Ruins on the Nile and wrecks in the Red Sea

 Photos and article by Tony Mangia

The only thing better than knocking something off your bucket list is banging out two life goals in a single trip. Which is what I happily achieved on my first visit to Egypt

Of course, number one was physically seeing the Great Pyramid of Giza (aka the Pyramid of Cheops) up close and in real life. 

Rolling up and glimpsing the magnificent Giza pyramid complex for the first time is an experience one can never forget — even though I didn’t expect the 481-foot high Cheops and the slightly lower Kahafre and relatively small Menkaura  to be so curiously close to the streets of Cairo. And all of the history books and National Geographic photos cannot do justice to seeing these spectacular 4600 year-old tombs rising from the desert ground—a splendid combination of human ability and enduring history—in person. 

Before my trip I had been forewarned about the aggressive and incessant pestering of camel ride and souvenir vendors among unauthorized “tour guides” all around the pyramid complex and other tourist points of interest. It was stressed to me that these hustlers latch on to you and can make the whole experience more of an ordeal than a pleasure. That was reason enough to go with a tour group for eight days. I usually travel alone or with volunteer groups, but I’d recommend having a certified guide in Egypt if not for the historical insight then as a barrier against the constant hassling which can easily ruin what should be enlightening journey. Besides, there are a lot of tombs and museums with long distances between them, something that a weeklong tour group can help simplify.

After booking a jam-packed 8-day tour throughout Egypt (with G-Adventures) and then seeing the swarms of men hounding tourists at the Pyramids and the Sphinx, I was glad I did.

Departing Cairo, our tour group took an overnight train to Aswan and then an early morning, three-hour drive through the desert to the Abu Simbel Temple, among other World Heritage sites, before sailing down the Nile River (the Nile actually flows north to the Mediterranean) to Luxor overnight on a traditional falluca sailboat, where we were able to go off on our own to local restaurants and markets. But be wary of who you deal with. One woman in our group was gung ho about going home with Egyptian saffron. She ended up buying a bag of the pricey, orangey spice from a shifty vendor and it was fake. Who knew there was a counterfeit spice ring anywhere in the world?   

In Luxor we saw the breathtaking Al-Dier Al-Bahari Temple in the Valley of the Kings. It’s built into a mountain and a marvel to behold, but, admittedly, there are only so many mummies and hieroglyphics a person can admire for eight days. So, despite the enthusiasm of Said, our well-versed guide, the ancient points of interest had me longing for a more modern day ruin jotted down on my bucket list — namely wreck diving in the Red Sea. Specifically, the renowned SS Thistlegorm.

So after saying goodbye to Cairo with a wide angle view of the city atop the 614-foot Cairo Tower, I took off for Sharm El Sheikh from Cairo (an hour flight) and taxied to an overnight stay at the Stella Di Mare Hotel —a luxurious resort (popular with Russian vacationers) for an unbelievably low $109US night! I only wish I had more time to enjoy the resorts amenities like the spa and parasailing instead of just an overnight stopover. 

Sharm El Sheikh is a sandy, blue-water beach destination near the southernmost tip of the Sinai Peninsula. Besides the beaches and pools, snorkeling and diving seem to be the other big draws. There are plenty of restaurants and clubs outside the numerous resorts and I even spotted a couple of casinos during my taxi ride from the airport.

I had booked a 4-day. 3-night “mini-safari” liveaboard dive cruise with the Snefro Fleet based at the New Marina (El Wataneya) port in Sharm El Sheikh through liveaboard.com — a reputable booking agency whom I had booked a weeklong diving trip in Thailand a few years back. A comfy twin berth cabin inside the 100-foot Snefro Spirt would be my home after we set sail.

The north region of the Red Sea is renowned for its clear blue waters, coral reefs and diverse marine life. Divers can expect to see dolphins, turtles, and plenty of white tip sharks. The best time to dive here is between February and May, but the diving is fine year round. Lucky divers have a good chance to spot hammerheads, manta rays and the giant whale shark — which had become, almost literally, the “White Whale” of my scuba quests—during the peak seasons.

