page, if you log in). Don’t just leave a comment here - I may not see it.

Post-LIDS Social Dinner

Since a few people will be coming from afar, and staying over in London, it’s a great opportunity for a Social meal.
After a bit of conferring with Ray, I’ve chosen Busaba Eathai, near Googe Street tube, and about a 15-20 minute walk from Old Compton Street. Busaba is a Thai restaurant in the “Wagamamma” style - but with nicer decor, and this one has a private dining room, seating up to 22 people.

They have three set menus (details to follow), priced at £16, £19, and £24pp, excluding drinks and service. I’m not sure as yet whether we all have to choose the same one - but probably. Although they don’t have a specifically Vegetarian set menu, many of the dishes are vegetarian, and they will do an extra couple of dishes specifcally for the veggies among us.

I’ve booked the table for 8pm - I wanted a bit earlier, but they’re already booked from 6-8pm. We have to be out by 10pm.

If you’d like to come to the meal, please let me know ASAP by emailing me (link on the Events Page if you log in). Again, please don’t just leave a comment on this post. I will need payment in advance, once we’ve decided on a price - either by cheque or by online transfer.

Ocean Optics are holding an Open Day, with renowned Underwater Photographer, Mark Webster, on Saturday Jan 12th.

Mark’s credentials are impressive - a well established photo-journalist writing regularly for the major diving, photographic and wildlife magazines. He has also been selected four times to represent Great Britain at The CMAS World Championships of Underwater Photography winning silver and bronze medals. Further competition successes include the BBC/British Gas Wildlife Photographer of the Year and the Agfa Wildlife Photographer of the Year, Blue Earth 2000, Geographical Magazine Photographer of the Year 2000, Ocean Realm Magazine Marine Photo 2000, Diver Magazine Image 2001 and 2003 and Subios 2004 along with numerous other awards.

The GLUG website has all sorts of built-in monitoring and Statistics information, and I thought I’d just share a few interesting facts (well, I think they’re interesting anyway!)

• The website gets on average, between 150 and 250 visitors per day. (This doesn’t include Search Engines, which visit us regularly to update their indexes)
• The majority of visitors are based in the USA - at least, that’s where their ISPs servers are. We get almost twice as many visitors from the USA as from the UK! We’ve also had visitors from as far away as Chile, Japan, and South Korea.

You may have noticed that the GLUG website has been offline for the last day or so.  Following a series of hacking incidents, and the refusal of our old web host providers, Hostroute, to provide even basic security measures on our old server, I’ve moved everything to a new webhost provider: Hostgator, who offer a much more secure site, that should be a lot harder for the hackers to compromise (I do hope that no-one’s going to see that as a challenge!).

Hopefully, the change will be completely transparent to the almost everyone.  There are one or two committee members who have GLUG email accounts, and they will need to reconfigure their mail programs (I’ve emailed them to tell them how), but hopefully everything else should be working as before (just a lot more securely).

However, if you do have any problems, please email me using the Contact Form.

Neil.

Ocean Optics / Mavericks Diving are organising an Evening with Martin Edge, a well-respected Underwater Photographer.

Here’s their mailshot:

Apart from our year-round diving GLUG also organises regular social events so that our members can catch up, compare stories or photographs from recent trips and chat about… well, diving.

In addition to our monthly meetings in Soho we also have an AGM and Christmas party in December and a picnic or barbeque in the summer. We host stalls at Pride events, go shopping en masse at the Dive Shows and sometimes meet up with other gay social or sports clubs for joint social events. Our members have organised dry dives in a compression chamber and we have had clubs outings to evenings of lectures on subjects ranging from cave diving to marine life to digital underwater photography.

We also have GLUG weekends at inland dive sites for training and skill maintenance. Whilst not as exciting as real diving holidays these trips are essential in making sure that our openwater diving can be enjoyed safely and that our members have the opportunity to advance their training, should they wish to. These weekends also provide the opportunity for more club socialising and almost always include a few nights in a local pub comparing tall tales and chatting about… well, diving!

On this page you will find details of some of our past non-diving activities. Click on the pictures to be taken to the relevant gallery.
Details of upcoming events can be found on our Events Page.

Please choose from the following:
London Zoo Gay Sunday - September 2008
London Aquarium - August 2008
London and Brighton Prides - 2008
Christmas Dinner - December 2007
Picnic - August 2007
Dry Dive - 2007
Dive Show dinner at La Tasca - March 2007
Cardiff Mardi Gras - 2004

London Zoo Gay Sunday - September 2008

Thanks a million to Brian Broadbridge for bagging Glug a free stall at last weekend’s Gay Sunday at London’s Zoo.
The day was a great success with several new members signing up on the day and 30+ potential gluggers signing up for information on local training.
A special thanks to Brian, Steven, Doug and Chris for lending a hand on the day!

London Aquarium - August 2008

Mother nature had other plans for the GLUG summer picnic this year so, instead of eating our packed lunches in the wind and rain, we decamped to the London Aquarium. The displays and tanks were great and it was lovely to see the fish of the British Isles to well-represented (and with good vis, for a change).

London and Brighton Prides - 2008

GLUG had stalls at both London and Brighton Pride this year. Thanks to all the hard work put in by our volunteers on the days we managed to find a number of new members, both experienced divers and non-divers eager to learn!

Christmas Dinner - December 2007

We concluded 2007 with our AGM, kindly hosted by Gerhard at the Gray’s Inn branch of Konditor and Cook. We then wandered down to Strada St Pauls for our Christmas dinner. Some of us may have gone out in Soho afterwards too… luckily by then the cameras had been put away.

Picnic - August 2007

We finished up the year’s dive season with a picnic in St James’ park. Over two dozen GLUG members turned up and we had enough food to ensure that fitting into our wetsuits at the start of the 2008 season may prove rather challeging.

Dry Dive - 2007

Eight intrepid GLUG members undertook a (loggable!) dry dive to 50 metres in the London Dive Chamber.
We were very impressed by the professionalism of the medics and technicians who run this important facility. During the course of the dive they provided us with a series of cognitive tests and also gave us information on how to recognise and respond to DCI symptoms.

