Charlie & The Chicken Factory

by Jonathan Lewis and Antony Oldham

A trip on MY Infinity, Hurghada, Egypt
04/03/2010

A week long, event filled liveaboard covering the wrecks and reefs of Northern Red Sea.

We departed from Manchester at a very civilised time and reached our destination of Hurgharda with obvious anticipation. Boarding, unpacking and a briefing was complete within an hour or so and after a short time acquainting ourselves with the beautiful M/Y Infinity, it was off for a foray into Hurghada marina for some bonding, a few beers and arm twisting of certain people to drink and smoke shisha (sorry Gary), one of the band of merry men impressing us with his multilingual skills, “garcon, duo beer por favour”

We had a mix of liveaboard virgins and experienced vets amongst the divers so each dive held something different for everyone.

Day one: Bright and early in the morning (and every morning thereafter) we headed straight to Umm Gamar to have a check dive, then over to Dunraven in the afternoon which ended up running over to a night dive. The trip over to Dunraven and Sinai was, let’s say, a little choppy and certainly got us all used to life aboard the Infinity.

Next morning and an amazing dive at Shark Reef and the wreck of the Yolanda where Antony fed the fishes via his regs (lovely), the irony that the Yolanda wreck was carrying a large number of toilets was not lost on him.

On to Small Crack one of the shallowest of our dives but breathtaking in its beauty. Unfortunately a few divers missed this dive due to being a little “tired”.

Night dive on the Thistlegorm, well, what can we say, the one we had been waiting for. The water was running with a little current so it was down the shot line. Jonathan, Antony, Charlie, Matt and Andy Frith four wreck speciality divers and their instructor. The dive was certainly a Speciality, especially the ascent on that shot line. As we boarded the boat it was quite heartening to see all our fellow divers waiting in anticipation to see how many of us actually returned, the current had got a little stronger. It did cross our minds why we were the only divers on the wreck.

Day three: Morning dive on Thistlegorm, then off to Shag Rock for a truly amazing drift dive. Next dive “THE BARGE” at Bluff Point. First dive on the barge was in the afternoon to see Crocodile fish, George the very large Moray, an abundance of Lion fish, Stone fish and many other creatures including the Gary Crab, a species discovered by Paul Haslam! I can clearly remember Brian telling us the barge is the best night dive he had ever dived in the past, maybe he will change that statement to the most memorable night dive, let us just leave it at that, I’m sure Andy Farr will agree!

Day four: After a good nights sleep, we dived the barge again then on to the Carnatic, A cathedral like wreck with a fantastic swim through and photo opportunities for all. Giannis D was next, fantastic opportunity for a penetration dive and boy did we learn from Andy Frith how to use a line to complete safe penetration down through four floors of a wreck lying at 45 degrees

Day Five: Shaab El Erg drift dive was next and thanks to Antony we spotted an Eagle Ray, this was our last speciality dive so now we had five more dives at Goto Abu Ramada or The Aquarium as it is known. It became apparent very quickly as to why it had this name as we were all held by the beauty of the spot especially as we had the reef to ourselves thanks to the judgement and good timing of our skipper and guides.

All too soon the week drew to an end and we returned to our mooring at the Marriot hotel in Hurghada. This gave us the opportunity to dry our kit and have one last meal and evening out. For some the return to land and the chance to have a few drinks became a bit too much and for our oldest at 85 and most recently qualified diver John Oliver, this was definitely the case. Thankfully Pete Lea was able to chaperone him throughout the evening.

To sum up we had a great weeks diving on a tremendous boat that had excellent crew and guides who provided us with one step ahead diving, thorough daily briefings and wonderful food prepared using fresh vegetables and livestock which our intrepid shark diver Charlie Mortimer became emotionally involved with (a chicken was later found in his cabin). Don especially seemed to enjoy the wide variety of cuisine onboard and the abundance of fresh fish and seafood pleased Rachel. All in all a week of great camaraderie amongst all divers led by the excellent Andy Frith. Sighting of Dolphins, Hawksbill Turtles and an Eagle Ray only added to it all.

Thanks to Jonathan Lewis and Rachel Higgins for their photos and to see more of the beauty and splendour of our trip search Youtube for Jan Devereux’s fantastic video of the weeks diving.