Low season for diving in Sharm el Sheikh is usually December through January, so I was happy to catch the tail end of the fall by booking my liveaboard the last week of October before the water cools and the currents get pretty strong.

Most of our diving would be in and around the Ras Mohammad National Park — a protected marine reef about 15 miles southwest of Sharm el Sheikh. It is a a nearly 200 square mile reef sanctuary (the largest reef in Africa) of tropical azure water teeming with over 1,000 species of fish — many which are endemic and only found in this area of the world. There is a $25US park fee (collected on the liveaboard) that is necessary to dive here.

It was was kind of misleading to advertise a 4-day, 3-night (Sunday-Wednesday) live aboard deal when it was more like a 3-day, 3-night tour after I was informed, at booking mind you, that my Snefro shuttle bus pickup from the hotel wouldn’t be until 6 pm that Sunday night. So I lounged around the pool most of the day to kill the time.

A representative from the Snefro picked myself and the rest of my fellow divers up from our respective hotels and dropped us off at the loading dock at New Marina.  The international roster of dive mates included a father and daughter from Israel, a mother and daughter from Spain, a young couple from Denmark, a couple of solo divers from Canada, two dudes from Saudi Arabia plus another American and myself.  We all had various levels of diving experience and I found myself as sort of in the middle with nearly 100 dives under my weight belt. My crew chief (Samuel) said the COVID bans and restrictions had somewhat diminished tourism and diving in Sharm el Sheik, but business was still brisk. The smallish amount of divers on the boat  was nice since it allowed everyone to have our own cabins (although I paid for mine) and would mean less tank bumping and equipment mixups while gearing up on the deck. The friendly and helpful crew of the Snefro Spirit work hard and take many precautions regarding COVID by regularly sanitizing the decks, the cabins and rental equipment that you keep for yourself the whole trip. And masking, at least in a dive sense, means you use the same scuba eyewear without a communal mask wash basin.

We had orientation (which included a questionnaire on diving experience, equipment rentals and personal medical information) the first night before a sumptuous dinner (including my favorites: aish baladi (pita) with soft mish cheese and a baklava-type desert) where the crew and guests got familiar with each other.

I have to admit, that before my first liveaboard in Thailand, I was intimidated by the thought of the ship being filled with Jacques Cousteau-type adventurers, crusty crewmen and snobby know-it-alls, but I was wrong. It’s quite comfortable (at least a three-star experience) and was filled with pleasant neophyte, expert and middle-level divers like myself. It was one of the best travel and diving experiences of my life.

This is the beauty of liveaboards. There are all levels of divers mixed with the experienced dive masters on board. The liveaboard can provide equipment rentals, wetsuits and dive computers, A complete setup is approx. $150US (including air or nitro tanks) for the trip — saving you the hassle of lugging of equipment through airports. They even offer certification classes for higher levels and nitrox diving while you are there on the boat for an extra fee. My cost was $697US for a private cabin, three daily meals, snacks, beverages, towels and sufficient free wi-fi. Alcoholic beverages were available at a reasonable price and gratuities (a surprisingly modest $50US) were appreciated for at the end of the trip. 

While most extra services — even a private dive guide — can be arranged on board, there are a few things you will need to provide before boarding the boat.

First and foremost is your diving certification card.  Depending on the type of diving (wreck or deep) you will most likely need to be an advanced open water diver. The Snefro also wanted to see your dive log book with a minimum of twenty dives. Most liveaboards will require separate dive insurance ($150,000 emergency evacuation/hyperbolic tank coverage) which you can combine with your regular travel insurance. I always bring my own dive computer because I am familiar with it and most overseas loaners are in the metric system — which for the life of me I still can’t figure out.  