Dive Show dinner at La Tasca - March 2007

After a day of strenuous shopping at the London International Dive Show (during which GLUG members must have poured a few thousand pink pounds into the coffers of the dive industry) two dozen of us met up for a tapas meal at La Tasca. We showed off our new gear, boasted about the bargains we’d found and drank enough sangria to refloat the Scylla.

Cardiff Mardi Gras - 2004

A big “Thank You” to those who came along to help at Cardiff Mardi Gras: Ceris & her partner, Paul & Sian, and most especially to Rob & Neil, who not only stayed for the whole afternoon, but also brought along all sorts of nibbles: chicken legs, sausages, smoked salmon pinwheels, and a particularly nice cheese & bacon flaky pastry concoction. What with all that, plus the Metropolitan Community Church handing out cakes from the stall next to ours, we didn’t need any dinner!

Once again, there was a lot of interest in GLUG, and although we only signed up one new member on the day, we gave out almost 300 leaflets. The encouraging thing was that although by the end of the day there were hundreds of other leaflets lying discarded on the ground, we didn’t see a single GLUG one that had been thrown away.

Finally, also a special thank you to Ignacio, Neil’s partner, who has been tireless in helping to promote the club, even though he doesn’t dive!

Dear Members

Would anyone be interested in creating a GLUG group to get involved in the walk for life event to help raise money for Crusaid?

Info at: www.walkforlife.co.uk

Leave a comment

Thanks

Chris

I’ve had an email from a guy called Brian in the USA asking whether we know where the good dive sites are in Ireland, since he’s going there for a holiday.

If anyone can recommend anywhere, please leave a comment below this post.

Also, if anyone from Ireland is interested in meeting up with Brian when he’s over there, leave a comment below, and I’ll forward your email address to him.

Neil.

Barra Beach and Tofo - April 2005
by Jason

After flying into South Africa I spent a few days diving the KwaZulu-Natal South Coast, I then made the journey north of Durban, driving to Mozambique via Swaziland. The infrastructure in Mozambique has never been very good, the Portuguese concentrated on developing the coastal towns that serviced their East African trade routes and the roads linking these were never more than basic. The situation was then compounded by fifteen years of civil war which only ended in the early nineties. The Mozambican tourist industry is still therefore relatively undersubscribed and offers deserted beaches, unspoilt diving and a real sense of getting away from it all.

We were staying near Inhambane, a beautiful town on a 23 kilometre-wide saltwater lagoon. This port was first established by Arab traders as the southernmost destination in their trade routes and their influence is apparent in the town architecture and the traditional fishing dhows which are still used on the lagoon.

Our chalets were in beautiful coconut groves on Barra Beach at the mouth of the lagoon. The dive sites off Barra are coral reefs in about ten metres of water which, despite not looking impressive, have a lot to offer a dedicated fish-nerd (like myself). It is their proximity to the sheltered breeding grounds of the lagoon that make these reefs special and I repeatedly spotted the juveniles of a number of different species including emperor angelfish, checkerboard wrasse, rippled triggerfish, bluespotted tamarin, black snapper and rockmover wrasse. I also found tiny juvenile morays of every stripe, clearfin lionfish, many nudibranchs, and crocodile, stone and scorpion fish by the dozen.

Tempted by the promise of yet more juveniles I did a muck dive in the lagoon itself. The three metres of water were hardly teeming with fish but the floor of the lagoon was the focus of our attention and here, amongst the urchins, rotting mangrove leaves, sea grass and rubbish, we found hundreds of tiny juveniles including porkys, cowfish, scorpionfish and lionfish. One member of our group spotted a seahorse and I had an encounter with a very curious cuttlefish.

The majority of the dives that I did in Mozambique were not off Barra but round the point in the open ocean off Tofo and about 20 minutes away by RIB. These sites ranged from 15 to 30 metres.

The shallower sites provided all the usual reef suspects and most had busy cleaning stations of some sort or another. At Salon the numerous overhangs and gullies contained hundreds of cleaner, banded, dancer and zebra shrimp which happily cleaned anything put in front of them (finger and toenails included) and at Mike’s Cupboard I watched thousands of fusiliers streaming over the reef like silver darts to converge on an overhang containing a single harassed looking cleaner wrasse who was darting into the mouth of each in turn. On these reefs I also found huge cowries and cushion starfish, lots of octopus and my first paperfish.

The deeper reefs in this area were the most interesting topographically, their rock amphitheatres and escarpments dotted with sponges and green coral trees. These reefs are also the site of numerous manta cleaning stations which never failed to live up to their hype. I did 5 dives on these deeper reefs and saw mantas on every one. Reaching up to 4 metres from tip to tip and sporting impressive-looking shark bites the mantas seemed completely unconcerned by our presence. They swam over, around and between us trailing their attendant remoras. One station was manned by butterflyfish which fluttered behind the mantas like a bright yellow train. I don’t have an underwater camera but luckily one of the divers on my RIB did, all the underwater pictures and video footage in the report are his (thank you, David Park).

On our last dive we saw two bull rays and about a half dozen mantas as we made our way along the rocky ridge of Giant’s Castle. A crack in the reef held a huge crayfish and a nest of geometric morays, one adult and four juveniles, their bodies twined like rope. Juvenile redfang triggerfish no bigger than anthias swarmed around holes in the reef, while adults flapped clumsily through the water above them. As we ascended to our five metre stop the water around us was full of barrel-shaped tunicates as big as rugby balls and chain salps over a metre long. Below us a group of six mantas converged once again on the ridge. Coming in close, they turned in an almost perfect circle, each just feet from the next, as though they were reclaiming the reef.

Curacao and Bonaire - Diving for Life - 2005

by Alan Larsen

I will admit that the idea of going to a “gay diving jamboree” - a week’s diving with 150 or so (mostly American) gay divers - doesn’t really appeal to me much. I don’t necessarily feel the need to go diving with a large group of gay men and women - I just want to go diving! But I booked to go to DFL (Diving for Life) in Curacao this year, mainly to take the opportunity to dive somewhere other than the Red Sea, which has dominated the past few years for me. And it turned out to be fantastic fun! As much serious diving and as much partying and socialising as you want - and in whatever mix takes your fancy.

