Marsa Alam (Red Sea)
JP Marine
I did my LOB in Red Sea during my stint in Dubai, the name of the boat was JP Marine and it was a 8D 7N trip which cost me 1350 SGD. The process to get to the dock is pretty easy as they provide transport from 2 different airports in Egypt. I arranged my pickup at Hurghada airport which then took approx 2.5 hours to arrive at the port. Upon arriving at the port, we will settle all the paperwork in the lounge area and pay the remaining balance and we will also be presenting our details to the crew (e.g. Passport, insurance etc). One difficulty I faced during the paperwork process was that there was no card machine which I could pay with my debit card. Secondly, withdrawing cash was an issue as well, the ATMs in Egypt has a max limit for cash withdrawal. Instead of telling you the max amount, they will state that you have exceeded your account balance. However, if you were to do multiple withdrawals of smaller amount, it would work (Can't remember what was the admin fee for ATM withdrawal). Jp Marine LOB has an assigned toilet to each room (I was staying in a twin sharing room), which was a lot more convenient as compared to Manta queen (but obviously there was a price difference of 2 LOBs). One of the safety aspect which I loved about the trip was that the crew made sure that everyone who went diving had a SMB with them. With upside of the trip comes the downside, in my opinion it was too large of a group to a single dive guide. There were 2 groups of 10 and 1 dive guide attached to each. To my surprise there were even open water divers and divers with less than 50 dives in the trip when it was stated on www.liveaboard.com where the requirement was advanced diver with minimum 50 dives. This was a safety aspect which was quite bothersome to me as a diver who meet the requirements. I recall that during the trip there was this particular open water diver with only 8 dives who went with us for the first dive and due to the lack of experience and some currents, when the diver ended the dive he had lots of cuts on all 10 of his fingers, thereafter, I did not see him underwater after. JP Marine is not some luxurious cruise where you can have other activities other than diving. I will never be able to imagine if I were to be on the boat for 8 days and every few hours you are alone. Despite the above mentioned, I had an enjoyable time with the boat crew and dive guides as they were quick to evaluate the skill levels and re-shuffle the groups accordingly.
Red Sea is one of the 7 wonders in the world of diving, the LOBs in the area are not exactly expensive, however to get there from Singapore would be costly by flight. I went to the following dive sites during my trip to the red sea.
- Marsa El Shona
- Marsa Trombi
- Big Brother (South)
- Big Brother (Numida)
- Big Brother (Aida)
- Small Brother (South)
- Small Brother (North East)
- Small Brother (North West)
- Daedelus (East)
- Daedelus (North East)
- Daedelus (North)
- Daedelus (South)
- Elphinestone (North)
- Elphinestone (South)
More about Marsa Alam
Marsa Alam is a small resort town located along the coast of red sea with tons of LOB boats parked at the dock.
I did not stay in any of the accommodations on land as we were allowed to stay on the boat for 1 night after it returned the dock in the evening. On this trip, I met a few other solo travelers where we headed out for drinks after returning from our dives. The town was really small where you can cover the entire town by foot. One thing I preferred Marsa Alam over Sharm el Sheikh was that it is a lot less crowded even though it was mainly populated by tourists. If you are looking for some place to stay with lots of party and a town where liveaboard departs for red sea, Sharm el Sheikh would be a good choice. But of course that would be also dependent on the boat that you want to do your liveaboard. Else you can buy a boat yourself and park it at Sharm el Sheikh. Hit me up if you have any questions with regards to the middle east region I will do my best to assist in anyway I can.