A perfect start in Sudan!

21 Feb 2013

All beginnings are difficult – they say – but luckily, in our case this phrase is not true…The first week of our 2013 season began on February 9. It was a bit cloudy all week but warm and except for a couple of days, no wind at all. The biggest surprise of the week was the giant school of hammerheads showing up at Shaab Rumi but this was not the first surprise of the week!

Tour date: February 9 – 16, 2013
Itinerary: Sudan North
Air temperature: 28-30C
Water temperature: 25C
Visibility: 20m

Just when you think you are an old salt, you must face that fact that the sea never shows the same face twice, it never really goes by the book. Of course, you can expect the usual and you can estimate what the next dive site will bring but the statistics are modified by almost every dive.

Which is exactly what happened last week on our first Sudan tour this year. Our briefing was relatively brief but we were secretly hoping for some extraordinary sightings and since the Sudanese waters rarely disappoint, the things we saw this past week were the top!

We were able to visit all the sites of the planned itinerary:

Day 1: Shaab Sued, Gotta Shambaia, Gotta Shambaia
Day 2: Angarosh, Angarosh, Merlo, Gotta Shambaia
Day 3: Quita el Bana, Blue Belt, Shaab Rumi – Precontinent, Shaab Rumi Lagoon
Day 4: Shaab Rumi South Plateau (3 dives), Precontinent
Day 5: Shaab Rumi, Sanganeb, Sanganeb, Umbria
Day 6: Umbria, Umbria

We were pleasantly surprised at all shark sites! We counted 20 hammerheads at Angarosh, 1-2 large specimens at Quita el Bana but at Shaab Rumi everybody got a huge jolt! We were swimming among 50 hammerheads and at times, we saw the sharks already at 15m. Aside from these sightings, we ran into huge schools of jackfish and barracuda at Shaab Rumi and at Sanganeb as well. While the other boats were still back at Port Sudan this week or sailed out later in the week, we barely saw anybody during the week. We only had company for 2 dives at Shaab Rumi and that was it.

We wish more of such sightings and great surprises for our guests in the coming weeks and months. 🙂 To be continued next week…