Diving for Life is organised by a group of American divers as an opportunity to dive in interesting places and, at the same time, raise money for HIV/AIDS charities. The money raised (through auctions, raffles and profits from the event) is distributed to a charity nominated by each dive club attending in proportion to the number of people attending from that club. Five GLUG members went this year which means that Food Chain will receive a couple of thousand pounds from the event.

That’s the worthy bit! The diving is really good too! And the Dutch Antilles in the southern Caribbean is a great place to do it. The diving is similar in both locations, although, I would say that it is marginally better in Bonaire. Bonaire is also the self-styled “home of diving freedom”. The dive package at Captain Don’s Habitat includes unlimited shore diving; you hire a jeep, load up some tanks and stop along the shore at whichever of the well-marked dive sites takes your fancy, kit up, and dive. No dive guide and no groups of divers in pairs playing follow my leader. Very “grown-up” and great fun! There are boat dives too, as there are at Captain Don’s in Curacao, which also has unlimited shore diving and the best house reef on the island. The water temperature is around 28 C.

The underwater seascape is dominated by sponges and soft corals: tube sponges, vase sponges and barrel sponges - from several centimetres to a couple of metres in size. These are surrounded by sea rods and sea plumes and other “reedlike” soft corals. There are loads of hard corals too: elkhorn, staghorn, boulder star and brain coral, which is colonised by literally thousands of different coloured
Christmas Tree worms. And there are thousands of anemones too.

There is also abundant fish life: parrotfish and triggerfish (but different types to the Red Sea!) and trumpetfish are very common, as are shoals of grunts and goatfish. Among the more exotic sightings were several seahorses, lobsters, frogfish, spotted drumfish and peacock flounders, and a couple of mantis shrimps (although you had to be quick to see them!).

But my lasting memory will be the vast number of yellowline arrow crabs - one under virtually every overhang in the reef; and the several types of cleaner shrimp living symbiotically in anemones. That - and the fact that my camera flooded on day three, so I didn’t get to photograph much of it!
So go to Bonaire and Curacao for the diving. And go to DFL for the diving, the fun and to raise some more money for a good cause. You won’t regret either.

Scapa Flow on John L - July 2006
by Lee Brown

Another GLUG trip to remember… We all arrived at the S/C House in Stromness High Street on the Saturday having travelled from all over the UK [and Holland] by air, sea, bus and car. A very strange sight greeted us as the Stromness carnival was on, filling the streets full of drunken Vikings and kilted types… One interesting float was the ‘First Gay Bar in Stromness’ with lots of dragged up locals…. The weather on arrival was foggy and cool unlike the rest of the UK basking in a 30 degree heatwave, but the following morning it was hot and sunny in Stromness too and that was more or less it for the rest of the week with a bit of early morning mist each day which burned off. Sea water temperatures this trip were in the 12 to 13c range at the bottom and up to 16c on the surface but it felt warmer… I guess we were quite warm on the boat and too taken with the wrecks to think about much else anyway!

After our luxury breakfasts prepared by Marlene [Cinders as we call her] we would schlep down to the pier to join the delightfully idiosyncratic ‘John L’ which is a restored red and white 1930’s Dublin Bay tugboat. Masses of space and well-designed with easy onboard air and nitrox fills. Not very fast, not that it mattered much though… I often thought we could walk faster than it was puttering across the flow! Jamie, our captain, had obviously recently seen the Pirates of the Caribbean judging from what he was wearing…. Apparently a shy lad according to Corinne, he gave an interesting demonstration of some choice expressions to a few of us on the first day before settling down a bit to be somewhat more friendly! We fairly quickly got into the daily routine of the boat [as you do] and with hyper efficiency each day set up and were ready for the day’s dives. We had our own wonderful Italian tealady and general factotum, Camilla who had come with Terry and doesn’t dive but likes divers and diveboats! An interesting feature was that most of us were ‘electronically tagged’ for the diving after a DAN rep asked us to help with a survey of divers. This involved wearing a little orange box and filling in medical info sheets.

Scapa Flow, if you don’t already know, is probably one of the top ten dive sites on the planet, being where Admiral Von Reuter scuttled the entire German naval fleet in 1919, partly by accident. Most of the battleships were salvaged for scrap over the next 30 years from the 30 to 40m deep natural harbour but several were left and it is these that we dive. They are mostly on their sides or upside down and vary a fair bit in how intact they are. Since around 2000 they have been protected historical sites [like Stonehenge!] and nothing may be removed from them. Something that produced a few twitches and shakes from some of us [they know who they are....] unable to pass over a wreck without removing something! The wrecks are pretty awesome, with huge areas of intact hulls, swim throughs and penetrations possible, also with decking and guns visible. Visibility this trip was in the 10 to 15m range, fairly good but dropped when us divers were on them or we followed another group. Luckily a lot of boats this year have been out of the Flow doing the Northern Orkneys which has become a popular diving area.

The first days’ dives were pretty good. We did the SMS Dresden first, very nice viz and masses of life on her. All the big wrecks here are permanently shotted with very thick lines and being taut are easy to use up and down though you got to beware the bits of jellyfish on the them and the Lions Mane Jellyfish floating by. Although quite interesting to watch [they even sometimes have little fish in their fronds] they can pack quite a sting . Fiona discovered this later in the week but she was soon OK, and completed her 400th dive over the week. She also managed some of her best penetrations this time! [she said it....] The huge walls of the ships hulls and the debris around where the salvagers had blasted holes in provide for lots of holes to explore and for fish to hide. There seemed to be enormous Wrasse everywhere, mainly Balaan but also Marbled and Rainbow. Large Pollock and Cod also as well as a few Conger Eels. I think I saw an arctic Wolffish here… Crabs of all sizes and types and the most beautiful collections of Plumose Anemones, Sponges and Dead Mans Fingers.

Into Lyness for lunch each day to wander round the museum and try out the NAAFI style restaurant, nice home made soups, rolls and a goodly collection of cakes including a personal trip down memory lane, The Butterfly Cream Bun! In the afternoon we did the F2 and barge…a dive made somewhat confusing by the shot being tied onto the barge rather than the F2 [UK WW2 Escort vessel]. I was suspicious when I discovered the ship was made of wood which is not how I remembered it! Anyway the penny dropped quite quickly for us all and we swam over to the main wreck some 50m away. Although fairly small as wrecks go, the stern having been cut off, the F2 is a lovely dive with lots of life and a wonderful overhung bow that looks like a big cheese wedge on the seabed. Light, fairly shallow and good viz made this a very easy and enjoyable dive. I think we all enjoyed it a lot.

