In fact, a good quarter of our cruise guests were also 'repeaters' - a sure sign that Blue Planet are in the business of doing things right. It turned out that most of these divers were repeat guests on the Blue Planet. I arrived on board this 27m long Hurghada liveaboard to find the previous week's guests still onboard.

All the guests agreed that this was also a major highlight of the trip. And finally on day 5, we dived with a group of 5 dolphins at Dolphin Reef and snorkelled with them near Shadwan Island during a surface interval. The Red Sea's wrecks must be a clarion call to any wreck diving 'fundie'.ĭolphins were seen from the boat every day. But the real prize on this Red Sea liveaboard diving trip were the many wrecks - anything from small barges to huge WWII steamships, from 25 years old to 150 years old. However, due to the Red Sea's high number of endemic species, it was a real buzz to see so many species of fish that I had not seen before, fish like the yellowtail tang, the Arabian angelfish, redback butterflyfish, Heber's trevally etc., and some absolute monster-sized giant morays. The reefs were good without being extraordinary and there was little sign of macro life. Then we completed our circular passage by heading south to Shag Rock and the Kingston wreck, then the Gubal Barge and the Rosalie Moller wreck, before heading back to finish the trip with a few reef dives in the northern Hurghada area.

After a few reef dives here we headed west to the Dunraven steamship and onto the legendary Thistlegorm. Then after crossing the Suez shipping lane, we arrived at the Sinai Peninsula's coastline and its famous national park - Ras Mohammed. The Blue Planet liveaboard cruise departed from Hurghada on the Egyptian mainland and, after a check out dive at Dolphin Reef, we headed north to Shadwan Island and the 4 famous Abu Nuhas wrecks. The Thistlegorm was just one of the many wrecks that was included in my week long 'Red Sea North & Wrecks' liveaboard tour: Truly one dive site that stands out as a 5 Star in my own personal log book. We could easily have spent several more time here without needing to dive the same sections of the ship. The Thistlegorm is a large wreck and there is so much to see and so many holds and passageways to explore that we made 3 dives here. I can only imagine with a high degree of envy what it must have been like to dive here when Jacques Cousteau found the wreck in 1956, and even of the lucky scuba divers that had the good fortune to visit here in the early years of rediscovery in the 1990s, when the ship's amazing cargo was in even better condition and replete with momentoes long since removed.įrom the moment I descended the 15 metres down to the main deck and first set eyes on the ship, I was in awe of the historic artefacts on board - BSA war motorbikes, Bedford trucks, armoured vehicles, boxes of munitions and rifles, mounted machine guns, even a railway engine - all stowed away and ready for action in a war that has now thankfully passed them by. There are so many relics of the war, all still easily identifiable despite the build up of silt over the years since it was bombed and exploded in 1941.

and this includes such wonders as the Liberty Wreck in Bali, Coron's famous Japanese cargo shipwrecks, and WWII wrecks throughout Papua New Guinea.ĭiving at the Thistlegorm is like visiting a subterranean World War II museum. I can now undoubtedly say that the Thistlegorm is by far and away the best wreck that I have ever dived.

I needn't have worried, I was blown away by it on my first visit. Could the wreck possibly live up to its extraordinary hype or is it oversold by frenzied marketing reps? I was desperate to find out for myself. The Thistlegorm has such a reputation in the diving industry worldwide that it was with mixed emotions that I finally got to try this most famous of wreck dives, when I visited Egypt recently on a Red Sea wreck diving liveaboard tour on board the MY Blue Planet. Dive Trip Reports >Blue Planet I Liveaboard Your Guide to Diving in the Red Sea The Northern Wrecks Tour with Blue Planet

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