Diving with a knife or gloves in Ras Mohammad is forbidden and the trusty, rusty knife I always take and strap to my calf brought me nothing but bag check aggravation at every security point throughout Egypt. If I wasn’t so attached to the thing I would have left it at the first airport X-ray machine!

And a reminder during COVID, omicron or whatever is out there nowadays, find out if your liveaboard requires vaccination cards or negative PCR test results. The Snefro wanted a printed negative PCR test with a QR code (the same document you entered Egypt with), but other boats, airlines and resorts might have stricter rules. Nowadays, most liveaboards have liberal rescheduling policies in case you are unable to travel because of COVID (with medical proof) or other pandemic restrictions. And make sure you have a “full visa” and not just a Sinai resort stamp in your passport when diving here.

On the Snefro Spirit, you will be presented, on board, with a questionnaire about your diving experience and general health before that night’s dinner. Make sure you have a doctor’s note giving you the okay to dive if you do have a medical condition… or you could — if it truly isn’t a health hazard — just fib on the answers lest you want to go through a whole well-being rigmarole.

I made the mistake of checking “YES” on the  “Are you taking any prescription drugs?” line which, for COVID or other reasons unbeknownst to me, must have raised a red flag within their liability policies. I won’t go into all of the frustrating details, but my minor prescription drug would turn into a missed dive the next morning and verbal examination by a local doctor on a return trip to the marina before I was allowed to don a BCD.

Nonetheless, the first day of diving for everyone else started with clear blue skies — the only cloud being the medical cumulonimbus hovering over my head — above calm, azure water. The dive guides Samuel, Peter and Osama took small groups out for a check dive at Das Katy reef, mainly to get everyone familiar with their gear and a dry run for guides to get an idea of the levels of dive experience each person had. 

I was relegated to the sun deck while enviously watching everyone take the first plunge because of my medical predicament. After their dive, we returned to dry dock and, after a quick interview about my prescription, a local physician stamped a form and cleared me to finally put on the fins.

It felt good to join the late morning dive with the rest of the group. The weather was perfect, visibility good and the water around 76°F.  I wore shorts with a long-sleeved top and was fine going through the caves and checking out the colorful reef in Jackfish Alley.

After a plentiful lunch buffet and some laughs about my earlier precautionary predicament with the fantastic crew, the third dive that day was at the Alternatives — a chain of seven pinnacles and white sand patches. We were hoping to spot some of the resident leopard sharks, but settled for small moray eels. It was easy to lose yourself gawking at the abundance of marine life, but hard paddling back against a strong current on the return stretch.

I skipped the night dive and opted for a cold Stella — a fine Egyptian lager — under the warm night sky.  A spectacular sunset silhouetted other liveaboards. Peace was at hand instead of my usual iPhone. 

Early the next morning we hoisted anchor and sailed off for the SS Thistlegorm — possibly the most famous wreck dive in the world. The sunken British Merchant Navy ship is so large that we will explore it on two separate dives. The first to be an observation of the exterior and inside the hull and the second one a deeper penetration of the ship’s storage chambers.

Everyone’s excitement grew as we sailed toward the wreck. We all agreed this was to be the highlight of the trip. For me, it was everything.

The Thistlegorm lies split in two about 100 feet below the surface on the western side of the Sinai Peninsula — where the Gulf of Suez runs into the Red Sea. It was sunk during a surprise attack by a pair of German bombers dispatched in Crete on October 6, 1941. The He-111 pilots were originally ordered to search and sink the RMS Queen Mary — a royal cruise liner converted into a troop transporter. Nine of the Thistlegorm’s crew were killed and it sat in solitude until Jacques Cousteau discovered its dormant remains in 1955.

As we approached, I counted 11 other vessels anchored near each other, taut lines holding the slowly bobbing fleet in a sort of circle atop the wreck. We dropped anchor away from the flotilla and would be hauled over to the attached buoy line in rubber dinghies, where we would lower ourselves hand-over-hand.