The second day was the Koln and Karlsruhe, for me around 29m and 24m respectively, which I did with my rebreather …one of 2 present as the other Lee had brought his also. Both very good large wrecks with awesome large intact sections giving a very good impression of a battleship and lots of fish and general life. Andrew and Allen saw a Butterfish here as well as a very nice Ammo case… Some nice little penetrations were done here also. One good thing about wrecks like the Karlsruhe is that there is a lot of scope for working up slowly as you circumnavigate the ship from stem to stern. The shots are very easy to find as well, generally midships and tied to something memorable. Terry and Lee E annoyed the wildlife by staging crab fights, tsk tsk, and finally revealed his sausage [which had previously been strapped to his leg... oo-er] to have it gulped down by a Conger, which might very well have taken a few fingers as well if it had been given the chance.

Day 3 was the Kronprinz Wilhelm, a massive 30000 tonne destroyer, upside down with guns visible on the seabed. The keel is so large it feels like a rocky underwater island full of life and colour slowly shelving off to vertical sides to the seabed. In the afternoon the ’submarine’ was done in the shallows, more like a metal tube covered by weed, but apparently quite fun. I and Martijn had a day off debubbling exploring the Islands but got some nice accounts of the days diving from the others. It being Terry’s 40th he decided to avail himself of a hardhat dive from Stromness Quay in the afternoon when we returned…this was something of a mixed experience as the overenthusiastic pumpers filled the suit with air to the point of immobility…despite banging his head against the dump valve in the helmet he seemed to do an awful lot of helpless floating on the surface. Finally getting to the bottom of the 5m deep mudpit that is the seabed hereabouts, he fumbled about a bit in near zero viz finally rocketing to the surface in a mode not unreminiscent of a Trident Missile departing a submarine. Lee E then had a go and sunk like a stone disappearing head first when he tripped over a pipe into the goo that consists of 200 years of dumped fish heads. Quite a bit of roaring with laughter by us watching and pumping for Britain on the surface! An interesting one for the log book though. Andrew kitted up and supported them in the water, getting sore ears for his trouble….

Wednesday was a deeper dive on the Dresden, down below 30m for most of us. I got to 37.9m with the rebreather with the other Lee, but finished the dive with Martijn as we went down as a 4… but it all seemed very easy in the clear water. Have to say Jamie and the John L were very organised at getting us in and out the water… it’s also a really stable boat which makes quite a difference when you are kitting up. The loo discharges directly behind the ladder which gave rise to some near misses with floaters on the surface for Terry….

Thursday was spent on the Brummer and the Mara. The Brummer is a deeper wreck and pretty awesome, my personal favourite. Most of us got below 30m on this one and I spent a bit of time at 32m in clear quite bright water [or was it the narcs kicking in?] the big guns are quite impressive on this one. The Mara in the afternoon was our Scalloping dive… a wooden trawler at 16m then a drift south over a weedy/rocky seabed hunting for shellfish. We found lots of Queenies and a few normal ones… enough for a great starter to our Fish Supper in the evening. Funny, I remember the seabed as being sandy here 4 years back but maybe the nearby fish farm has changed the seafloor. Certainly the Mara was doing a good imitation of Cousin Itt from the Addams family being covered in fine kelp Martijn said his most memorable dive in Scapa Flow was here laughing his head off at me chasing after the Queenies who kept trying to escape my clutches!.. Plus ca change…

On the last day we had to be flexible as our planned location was being dived already so we decided on the Karlsruhe and this was a very good choice. Masses to see again: colour, light, life, visibility… saw a massive conger-like fish here. We all seemed to do the whole length of this and work our way up to 13m at the top. It’s the shallowest of the main wrecks but is very good all the same. I think the keel with all the plates missing and covered with anemones is very spectacular even though it can be done at 20m. Corinne and Fiona had dealings with a large Cuckoo wrasse here which gave Fiona a bit of a kiss and settled down on Andy’s head, so tame it was… Less tame was a dab which when pointed at went for Corinne! Finally onto the last dive, planned as the Tabarka but in actuality not… Jamie overshot it and was mortified to find we had all missed it, despite the running jump into the water method of entry here [BCs deflated, straight down please...] sadly I tripped over the step and went in head first, a somewhat novel way of entering the water with 60kg of dive kit… Very funny as we all regrouped on the bottom amongst the kelp making shrugging signs and ‘I see no wreck’ looks. There was a lump of something covered with kelp which held our interest for 15 seconds, the boilers of the Urmstone Grange.. we went off for a little drift over various bits of wreckage surfacing some 30 minutes later as requested. We all had a bit of a laugh at the surface about it with Jamie looking sheepish, though I was a bit sad at missing the planned wreck which is pretty excellent. You’d be surprised at the number of times it is used in magazines and dive adverts….

In the evenings we shared the cooking, producing some highly nutritious, tasty and economical repasts! We also managed to find time to do some sightseeing in the evenings, visiting Scara Brae [a 5000 year old preserved village], enjoying a spot of stone hugging at Stenness Stone Circle and the Ring of Brodgar. The Italian Chapel was also popped into and we had a look around the blockships near the Churchill Barriers as well as a wander round Kirkwall. All this done in the Dive Cellars’ rather idiosyncratic minibus that had certainly seen better days ['Alright for you...I had to drive it!']

A very good time was had by all, it was a good larf and some great diving. Corinne once again did a sterling job of organising it all. She is like a swan….serene on the surface but paddling furiously underneath. Many thanks to everyone that made it such a success…we were all exhausted at the end having burnt our candles every which way….Lovely Jubbly!

According to those nice people at SDRSC (San Diego Rainbow Scuba Club) , Diving for Life have announced that this year’s Gay & Lesbian Scuba Jamboree will be held at Ambergris Cay, in Belize.

There are no further details as yet, but keep an eye on the DFL (Diving for Life) website.

I stayed at Caye Caulker in Belize (the next Caye along from Ambergris Caye, and more of a backpackers hangout), as part of a Central America trip about 10 years ago, and loved the place. I only did one day’s diving, but the two dives were spectacular - the first to the Blue Hole (see the photo on the left) - this was a cave, thousands of years ago, whose roof collapsed when it sunk beneath the waves - there are huge stalactites and stalagmites which you can swim between, along with a docile Bull Shark.

My other dive was in Hol Chan Marine Park - and was one of my first encounters with free-swimming sharks. Nurse sharks, about 15 of them, quite often coming to within a couple of feet of me, but curious rather than agressive.

It’s just as well it was a shallow dive - when you’ve never seen a free-swimming shark before, and are suddenly surrounded by over a dozen of them, you tend to be a bit heavy on air!

I’ve always wanted to go back… we’ll just have to see what the prices for DFL are like!

Bali - September 2003
by Jose Pickers

After the flight from London to Bali (I won’t bore you with how long the journey was) we arrived in the evening, to enjoy a wonderful Bali sunset and a good night’s sleep. The early morning sunrise woke us gently and we looked forward to planning the diving ahead. On the first day of our arrival, we chilled out around the pool enjoying the tropical sunshine and wondered what islands we were going to visit and what we were about to see. One particular visit we were excited about, was visiting Komodo National Park on Komodo Island to see the famous Komodo Dragons. An island known throughout the world, as the home to the world’s largest lizard - an agile predator that can grow up to 3 meters in length.

The following day we transferred to what was going to be our home for the next 12 days, the “Komodo Dancer”, a typical Indonesian ship, traditionally crafted, two-masted wooden sailing boat, 30 meters long and 9 meters wide, that could accommodate up to 16 divers in 8 staterooms, all with private shower and “head” (for those who aren’t sailing enthusiasts - toilet). Each room had a porthole to see the islands as we passed by, and was large enough, and comfortable enough to provide us with a good nights rest after a strenuous day of diving. The crew were superb who offered an excellent choice of meals, a hot towel and massage after almost every dive. The service was above and beyond you would ever expect, from morning breakfast served in your cabin, to taking your tank off after each dive and ensuring you had a full tank before every dive.

Before every dive, a briefing took place by the dive masters and local guides one of whom was called “Yan” who could spot anything in the water, from a white tip shark to the smallest seahorse, about 1 cm in size at any distance.
One of the most fascinating dives we all had took place at a location known as “Langkoi” which is south west of Komodo Island, which our guides called “Manta Alley”.

The first dive was an impressive one, as I back rolled into the warm tropical sea, gave my ok signal to the crew, I felt a giant manta ray pass within inches of my shoulder. There were only moments, as I watched with amazement this gentle giant of the deep, with a wing span approaching 4 to 5 meters. I gathered my thoughts and continued to descend to the reef. During the dive, I saw a half dozen or more giant mantas, all of them as impressive as the first, boy, what a great dive!

The next dive, was north of Gili Banta Island, called GPS Point. Upon descending, down a few meters from the surface, we saw a Hammerhead Shark, my first sighting and I would have to admit it was the finest looking fish I had seen to date, that of course is excluding the Sperm Whales I had seen previously a couple years earlier in the Solomon Islands.

Some of the other locations we dived were, “Batu Montjo Bay” - where we saw lion and scorpion fish, “Gili Lawa Laut” - alligator fish, black and white tip sharks, “Tatawa Kecil” - parrot fish, “Nusa Kode” - blue spotted stingrays, and “Komodo island” - where we saw the most beautiful coral formations.

This extended adventure came to an end, all too soon, and before we knew it, we were on our way back home our heads full of wonderful images I had seen.

GLUG members organise trips to the Egyptian Red Sea throughout the year. These range from small groups going on shore-based trips to large groups chartering whole liveaboards. Consistently warm water, abundant marine life and a wide range of diving conditions means that Egypt has something to offer divers of all levels.

Shore-based trips are relatively inexpensive and suit divers of all levels. Egypt offers ideal conditions and facilities for those who would like to learn to dive.

Egyptian liveaboards are amongst the least expensive in the world. Liveaboard trips suit experienced divers and many itineraries are only available to those with 40 dives or more. PADI Advanced/BSAC Sports Diver would be a minimum requirement.

Please choose a report from the following:
El Quesir – June 2008
Marsa Nakari – October 2007
Daedalus, Rocky and Zabargad on Blue Seas – July 2007
The Brothers, Daedalus and Elphinstone on Blue Waves - May 2007
Marsa Alam - November 2006
Southern Red Sea on Blue Seas - August 2006
Marsa Nakari - December 2005
Marsa Shagra and MY Seaflower - June 2005
Sharm el Sheikh and MY Juliet - May 2005

El Quesir – June 2008

by Martin J

Anna, Patricia, Ruth and I went on the GLUG trip to El Quesir, on the southern shore of the Red Sea. Anna had arranged for us to pre-book our hotel, diving and flights. Visas were easily obtained upon arrival at the airport.
We were met by Steve of the Pharaoh Dive Club who drove us to El Fanadir Hotel just outside El Quesir. The drive took about 1.5 hours from Marsa Alam airport.

Hotel
The El Fanadir Resort hotel is a recently refurbished small 3* hotel which shares its premises with the Pharaoh Dive Club. We were met by friendly staff with a welcome cold fruit juice before being introduced to Ursula, the hotel manageress, and explained the “do’s and don’ts” of the hotel and Egypt in general.
This is a small hotel with few guests, the majority of which are divers. The rooms were clean and tidy, en suite with air conditioning and a mini fridge/bar and TV. The rooms are semi detached and look out onto the garden and private beach and are serviced daily.
We were staying half-board. Continental breakfast was served from 8 to 10. Evening meals had to be pre-ordered as there were insufficient guests to warrant a full menu. Some of the evening meals were very good especially the Egyptian BBQ, calamari and fresh fish (when available) however other meals lacked variety and imagination and were unsuitable for the hot climate. Vegetarians/Vegans may find the choices especially limiting.
There is also a bar with a cocktail and snack menu. Should you decide to remain at the dive centre for a day to dive the house reef then you will be able to have your lunch at the bar. The tomato soup was particularly good and there is also a German dish consisting of fried eggs and potatoes which was delicious.