Wearing a full wetsuit, and descending at about 50 feet, I got my first qlimpse of the 415-foot Thistlegorm, and if I said I didn’t suck on my regulator a little harder, I’d be lying. Just like your first real life impression of the Pyramids, the initial sighting is breathtaking—almost surreal. Otherworldly, might be a better word. I had seen photos of the wreck, but slowly pulling yourself down the rope and watching the Thistlegorm loom larger and larger in the silent world of the Red Sea with only your slow breaths as a soundtrack made it feel like I was on another planet, approaching a downed spaceship. My second bucket-list achievement was unfolding.

Our group circled the outside of the wreck taking in its grim remains and historic grandeur before entering a rust-eaten hole to the cargo holds and the hallowed metal coffin where motorcycles, boots, rifles and railway freight cars lie just as they have since that tragic day. An anti-aircraft gun and giant propellor stood out on the stern.

The realization of a dream really did take my breath away and it didn’t take long for my metric air pressure needle to hit the 50 red zone before any of the other divers in my group, I had to finish the dive holding on to my dive guide Peter’s BCD and breathe using his octopus. Normally I would be embarrassed at relying on someone else’s second stage regulator on a dive, but this time it didn’t matter. I had come 7,000 miles to see the SS Thistlegorm and was getting my money’s worth!  

The dinghies shuttled us back to a splendid breakfast of omelets, crepes and assorted Egyptian delicacies before suiting up for our second dive. Needless to say the table talk was about what we all just saw.

Our second Thistlegorm dive wasn’t without it’s problems. I had counted 14 dive boats now and, according to my conservative calculation, figured there had to be at least 130-plus divers down there. 

I was correct. Below the main deck inside the Thistlegorm’s dark cabins, barely lit with slivers of incoming sunlight or another diver’s torch, were clusters of divers slowly going in all different directions and blocking hatches and narrow pathways. Intersections were clogged with divers sporting twin tanks and elaborate lighting systems. Their bulky equipment made it look like they were left over from a Cousteau National Geographic mission. It was still cool to see the small armored tanks, square-bodied cars and unopened jars of who-knows-what, but it was a deep-sea human traffic jam.

Nearing the end of our dive, maybe two dozen divers hovered around the exit from the hull. You had to wait your turn and it was a couple of minutes before you could start your ascent up the moored rope and I monitored my air supply carefully.

Despite the inconvenience of a crowded site, the Thistlegorm wreck was the singularly best dive ever.  Bucket list achievement #2 completed. Anything else on this trip from now on was just gravy, or more like baba ganoush, on top.

It was out of the wetsuit and back to shorts and a top for the afternoon dive to Small Passage, a site where two channels divide the reef system of Shaab Mahmoud and connect the sheltered lagoon to the open sea. I was still glowing with pride from the Thistlegorm dive, but I was not nearly as brightly colorful as the coral reefs here.

That night I nursed another Stella and chatted with Ahmad and Salman. The two Saudis were computer techies for an energy company and scuba dived in the Red Sea quite often. They told me how expensive Saudi Arabia was and that I should come back and dive when the schools of hammerhead sharks are running. That, I told them, was a good possibility … and now another bucket list addendum.

There was still other wrecks to explore on our final day. The Dunraven is an old wooden steamship which sunk in 1876 and is loaded with it’s own history and passageways. The British vessel was quaint compared to the imposing Thistlegorm and not as humorous as the Yolanda, a Cypriot freighter which grounded itself in 1980, infamously depositing a pile of porcelain toilet bowls on the sandy bottom now known as the Yolanda Reef.

We later hit Shark Reef with its awesome walls of coral and spectacular marine life.  I mean this reef was teaming with exotic fish and we actually saw green turtles, a couple of dolphins and some black-tipped sharks. On our way back to the dinghy, I saw a monster of a moray eel (black) peering from a cave, bidding me a fond farewell.

It was my last dive of the trip and a marvelous way to wrap it up. Now it was from bucket lists back to bucking reality—a PCR test and 24 hours to decompress before boarding the flight home.