It was important to remember that everything in town closes from Friday sunset to Saturday sunset, including banks and we were all requested to dress appropriately when walking into town. Women are not required to cover their heads but shoulders and thighs should be covered to respect the local culture.

The Diving
I don’t want to go too “OTT” but I was rather impressed….Then again it was my first time diving in tropical water.
I had booked a 5 day dive package which consisted of 2 accompanied dives per day and unlimited diving on the house reef. The accompanied dives could be either off a hard boat, a RIB or shore, depending on the weather.
On a more personal level, this was my first dive with my own kit. I had recently invested in a BCD, set of Regs and a dive computer and was naturally very keen to try it all out.

Day 1
This was to be our test dive. The entry to the house reef is about 20 metres from the dive centre and is reached by following a disintegrating pathway over rocks to the reef itself.
This was an easy dive and we saw some beautiful coral together with tiger fish. I must admit that I was much more concerned with figuring out how my new kit works and getting my buoyancy right etc. than taking in the views.
Depth 9.9 m, time 38 mins, water temp 26 degrees, visibility 15-20 metres.

Test dive complete we were off for a 40 minute drive to Serib Kebir for 2 accompanied shore dives. This was an easy entry off a sandy beach looking at the coral, tiger fish, trumpet fish, 2 blue spotted rays and a school of baby cuttle fish. The water was a lovely 26 degrees and for the whole holiday I was in a 5mm sortie.
Dive 1: 21 metres, 35 mins, water temp 26 degrees, visibility 20 metres.
Dive 2: 19 metres, 29 mins.

Day 2
This was another shore dive at Gasus Soraya about an hours drive from El Quesir. It was very hot getting changed outside. Very easy entry from a sandy beach which does has its disadvantages as the sand, when disturbed by other divers impacts quickly on the visibility. These dives were around 3 coral pinnacles home to lots of small colourful fish and some impressive moray eels.
Depth: 20.3 metres, Time 52 mins. This was also the coldest dive of the holiday at 25 degrees. Visibility 15 metres.

Personally I was really getting used to my own kit and my air usage was noticeably improving. Near perfect buoyancy also assisted in reducing air consumption.

We returned to the hotel for lunch and were then driven to El Meghar for the afternoon shore dive.
This was a tricky entry as we had to climb down from a high sand dune onto the reef fully kitted up but was well worth the effort once we got in the water. The eventual dive entry was spectacular as you enter the coral through a hole from the rocky shore. This was a truly spectacular dive along a wall of coral on one side and deep azure blue sea on the other. We saw some nice larger fish in the distance as well as a large turtle.
Depth 20.7 metres, time 43 mins, temperature 27 degrees, visibility 30 metres.

Day 3
Due to the off-shore breeze the sea was too rough to dive off the hard boat. I did not go on the accompanied dives as I was unwell with “Egyptian tummy”.
I did however manage a late afternoon dive on the Fanadir house reef with two other divers. A rather undignified entry due to the incoming tide! This was a shallow dive and we saw a large lion fish. Spectacularly 5 dolphins and a dugong came swimming past making us the envy of the other divers who decided to stay in the bar.
Depth 10.6 metres, time 45 mins, temp 26 degrees, visibility 15 metres.

Day 4
The off-shore breeze had calmed down and we could go out on the hard boat for a change. We were due to dive at Fugani, about 2 hours directly south of El Quesir harbour.
Giant stride entry off the hard boat into shallow water and once underwater diving deeper. Once again amongst beautiful coral, seeing blue spotted rays, a large octopus, surgeons, line fish and boxfish - an all-round excellent dive.
Depth 17.9 metres, time 60 mins, temp 26 degrees, visibility 30 metres.

Day 5
Another days hard boat diving at Erg Monica, 1.5 hours sail from El Quesir.
This was going to be a shallow dive around some coral islands. We saw a very large moray eel – possibly 40 cm in diameter and definitely longer than a metre but no one was prepared to look too hard to find his head… Also saw a large school of barracuda and plenty of small colourful fish amongst the coral.
Depth 16.1 metres, time 58 mins, visibility 30 metres, water temperature 26 degrees.

The afternoon dive was done after a RIB transfer from the hard boat after lunch. Once in the water we descended to 12 metres onto a sandy bottom. We saw a large moray eel approximately 1.5 metres in length swimming and a school of 4 midsize tuna.
Depth 15.4 metres, time 62 mins, visibility 30 metres, temperature 26 degrees.

Later on that day I did another dive on the house reef with a fellow hotel resident. This was an excellent confidence building dive but was going to be short due to the deteriorating light.
It was interesting to see how many larger fish come close to the reef as it gets darker. We saw a large lion fish, crocodile fish lots of dragon heads and a Spanish dancer.
Depth 8.3 m, time 46 mins, temp 26 degrees, visibility 15 metres and deteriorating throughout the dive due to the fading light.

Day 6
We were all looking forward to this shore dive at Abu Dabbab. This world famous dive site is about 1.5 hours drive from the El Fanadir hotel spending the day at the adjacent Italian resort. Permits are required for which a charge is levied but the dive centre arrange this.
Although this was a shore dive entry was challenging due to the distance you had to walk to the sea kitted up and the battle to put fins on in shallow water. There is also an abundance of bathers and snorkelers who made me regret not bringing my harpoon….
The morning dive was amazing – this is a shallow bay but we found 5 large turtles and a school of 22 baby cuttlefish.
Depth 9.1 metres, time 62 mins, water temperature 26 degrees.

Lunch was great as it is an Italian resort, I had a rather nice pizza.

The afternoon dive turned out to be even more spectacular. We saw another turtle and then a dugong feeding in the sea grass. The dugong was quite at ease with us around but eventually moved on due to the disturbance caused by snorkelers. Swimming back to the shore afterwards we saw a huge school of barracuda.
Depth 11.9 metres, 57 mins, water temp 27 degrees visibility 15 to 20 metres.

To summarise:
To me this was a great confidence building trip. The Pharaoh Dive Centre staff were great. Each day’s diving was well planned and well briefed. I had no safety concerns. The staff were friendly, helpful and well organised. At the start of your stay you pack a numbered box containing all your dive kit. This box will follow you wherever you go. The staff rinse the kit after every days diving and due to the heat it is all dry for the next morning. I would definitely dive with them again. This was a very enjoyable trip and I would do it again.
Thanks to Anna for taking the initiative and making the arrangements.
I was surprised when I found out at the end of the holiday that the dive centre was never told that we were from GLUG. I’m sure it must have been pretty obvious but our sexuality clearly was not an issue.

Points to note:
We had issues with regard to payment of the single supplement which was not quoted to us at the time of booking. I help to sort this kind of issue before you arrive.
Egypt is very much a cash based society and any payment by credit card will incur a hefty 10% bank charge. See if you can arrange to pay online before you arrive as this will save you not only bank charges but also the stress of carrying a large amount of cash on your person.

For future reference and to assist other divers I have made a short checklist of particularly useful things to take along on a trip like this in future:
Buy a large bottle of drinking water at the airport and stay hydrated.
Earplugs
Binoculars
A big hat
sunglasses
A small amount of local currency
Imodium or similar medicine (take twice as much as you would take on a normal holiday)
Re-hydration sachets
Insect repellent
High factor sun cream
After-sun lotion

Marsa Nakari – October 2007

by Alan Larsen

Huw and I were looking for a cheap (…ish, let’s face it, overseas diving isn’t cheap) week because neither of us were able to go to DfL this year. The Red Sea ecolodge at Marsa Shagra seemed to fit the bill, but as the only free week in my diary coincided with half-term (perhaps that’s why it was free?) Shagra was full. We took the alternative, smaller ecolodge at Marsa Nakari instead. As it turned out, that was to our advantage. At Marsa Alam airport we watched the British families pile into the transfer bus for Marsa Shagra, to find that we were the only two on the bus bound for Marsa Nakari.

In truth, Shagra wasn’t completely full; we could have had a tent… but one gets to a point in life where ensuite accommodation becomes ‘de rigeur’… (I believe Steph and Corinne made a similar choice a couple of weeks earlier!) And as I said, our choice turned out to be a good one; Marsa Nakari is smaller, the accommodation and food were good, and it was occupied by several groups from Dutch and French dive clubs, who return year after year because they like the intimacy of the smaller dive camp.

Apart from the eco-friendly concept of a dive camp whose aim is to have a minimal effect on the environment, the attraction of the ecolodge was that both offer unlimited and unsupervised diving on the house reef. Even better, the reef is actually two reefs; one either side of the bay (the Marsa) and furthermore, there are lots of dive options: you can dive from and return to the shore; take the rib out and return to the shore; go in from the shore and get the rib to pick you up; or even go out in the rib and be picked up by it again.

In the mornings there’s an option to take a truck dive further along the coast, or the ribs go to a bay slightly further away, both options offering two dives and return before lunch – leaving the afternoon to dive on the house reef. In addition, there is the option of taking a day boat to a more distant reef.

On our second day, we opted for a trip to Marsa Abu Dabab, hoping that a dugong (or two…) would be there. This bay is now closed to liveaboards in an attempt to preserve the environment and keep the dugongs there, and I was disappointed not to be able to dive it on the GLUG trip on Blue Seas in July. We were in luck, and got a ‘full house’ of dugongs, green turtles, a guitar shark… and a large shoal of squid as we were heading back for the shore at the end of an already great dive.

The dive on the north reef was also good, the highlight for me being a shoal of wide-mouthed mackerel feeding in the blue just at the entrance to the bay. The drawback of Marsa Abu Dabab is the number of snorkellers: I was kicked a couple of times as we got back to the shallows of the north reef; and every time dugongs or turtles surfaced for air, they were mobbed by zillions of people patting and stroking them. I understand that shore diving is going to be restricted too in an attempt to protect the dugongs and turtles. I’d say that it’s not divers they need protection from…

We returned to Marsa Abu Dabab a couple of days later and had a similar, if not better experience: twenty minutes on our own with a dugong and then another twenty minutes with a couple of turtles. Finally on the way back, an even bigger shoal of squid than before… (A dive equal in my memory to my encounter with whale sharks in Djibouti on New Year’s Day, but that’s a different trip and story…) The wide-mouthed mackerel were there on the first dive again as well!

Another day we took the day boat trip to Dolphin House Reef (Sha’ab Samedai). This promised two good dives and snorkelling with a group of spinner dolphins that have taken up residence in the shelter of this offshore reef. The dives were great: the first around some large coral outcrops covered with good hard and soft corals, and the second through a cave system with the sun streaming through the cracks in the reef. But the spinners didn’t have the same manners and punctuality as the dugongs, until, just as we were climbing back on the boat after the second dive they appeared – so we got to snorkel with them for fifteen minutes. Smaller and darker that the usual bottlenose dolphins seen in the Red Sea, it was a delight to watch them and share their space for a while.

We had a great week. The diving was good; the dive guides were excellent (and as we have well over 500 dives between us, left us to our own devices on the morning ‘organised’ dives). Think of a good liveaboard, but on land; you can do four dives a day – more if you want – and have the freedom to dive the house reef at any time from sunrise until late evening.

The truck dives were marred only by the amount of rubbish along the side of the road and on the non-commercialised beaches, some of which obviously transferred into the water close to the shore. To their credit the Egyptian authorities are aware of the need to preserve the environment, I guess both for its own sake and to ensure that tourism is sustainable. I can only hope that they soon realise the risk that rubbish poses both to the environment and to the tourist experience.

We booked through Oonasdivers; check it out on their website – and take a look at some of my photos in the GLUG gallery.

Daedalus, Rocky and Zabargad on Blue Seas – July 2007

by Fred Wynn

No delays with the flight from Gatwick on Wednesday morning, with a very early check-in time; all the girls and boys arriving in the North Terminal as instructed by our team leader, Charlie. I understood one of our travellers had turned up especially early to ensure all his luggage of some 40 kilos could be checked in – some of which was a new camera on it’s maiden voyage.

This was my second live-aboard trip to Egypt (organised by Charlie), and I was one of the lucky ones to join both old and new faces for the one week trip on ‘Blue Seas’. On arrival at Marsa Alam and after our transfer to the harbour, we were greeted by our dive guides for the week, Nina from Austria and Hassan from Egypt. ‘Blue Seas’ looked in pristine condition, exactly the same as last year, just like the surrounding building development. Yes, there had been some work done in the last 12 months, but don’t expect the night life to hit it off just yet, well for another couple of years! Cabin mates were agreed upon and the cabins themselves were very quickly selected – bruises heal quickly in salt water.
The week’s itinerary included the Daedalus, Rocky and Zabargad Island Reefs, a slightly different route to the one we took in 2006. The week promised a varied selection of dive sites, with some more appropriate for the advanced diver.

Each day started with a 6am wake up knock on the cabin door, with a brief at 6.30am for the first dive of the day, 30 minutes later. Some of us were more early risers than others. We all became familiar with the sound of the bell, being rang for scheduled dives and feeding times. The familiar routine was breakfast after the first dive, second dive around 11am, lunch at 1pm (ish), third dive at 3pm, afternoon tea at 5pm, night dive, where possible at 8pm with dinner at 9pm. Busy daily schedule!
It is difficult to summarise each day, but I’ll try and give a summary of some of my favourite moments during the week, both diving and non-diving related. As already mentioned above, a lot of faces this week were those that had been on Charlie’s ‘Blue Seas’ 2006 live-aboard. However, this time, not only did we have some live-aboard ‘virgins’, we also had some Red Sea ‘virgins’. I am always pleasantly surprised on how us ‘GLUG’ers’ have a knack of fitting in well together. A live-aboard is no exception to this. We soon became one big happy family for the week.

After dinner, most evenings were spent at the front of the boat (Bow) being given star gazing lessons by Rupert and having some other educational talks! Rupert and Ben relaxed with their large Cubans.
A check dive on our first morning at Abu Dabab 4 ensured that we were all correctly weighted for the week. This was a nice easy dive for everyone, diving around pinnacles and just taking it gently. A good way to start the week.

My memories of Elphinstone of 2006 were memorable for the wrong reasons; being swept off the reef by a strong current, deploying my DSMB mid water and having a disagreement with my buddy for not sticking with me. Day one, second dive, and here we were again. It had to be done; it’s a superb reef with lots to see. Yes, the current was still there, a negative entry ensured we made it down as quick as possible and most of us were able to see a white tipped reef shark, followed by a fantastic drift along the reef wall.

Day two, Daedalus Reef – the one with the light house. Not a one to exaggerate, but this was truly a fantastic dive site, north, east, south and west, all offering excellent dives. Fist dive of the day and my first encounter with hammerhead sharks; five/six of them coming fairly close to us. Words cannot sum up the excitement of seeing such large creatures for the first time. Hopefully some of the pictures taken can do this justice. So good was the diving here, that we elected to spend a second day here and try and find more hammerheads, which we did. It must have been their week visiting Daedalus, and lucky for us. A small group of us missed out on the last dive, to pay a visit to the lighthouse. We were greeted by a warm welcome of some Egyptian tea, and a smoke of one of those bubbly things. The view from the top of the lighthouse was great, well worth a visit and an opportunity to purchase the tourist t-shirt.

Day four, Rocky Island, resembling a three tired wedding cake! By this time we were all getting fairly used to the 6am wakeup call – I think the morning dives are the best ones and a good way to start the day. The two dives on Rocky Island were pleasant drift dives, involving little fining and the opportunity to look in the shop window at the passing underwater world. The colours, fish life and the first sight of a moray that week made it very memorable. The boat travelled between dive sites on day four, first to Rocky Island, then to Zadargad and then to Makawa Island for the night dive.

Day five, Abu Galawa, Schalaniat, Shaab Sharm and Shaab Marsa Alam. Abu Galawa, a nice tug wreck, full of glass fish. A good shallow long dive to start the day. Not many takers for the night dive on Shaab Marsa Alam – just myself, Andy, Fiona and Allan. We explored a live-aboard that had sunk some three years ago. There were some pretty large fish on this dive, trying to get a good nights sleep until we arrived.

Day six; final dive day, returning to Elphinstone for two more dives and ending with a dive on Umm Rus. You can never dive Elphinstone too many times – there is always plenty to see, especially just at 3/4 metres where there is an abundance of fish life; and a photographers dream with the natural sunlight a few metres above us.

To end such a perfect dive holiday, our last day was spent at the Coral Beach Hotel in Marsa Alam. The resort itself has a fair amount to go before it can offer full amenities – but the hotel itself looked a good base for a shore based diving holiday. The rooms were large, furnished tastefully with the hotel having well laid out swimming pools and gardens to chill out in.

The Brothers, Daedalus and Elphinstone on Blue Waves - May 2007

by Charlie Stewart

Another 5am rise to get to Gatwick Airport bleary-eyed, but then, when the destination is the Red Sea, who cares!

With Oonasdivers, 10 of us boarded Blue Waves at Port Galeb. As we numbered ten, with only two couples, all the single people had a cabin each. Amongst the group was Mark Webster, a British underwater photographer, running a course for three people as well as a Canadian couple and four of us from Hastings. Blue Waves and its crew proved to be an excellent combination for a weeks diving in the Red Sea. Our dive guide - Foad - was a very relaxed and helpful man. When he saw everyone’s dive experience he decided that we would do our check dive at The Brothers rather than waste time at a coastal reef.

Some five hours after leaving Port Galeb we reached The Brothers - Big Brother and Little Brother. Sitting in an isolated location, The Brothers stand just under a mile from each other and, being sea mounts, plunge deep into the ocean. Our check dive was on the southern plateau of Big Brother which proved eventful and set the bench mark for the rest of the week with the appearance of a very large Scalloped Hammerhead shark.

In fact most of the week’s diving was to be wall diving with one eye on the profusion off soft corals and a myriad of sea life, and the other into the blue, looking for an abundance of palegic activity. Tuna, especially Yellow Fin, some of the biggest I have ever seen, were in abundance, as were barracudas. On most dives, we were accompanied by Cornet fish. A quick turn of ones head, to look over ones shoulders, usually resulted in a Cornet fish coasting along close to our heads, hi